Old 8 ball rules

[cjr3559]

I just started playing pool and I play with some older guys who sort of remember the rules from the 60s and 70s. Playing 8 ball (and only the devil would use BIH anywhere). Different guys have different memories and I'm trying to make peace with their various rules and memories.

If anyone remembers those days...when 8-ball fouls gave you ball in hand behind the headstring...

1. If you scratched the cue ball, and one of your balls was sunk, did the ball come up and get spotted?

2. If you scratched the cue ball, and one of your balls was not sunk, did one of yours come up anyway?

3. If the answer to 2 is yes, and you had no balls already sunk, did you "owe a ball" to come up later?

Thanks

I didn’t play in the 60s or 70s, but remember learning the rules in the early 80s as a teenager before TE became the standard.

1. Yes, unless on a bar box obviously, and no matter what was sunk on a scratch was spotted.

2. No. Penalty was opponent had cue ball in the kitchen.

3. Only game I know where you spot (or give up) a ball is Cutthroat, and you never owe anything if you’ve got nothing to spot.

EDIT And yes, I’m aware you owe balls in One Pocket before someone corrects me. And you can have a negative score in Straight Pool. Understood.

 

[Paul Schofield]

When I played in the 70s, you could play nine-ball in a strange bar anywhere in the country for any sum of money and never have a problem. Play a game of eight-ball for ten bucks and you could wind up dead.

In my room, in my eight-ball leagues and events, I instituted rules to take some of the lunacy, frustration, and anger out of the game. It helped.

 

[ShootingArts]

When I played in the 70s, you could play nine-ball in a strange bar anywhere in the country for any sum of money and never have a problem. Play a game of eight-ball for ten bucks and you could wind up dead.

In my room, in my eight-ball leagues and events, I instituted rules to take some of the lunacy, frustration, and anger out of the game. It helped.

All of my major scrapes over happenings on a pool table have been when playing cheap. Seems like guys that are playing for more money either know the score or are willing to listen. I damn near got lynched over three dollars a game!

Hu

 

[hang-the-9]

You are right that the scratch being an advantage is crazy. On the other hand, there were places I played for over a decade that stuck by that rule. Of course intentional scratches and safeties were unmanly so they had to be accidental! One of the funniest compliments I ever got was when a fellow regular in a bar quit playing me after a few months. He said he was the better player but he couldn't outrun my luck!

I went up through Arkansas, Tennessee, northern Alabama, and a big loop down to the gulf and home along the gulf roads. I got into more crazy rules on that trip than I ever encountered before or after! Calling everything including kissing a rail you were running down and the inside rails of a pocket. The rule was the eightball had to go clean, that included not touching inside rails!





I would hate not being able to use balls as we usually do. Those are alignment tools! I wanted to crossbank my ball last night. It was about one inch off the rail and had another ball about one inch from it. While fussing about going to hit it coming off the rail and missing my shot I suddenly saw plan "B". Forget the rail, hit my ball into the other one so that the tangent line went directly to the side pocket. The carom was at least as easy, maybe easier than the bank. The kind of shots people give up because they don't see them.

Hu

This is part of the reason I have not touched a 7 foot table for like the first 5 years of playing pool, and play at a bar table maybe a few times a year, why actively go out of your way to play with drunks that don't know actually know to play or know the rules but very loudly yell out the rules and what their plan is for every single shot as they are playing. There is a clear distinction between the people that walk over to use the 9 footers and the people that stick to the 7 footer by the bar with a dozen people crowded around it.

I had some guy want to play for $50 a game but would not play a $50 race to 3 because "we will be there all night" LOL Yea if you keep walking away after every game to smoke or drink at the bar and spend 5 minutes talking between each shot it will.

 

[ShootingArts]

This is part of the reason I have not touched a 7 foot table for like the first 5 years of playing pool, and play at a bar table maybe a few times a year, why actively go out of your way to play with drunks that don't know actually know to play or know the rules but very loudly yell out the rules and what their plan is for every single shot as they are playing. There is a clear distinction between the people that walk over to use the 9 footers and the people that stick to the 7 footer by the bar with a dozen people crowded around it.

I had some guy want to play for $50 a game but would not play a $50 race to 3 because "we will be there all night" LOL Yea if you keep walking away after every game to smoke or drink at the bar and spend 5 minutes talking between each shot it will.

