Except for placement of particular balls (for 8 ball, 8 in the middle, etc.) many rule sets don’t address placement of the remaining balls. Those rules that do address the issue usually state that all other balls are to be racked randomly but none that I’m aware of define exactly what they mean by that. Does random racking mean that so long as the balls are randomly placed in the rack (that is, with no intent to achieve a particular pattern) you take them as they lay or do they mean that the final rack must show no discernible pattern? A rack thrown together randomly can nonetheless exhibit a clear pattern such as the entire rear row in an 8 ball rack being all solid or the two front rows being all stripes. If balls are randomly placed in the rack but still show such a pattern, an argument can be made that the balls were placed in the rack randomly and that if a pattern nonetheless appears, so be it. In real life, people will always move a few balls around to achieve a rack that doesn’t show any discernible pattern, but that isn’t random. I suspect that the intent of the rules is that the final rack should not exhibit any clear pattern but moving balls around AFTER they are placed in the rack at random would seem to violate the wording of the rules. Anyone have thoughts?