Rule question

[bradsh98]

At a barbox 8 ball tournament this past weekend, a rather interesting situation came up. I will refer to the two players as player x and player y. I believe player x had maybe 2 balls left on the table and player y had 5 or 6. Player y had just played a safe, leaving player x in a very bad spot. Player x responded by cueing up on the 8 ball and pushing it to a location that made the rack rather problematic for player y.

I'm curious if anyone has ever heard of such a thing? What is the actual ruling on someone cueing up on an object ball and shooting it, without making an attempt at using the cueball? I could not find anything in the BCA rules for this.

Being that I was the tournament director, I had to make the final ruling. I called it an automatic loss of game. My opinion was this: if a player accidentally moves an object ball, it gets moved back. If a player intentionally changes the layout of the table, without making an effort to use the cueball, it should be considered a conceded game. I compared it to a player taking his cue and wiping the table.

As for the final outcome of the incident: the two players agreed to replay the game.

Opinions?

 

[tatcat2000]

BCAPL Response

This specific situation is referred to in BCAPL Applied Ruling 1.45, third paragraph (page 97).

A clear case of Unsportsmanlike Conduct under any set of rules that I have ever heard of. Once the UC rule is applied, penalties are at the discretion of the referee/TD.

Personally, I think that any ref/TD that does not go immediately to loss of game in this specific instance does not deserve their position. Stricter penalties (loss of match, DQ, future DQ for the event) might not be unreasonable, depending on a number of circumstances.:smile:

Buddy Eick
BCAPL National Head Referee
BCAPL Director of Referee Training
Technical Editor, BCAPL Rule Book
bcapl_referee@cox.net

Find the Official Rules of the BCA Pool League here:

http://www.playbca.com/Downloads/Rulebook/CompleteRulebook/tabid/372/Default.aspx

* The contents of this post refer to BCA Pool League (BCAPL) Rules only. The BCAPL National Office has authorized me to act in an official capacity regarding questions about BCAPL Rules matters in public forums.
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[Bob Jewett]

At a barbox 8 ball tournament this past weekend, a rather interesting situation came up. ... Opinions?

As Buddy said, UC and loss of game. The first rule of pool is that you move the balls around by hitting the cue ball with your cue stick and in no other way. In fact, it is also UC to shoot with other than the tip of your cue and with a forward motion of the stick.

 

[conetip]

Here in NZ at a pub, anything that is not an atempt to hit your ball is considered a fowl.
In the above situation where the cue ball was not hit and it was deliberate to directly hit the 8 ball, automatic loss of game.In some places, it is a loss of game to play the 8 ball when you have your object balls on the table.
Neil