When somebody wanted to play for fifty a game I was a happy camper! Figuring that the loser is likely to win a game or two a race to three would have to be for $150 to $250 to be the same bet as fifty a game. Playing by the game allows better table management and better opponent management too. When traveling gambling it was a matter of stepping through the door where I was told I was likely to find action or just stopping at pool halls and bars along the road. Meeting the daily nut at the very least was the goal and often that meant playing wherever you found action and however the other person or people wanted to play. Sometimes one trip through an area was enough and never to be repeated like my trip through the upper portions of states I liked the lower portions of. However, if the choice was playing bar tables or crazy rules or not playing I played bar tables and crazy rules.

Hu

 

[hang-the-9]

When somebody wanted to play for fifty a game I was a happy camper! Figuring that the loser is likely to win a game or two a race to three would have to be for $150 to $250 to be the same bet as fifty a game. Playing by the game allows better table management and better opponent management too. When traveling gambling it was a matter of stepping through the door where I was told I was likely to find action or just stopping at pool halls and bars along the road. Meeting the daily nut at the very least was the goal and often that meant playing wherever you found action and however the other person or people wanted to play. Sometimes one trip through an area was enough and never to be repeated like my trip through the upper portions of states I liked the lower portions of. However, if the choice was playing bar tables or crazy rules or not playing I played bar tables and crazy rules.

Hu

The reason I would rather play a race is that I am not looking for the $ per hour win here but rather to have some fun shooting, and while some banger can win a single game by luck, it's almost a 0 chance of someone like that beating a decent player 3 games. I actually only had like $80 on me at the time also. We finally got to playing at $10 a game, I won 2 games, he wandered away for 20 min, came back said to rack them up again, wandered away for another 30 minutes, I packed up and went home with my $20 in winnings LOL

 

[jay helfert]

I liked to just wade in amongst them! As you know, it wasn't that uncommon for some creative rules making to take place when you are a stranger from afar anyway. When that happens the locals are usually snickering a bit about how dumb the stranger is. They usually laugh out load when I catch my opponent with his own made up rule later in the match up though!

The road has been calling me lately. Not really just the road, old times in general. Fill the truck up with gas, stick a twenty in my pocket leaving the rest of my cash tucked away and on the road for a few days, maybe a few weeks. Once in awhile a few hours! Maybe you ought to come down. We could head to Acadiana, find us a couple of cajun queens of the female variety and party till the sun comes up. Sleep until two or three PM and do it all again! Play enough pool or cards to finance all the trouble we could get into and see if there is anyplace left where english is still the second language. That is the only way for a girl to get a real cajun accent, something that still makes my heart go pitter-patter.

Ah well, I can dream. Nothing is like it used to be, including me!

Hu

I had my time in the Sun. It was a lot of things both good and bad, but one thing for sure, it was exciting. I don't think I ever had a boring day on the road. Every day seemed like a new adventure. I like my quiet life now and don't really miss the old days. I have my memories to sustain me there. Looking back I'm just glad I survived.

I'm not sure if I put this story in my book or not but talking about creative rules and surviving, this is a good one. I got into a $3 Eight Ball game with a young Afro-American guy in a bar in Gardena one lovely afternoon decades ago. I was working him over at $3 a clip when I ended up hooked on the eight ball. The only way to make it was to kick off the side rail and kick it in one rail. I called the eight ball in the corner pocket and made a perfect kick shot and made the eight. Right away he said the eight didn't count because I didn't call the kick shot. I told him I only needed to call the eight and the pocket and I won the game fair and square. He refused to pay me and I finally quit arguing with him and told him I quit. That wasn't good enough for him though. He told me I owed him $3 for the last game since I made the eight illegally. I wasn't about to pay him and let him know that in no uncertain terms. He didn't like my attitude and pulled a long knife out of somewhere and told me to pay up or get cut up. I took off like a gazelle out the back door of the bar and kept on running for a block or so. All that for 12 or 15 dollars. Just another day in the life of a pool scuff.

Let's just say I wasn't altogether unhappy when I took ownership of my first poolroom and started making money every day without having to grind it out in sometimes dubious settings.

 

[fastone371]

Yes, but 8 ball, not 9 ball. It's not like we forget the caroms or everything on the table playing 9 ball.

Still the bottom line is that its the players that cant run out that want those ridiculous rules. They play by those just to make it tougher for someone to run out on them, same as 3&1, banking the 8 or a 3 rail kick on the 8. It slows down the better player so maybe the weaker player wins on a technicality.

 

[HNTFSH]

Still the bottom line is that its the players that cant run out that want those ridiculous rules. They play by those just to make it tougher for someone to run out on them, same as 3&1, banking the 8 or a 3 rail kick on the 8. It slows down the better player so maybe the weaker player wins on a technicality.

