Butt foul?

Bob Jewett

Bob Jewett

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So a ref I know made a ruling and was wondering if he made a mistake. You may well have seen a similar situation....

A player came up against a jump shot and went to get his break/jump cue. He unscrewed the bottom part of the butt as he approached the table and placed it standing up in a corner pocket for storage. He shot the shot.

Under what conditions is the above illegal? Should he have called a foul?
 
I would think it's only a foul if the butt was hit by a ball....

...how about...if he used it as part of his bridge?
 
Bob Jewett said:
So a ref I know made a ruling and was wondering if he made a mistake. You may well have seen a similar situation....

A player came up against a jump shot and went to get his break/jump cue. He unscrewed the bottom part of the butt as he approached the table and placed it standing up in a corner pocket for storage. He shot the shot.

Under what conditions is the above illegal? Should he have called a foul?
Click to expand...

Personally I would not have a problem with an opponent that did that.

He certainly is not using the butt as an aid of any kind. I don't know of a rule that would make this a foul, given that no ball ever came in contact with the butt in the corner.

There must be some rule that was interpreted by the ref that makes this action a foul, but I have no idea what it may be.

I can remember Earl Strickland, back in the day, he would walk up to the table with both his player and his jumper in his hand as he approached the table.

When he decided which cue to use he would just throw the other on the floor and shoot away. After the shot he would then throw the unwanted cue back towards his chair from the table side.

A Cue Maker might consider that a foul.
 
The situation is covered in CSI rules, Applied Ruling 1-3, Situation 3:

Situation: Player A, preparing to shoot a jump shot, unscrews the extended butt from their jump-break cue and places it in a pocket. They then forget that the butt is in the pocket and leave it there after their inning. Player B shoots and a ball (a) rebounds from the pocket; (b) is pocketed despite the presence of the butt.

Ruling: (a) foul on Player A; (b) The result of the shot stands and the game continues.
Discussion: With the exception of chalk left on the rail, if equipment used by a player and left at the table directly interferes with their opponent’s shot, it is a foul on the player that left the equipment. If a player leaves equipment at the table and it is discovered before it interferes with the game, or if it interacts with the balls during a shot without causing a disadvantage to the opponent, it shall be removed without penalty, but a warning may be issued.

The Applied ruling clearly contemplates that the mere act of actually placing the butt in the pocket, the ensuing actions of the balls aside, is without consequence.

Under WSR or other rule sets, who knows? If you are going to call a foul, what would be the basis? I don't object to whatever you decide, but if it's my butt you better be able to justify the ruling.

Buddy
 
I would never personally call such a foul unless the butt struck a ball. But it wouldn't surprise me if there's some sort of "thou shall not put foreign objects on the playing surface" kindof language in tournament rules.
 
No different from, for example, putting your leg or knee on the table to make a certain shot.
If no balls are hit by the butt (excluding balls that are allready in the pocket) or no balls roll into the butt then no foul.

gr. Dave
 
Situations like this happen in Baseball every now and again. They are affectionately known as "Ump Shows."

An "Ump Show" occurs when an umpire (or referee) forgets that they are present solely to uphold the rules of the game, and to be invisible otherwise. Every so often, this umpire (or referee) chooses to impose their will onto the contest, and make themselves the center attention; even though they are not actually part of said competition and exactly zero spectators (with exception to that person's wife) showed up to the contest with the intent of watching them do their job.

A piece of a cue that was stored in a pocket during the execution of one shot, which was promptly removed after said shot, and had no affect on said shot, should not be a foul... ever. It's just common sense.

This was merely an opportunity for a referee to impose their will on the match, possibly affect the outcome and, ultimately, feel more important.


This, my friends, was an Ump Show.
 
pt109 said:
I would think it's only a foul if the butt was hit by a ball....

...how about...if he used it as part of his bridge?
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That would be non-standard use of equipment, but I'm told the player just stored it in the corner pocket. I've seen that happen maybe five or six times when a player is too rushed/lazy to put the butt off the table.
 