I forgot everyone here runs out the table every game. Happens a lot on the internet.

I didn't say anything about 3 rails on the eight ball as a rule. I did say you have to call it though. If I play my wife, I'm taking those shots and calling them. Yes...if not harder for me she'd never win a game. I guess all some people play are tournament or high stakes games. My bad.

Seeing all shots and understanding your probabilities is a part of the game. The beauty of only playing on 9 footers is all the things you can do that one can't do on 7's.

 

[Bavafongoul]

Do you consider poker a game of skill or luck? I know there are different variations of the game but in general.
An example is draw poker that’s different than hold ‘em wherein board cards are shared by all the participants.
Obviously since the deck is shuffled and randomly dealt, the cards you get just happen. It’s how you play them.

So is pool a game of skill or luck? I know the immediate tendency is it’s both. Sometimes your skill seemingly
invites good luck. Maybe the way the object ball drops in the called pocket but barely after lightly touching an
interfering object ball you had to go around. Or it’s a 3 rail kick shot and it goes in but only after hitting another
object ball. But what about a table runout that was precisely accomplished or a run of 25, 35 or 50 in 14.1 pool?

Getting back to the original question, 8 ball is best played with ball in hand fouls played in the kitchen or behind
the head string. If any last remaining object ball or 8 ball is behind the line on a ball in hand, it gets spotted and
you shoot at it from the kitchen. Object balls are called pocket shots. If it drops in a different pocket, you lose the
table but it is not a foul. Foul on the 8 ball and it’s loss of game. 3 foul rules applied because a player can use his
remaining object balls to block the 8 ball to secure a 3 fouls win. This was a game of skill and strategy in this format.

9 ball……it’s just a game of skill that invites dumb luck. Who wants to lose because your opponent has no shot so
to speak and he just hits the 2 ball as hard as he could and 5 seconds later the 6 ball hits the 9 ball into a pocket
on the opposite end of the table. That’s just dumb ass luck. And there’s lots of it in 9 ball since object balls pocketed
in unintended pockets count. You shoot the 7 ball at the corner pocket 8’ away & miss sending it into a side pocket
and keep the table…..or you shoot the 4 ball and it jaws the pocket, kicks out and hits the 9 ball in a pocket for a win.

That’s why I mostly play 10 ball. It’s a miniature version of 14.1 except it’s played with ball in hand. There is a lot less
luck in 10 ball than any other game aside from straight pool. It minimizes any lucky wins like in 9 ball or modern 8 ball.
You have to call every shot in 10 ball and if you want to make it harder, use 14.1 rules for fouls played from the kitchen.

 

[Geosnookery]

I just live in a different universe.

I’ve never seen a fight over billiard rules…or any fight over billiards. Some arguments.

I don’t know of anyone who insisted on a rule for their own benefit. They insisted on a rule because that’s what they believed to be the legitimate rules There are no universally accepted set of rules for games unless they are outlined in some lost book of the Bible.

I’ve played way back in the 70’s and 80’s against those who used ‘the ball in hand in the kitchen’. No big deal. Every now and then someone will ask about ball in hand…doesn’t matter to me what they want to play as long as you are both clear on what rule is being used. Fun either way.

 

[ShootingArts]

I had my time in the Sun. It was a lot of things both good and bad, but one thing for sure, it was exciting. I don't think I ever had a boring day on the road. Every day seemed like a new adventure. I like my quiet life now and don't really miss the old days. I have my memories to sustain me there. Looking back I'm just glad I survived.

I'm not sure if I put this story in my book or not but talking about creative rules and surviving, this is a good one. I got into a $3 Eight Ball game with a young Afro-American guy in a bar in Gardena one lovely afternoon decades ago. I was working him over at $3 a clip when I ended up hooked on the eight ball. The only way to make it was to kick off the side rail and kick it in one rail. I called the eight ball in the corner pocket and made a perfect kick shot and made the eight. Right away he said the eight didn't count because I didn't call the kick shot. I told him I only needed to call the eight and the pocket and I won the game fair and square. He refused to pay me and I finally quit arguing with him and told him I quit. That wasn't good enough for him though. He told me I owed him $3 for the last game since I made the eight illegally. I wasn't about to pay him and let him know that in no uncertain terms. He didn't like my attitude and pulled a long knife out of somewhere and told me to pay up or get cut up. I took off like a gazelle out the back door of the bar and kept on running for a block or so. All that for 12 or 15 dollars. Just another day in the life of a pool scuff.

Let's just say I wasn't altogether unhappy when I took ownership of my first poolroom and started making money every day without having to grind it out in sometimes dubious settings.

I got in a fight with three guys over the quarter on the table. That was interesting for awhile. Three dollars a game was the common bet in the old days on challenge tables around here, five you had found some high rollers! Of course minimum wage was a buck and a quarter so most of the guys on a challenge table were only bringing home forty or fifty dollars a week from their day job. I got in a handful of fights over three dollar games and led a parade to my vehicle more times than a few! That 7/8 ton camper special with no camper on it had stiff springs and sway bar and handled surprisingly well. With a beefed up 454 under the hood and a 456 posi-trac rear to get some bite there wasn't much catching me once I got in my truck, in fact nothing ever did. There were faster vehicles, just not under the people chasing me! Of course it didn't hurt that I was a dirt track demon at the time too so hanging out the rear didn't bother me at all.

Took me a couple years to realize that this was a bit more dangerous than was smart and learn to be friendly while playing and to not as a general rule go in and rape, pillage, and slaughter on a pool table. There were times though. I had done considerable damage to my left shoulder. I didn't really realize the doctor was going to basically cut my arm off to put it back together! The cut ran almost three-quarter around my shoulder when I woke up. Being a teenager one night in the hospital was plenty. They busted me sneaking out to play pool that night. Musta been the sodium pentanol they gave as a pre-surgery shot! Two nights after putting my arm in a sling for seven weeks I found a five a man ring game with five or six guys in it. I was chomping at the bit! I went in there three or four times in that seven weeks to be known. As a teenager the naked dancing ladies on stage didn't hurt. The very night the doctor told me I could take my bridge arm out of the sling I busted that ring game all to hell, nothing subtle about it!

A night I wasn't in there, three of my friends were. Rat was maybe a little bigger than jockey size but he could have certainly rode exercise. My best friend was medium sized but had polio as a kid and had a pretty bad limp. Louis was the third guy. Louis was big, had a little beer gut, and long smooth deceptive muscles like I have seen on some American Indians. Didn't look like a monster but I saw him pick up the back of a '66 Chevelle the first time I met him! Somehow the three of them got in a fight with the rest of the bar, twenty or thirty people. It never was clear to me why. They were hanging about even until somebody threw a chair at Louis. Louis started throwing chairs and when he ran out of chairs he started sidearming those little heavy based bar tables off of the walls forty or fifty feet away. When the tables started flying even the owners and hired help hit the parking lot!

Louis was actually a mellow kind of guy. He was one of three or four guys I tried to have with me when I went to a strange dirt track for the first time. One or two of them were enough to repel boarders if necessary and the funny thing is none of them were mean. I guess they didn't have to be!

A lot of fun in those years and a little luck. A few times I could have gotten hurt bad, a few times I could have hurt somebody badly enough the law would have frowned on it even in those tolerant times. If I had it all to do again I have to admit I would do most of it, although hopefully been a little smarter. Nothing wrong with my brains, just a few year period when I didn't care.

Hu

 

[alstl]

No surprise that you’re finding different rules. If you went to 10 different bars or rooms, you might find 10 different sets of rules, even in the same general area.

In my experience, most often no to both though, because most of my pool back then was played in bars on coin op tables…

I played in a pool hall that had two 8 ball leagues on different nights and they had different rules for the two leagues. One was in house and one was affiliated with a national league.

Regarding spotting balls that's hard to do on a coin op table. I don't know the history of 8 ball but I wouldn't be surprised if automatic loss of game for accidentally sinking the 8 ball had something to do with coin op tables..

 

[fastone371]

I forgot everyone here runs out the table every game. Happens a lot on the internet.

I didn't say anything about 3 rails on the eight ball as a rule. I did say you have to call it though. If I play my wife, I'm taking those shots and calling them. Yes...if not harder for me she'd never win a game. I guess all some people play are tournament or high stakes games. My bad.

Seeing all shots and understanding your probabilities is a part of the game. The beauty of only playing on 9 footers is all the things you can do that one can't do on 7's.

The problem I see with those call shot games being played in bars is that it causes arguments which leads to fights. If I touch a rail shooting one of my balls in the call shot group says "that was a bank shot because it touched a rail" and that I didn't call a bank shot so "it has to go clean". But then 2 minutes later when I am going to shoot the 8 in their rules say I have to bank the 8 and I say "I did bank it, it touched the rail on the way in" then according to them its not a bank anymore. If a ball touching a rail qualifies as a bank shot when I do not call it must also be a bank shot when I call it. They cant move the finish line only when it suits them.