I never liked the player leaving the jump handle inside the pocket. It never sat well with me. I've even had one of my regular opponents he would leave the jump handle on the bed of the table (away from the shot of course). After the stroke he'd pick up the jump handle quickly. Both of these actions scream lazy to me. I wish there was an explicit rule that states you can't do this.
 
Mikey Town said:
Situations like this happen in Baseball every now and again. They are affectionately known as "Ump Shows." ... This, my friends, was an Ump Show.
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(Note that I didn't say whether my ref friend called a foul. Maybe the seated player jumped up and asked him to call one.)

I have seen ump shows in pool games. I think they are usually due to a ref not actually knowing the rules. An example I heard (IIRC) is when Allen Hopkins was playing and had cue ball in hand. He placed it and took some (short) warmup strokes and decided it wasn't going to work, so he picked the cue ball up to put it in a better place. The ref called a cue ball foul. The rules may be clearer now, but I don't think that was a foul under the rules at the time (1980 or so).

If a player violates a rule, and there is a referee, the ref must call a foul. It's not up to the opponent to prompt the ref -- it's the refs job to call all fouls. That includes a fairly common violation of the rules that is a game-loser at nine ball that is often overlooked in unrefereed games.
 
tatcat2000 said:
The situation is covered in CSI rules, Applied Ruling 1-3, Situation 3:

Situation: Player A, preparing to shoot a jump shot, unscrews the extended butt from their jump-break cue and places it in a pocket. They then forget that the butt is in the pocket and leave it there after their inning. Player B shoots and a ball (a) rebounds from the pocket; (b) is pocketed despite the presence of the butt.

Ruling: (a) foul on Player A; (b) The result of the shot stands and the game continues.
Discussion: With the exception of chalk left on the rail, if equipment used by a player and left at the table directly interferes with their opponent’s shot, it is a foul on the player that left the equipment. If a player leaves equipment at the table and it is discovered before it interferes with the game, or if it interacts with the balls during a shot without causing a disadvantage to the opponent, it shall be removed without penalty, but a warning may be issued.

The Applied ruling clearly contemplates that the mere act of actually placing the butt in the pocket, the ensuing actions of the balls aside, is without consequence.

Under WSR or other rule sets, who knows? If you are going to call a foul, what would be the basis? I don't object to whatever you decide, but if it's my butt you better be able to justify the ruling.

Buddy
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I think the only way you could call a stored-butt foul under WSR is if you called it using equipment in a way not intended. That would be a stretch beyond the breaking point. The player is getting no use from the butt being there that I can think of.

A similar situation occurs when a player gets a bridge, decides he can make the shot without the bridge -- it's just a short stop shot but tough to reach -- and sets the bridge on the table off to the side as he quickly shoots the shot.
 
tatcat2000 said:
The situation is covered in CSI rules, Applied Ruling 1-3, Situation 3: ... Discussion: With the exception of chalk left on the rail, if equipment used by a player and left at the table directly interferes with their opponent’s shot, ...
Click to expand...
I think that if a player is using his own piece of chalk he should be able to request that the other player not leave chalk on the table and that if a foul involves that piece of left chalk it should be on the player who left it.
 
It's a foul. You can't block a pocket just because you're shooting in the other direction.

If I were the ref I'd follow it with a warning that if he does it again, it's loss of game.

Interfering with the table when it is in play, illegal use of equipment (the pocket), and bordering unsportsmanlike behavior.
 
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I never heard of a Butt Foul, but I've been exposed to a foul butt plenty of times. :)

On a more serious note, I guess I'm old school. I think it is disrespectful to the game and could fall under unsportsmanlike conduct if nothing else.

What about rolling the butt under the rail while shooting, leaving the bridge on the table after deciding you don't need it. I've seen this as well all too often. While there may ba a rule about those things, I think it's all the same disrespect.
 
FranCrimi said:
It's a foul. You can't block a pocket just because you're shooting in the other direction.

If I were the ref I'd follow it with a warning that if he does it again, it's loss of game.

Interfering with the table when it is in play, illegal use of equipment (the pocket), and bordering unsportsmanlike behavior.
Click to expand...

Which specific WSR rule would you invoke? That's what they were playing under.
 
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