 

[Charlie Hustle]

The problem I see with those call shot games being played in bars is that it causes arguments which leads to fights. If I touch a rail shooting one of my balls in the call shot group says "that was a bank shot because it touched a rail" and that I didn't call a bank shot so "it has to go clean". But then 2 minutes later when I am going to shoot the 8 in their rules say I have to bank the 8 and I say "I did bank it, it touched the rail on the way in" then according to them its not a bank anymore. If a ball touching a rail qualifies as a bank shot it when I do not call it must also be a bank shot when I call it. They cant move the finish only when it suits them.

Had a guy pull this one time. I shot my ball down the rail and it prob touched the rail 2 times. He said I didn't call the rails. I paid off the $10 bucks and quit. Wasn't worth my time or energy.

 

[Korsakoff]

Had a guy pull this one time. I shot my ball down the rail and it prob touched the rail 2 times. He said I didn't call the rails. I paid off the $10 bucks and quit. Wasn't worth my time or energy.

Anybody who played much throughout the South has had that happen. I learned early on to ask, as friendly as possible, “How y’all play around here?” Ask just right at the right time, and they’ll describe everything those “passing through” did that pissed them off. Or, they would describe expectations/attitudes that pissed them off.

Then, you have your game play down and enjoy the evening, likely pocketing a few dollars and maybe a beer or three. Or, you politely lose a game or two and move on somewhere else. Depending on how the “local rules” conversation went.

 

[lorider]

I played in bars every weekend all over the east coast of florida from the late 70' s to the late 80's until i settled down to family life. Rules were always the same until i started encountering different rules in the late 80's.

I never got in a fight...some arguments here and there though and run out of a bar one time after being called a hustler by a room owner after i lightened his pockets by a couple hundred.

The reason i never got into a fight was i had 4 rules i lived by.

1. Never argue over whose quarter is up. I always used a half dollar to mark my turn.
2. Never argue over rules. I usually managed to turn their rules to my advantage.
3. Never ask to gamble . i always turned them down saying that i just liked playimg and let them talk me into gamblimg and set the wager.
4. Never raise the stakes . well i did break this rule once in a while in certain situations which i will explain below.

Those 4 rules kept me out of a lot of trouble with sore losers when i reminded them i didnt want to gamble in the first place. It just was not worth the chance of being hurt....hurting some one and getting sued ...or put in jail and have a criminal record over a 5 or 10 dollar pool game.

The craziest rule i ever encountered was whwn my opponent scratched and i had the 8 in the kitchen. I valled a corner pocket and kicked at the 8 and missed connectimg with the 8 by a couple of inches. My opponent jumps up and said you lost . i said...what ?? He said you missed the 8...you gotta hit it or its a loss. My first jmclimation was to go ballistic on his azz but i managed to keep cool and stick to rule number 2.

I said i have never heard of that rule...where are you from ? He mentions some state up north that i can't recall. i casually mention that we aint in whatever state he was from as i hand him 20 that we were playing for and ask how bout lets raise it to 40 ? He say alright. Well he misses the 8 leavimg it in the kitchen and my first thought was to shoot a hamger and follw it im with the cue ball. Then i thought...nah thats too obvious and miss another ball leaving the cue ball hidden behimd another one of my balls. Well he wound up missing a kick on the 8 and i get my 20 back plus his 20 i should have had the game before without any argument or drama ensuing. Won another 40 off him before he quit.

I never was really interested in gamnlimg in bars and had plenty of fun kust playing for the heck of it but it was darn near impossible to play without something on the line. Thats just the way it was back then.

There were very few pool halls around my area and the ones that existed had their share of hustlers looking for easy pickings from bar bangers like me so back then i had rather been a big fish in a bar than a guppy in a pool hall. Unlike many pool players...i knew where my place was im the pecking order.

 

[Logandgriff]

Rules for eight ball in the 60s in St. Louis varied from neighborhood to neighborhood and sometimes room to room but typically as I remember if your opponent sank the cue ball you got the ball behind the head string and if all your balls were there too you could spot one of them. Balls sunk in the wrong pocket were also spotted. That's why being able to shoot a spot shot was so important and people practiced spot shots a lot. Also in a lot of places no safety play was allowed and you had to demonstrate to your opponent and the spectators that you were making a legitimate offensive shot. And you had to call all the balls, and in some places, whether the shot was to be "clean" or "off the rail"-- i.e. the ball wouldn't or would touch a cushion on the way in. I got in a lot of arguments over the rules in those days but always seemed to work it out.

 

[ShootingArts]

I played in bars every weekend all over the east coast of florida from the late 70' s to the late 80's until i settled down to family life. Rules were always the same until i started encountering different rules in the late 80's.

I never got in a fight...some arguments here and there though and run out of a bar one time after being called a hustler by a room owner after i lightened his pockets by a couple hundred.

The reason i never got into a fight was i had 4 rules i lived by.

1. Never argue over whose quarter is up. I always used a half dollar to mark my turn.
2. Never argue over rules. I usually managed to turn their rules to my advantage.
3. Never ask to gamble . i always turned them down saying that i just liked playimg and let them talk me into gamblimg and set the wager.
4. Never raise the stakes . well i did break this rule once in a while in certain situations which i will explain below.

Those 4 rules kept me out of a lot of trouble with sore losers when i reminded them i didnt want to gamble in the first place. It just was not worth the chance of being hurt....hurting some one and getting sued ...or put in jail and have a criminal record over a 5 or 10 dollar pool game.

The craziest rule i ever encountered was whwn my opponent scratched and i had the 8 in the kitchen. I valled a corner pocket and kicked at the 8 and missed connectimg with the 8 by a couple of inches. My opponent jumps up and said you lost . i said...what ?? He said you missed the 8...you gotta hit it or its a loss. My first jmclimation was to go ballistic on his azz but i managed to keep cool and stick to rule number 2.

I started gambling nightly the night I turned fifteen. Got my driver's license that day so a lot of things changed. At that age I might have been a wee bit too willing to fight. Wish I had thought to mark whose challenge was up like you did. I can only remember one fight over that but quite a few heated discussions!

Number two was part of smoothing out my act after the first couple of years. I said screw it, let them make any rules they want, I'll just make them play by the same rules! I was going to come out in the black in a bar almost every time anyway and it was kinda fun to beat them with the rules they made up on the spot.

Number three, like you I generally found that the challenge tables involved gambling. My rule was never to raise the bet over five dollars. Kept me from abusing the working stiffs and the would be hustlers would raise the bet themselves. This covers four also.

I forgot about must hit the eight ball. That was a common rule around town. Almost everybody practiced kicking just out of the kitchen crossbank and back to the eight ball with a lot of spin.

I rarely fought or even had harsh words once I adopted the above policies. On the road alone I just went with the flow, whatever and however they wanted to play was fine. In years of rambling I can remember one place with the rules posted on the wall in a large sign big enough to see, four by six or something like that. Seemed like a good idea but a room owner said such signs were bad for business.

Rules for eight ball in the 60s in St. Louis varied from neighborhood to neighborhood and sometimes room to room but typically as I remember if your opponent sank the cue ball you got the ball behind the head string and if all your balls were there too you could spot one of them. Balls sunk in the wrong pocket were also spotted. That's why being able to shoot a spot shot was so important and people practiced spot shots a lot. Also in a lot of places no safety play was allowed and you had to demonstrate to your opponent and the spectators that you were making a legitimate offensive shot. And you had to call all the balls, and in some places, whether the shot was to be "clean" or "off the rail"-- i.e. the ball wouldn't or would touch a cushion on the way in. I got in a lot of arguments over the rules in those days but always seemed to work it out.

Fortunately my regular haunts weren't call everything. If you made a ball in the wrong pocket it was loss of turn. No safeties allowed, a lot of accidental safeties though! We mostly played on the honor system but banks, kicks, combinations, and caroms were expected to be called. Things went pretty smoothly with the regulars around town but we always had a lot of travelers in the oil patch too. It was a killing field for hustlers at almost anything.

I knew a half-dozen or so guys that never worked for a living, just lived on the fringe. One guy had his child support raised up and up until he was paying $2000 a month in child support in the early seventies! This was rock star and major league ball player levels back then. Eddie was doing it with no visible means of support. He was in the courtroom with his wife trying to raise his child support once again when the judge asked him what he did for a living. He couldn't tell her so she told him that he either got a job or was locked up for contempt of court. He got a job, and within hours bet a guy $1500 that he could hold it for six months!

Hu

 

[ctyhntr]

Ball behind the kitchen is definitely old school 8-ball rules, until the Council of Nicaea adopted BIH anywhere on the table The next 2 sound like more bar rules to me. Then rules variation to accommodate the realities of coin-op play, such as balls that goes down accidentally stays down.