New Practice Game for Safeties

sixpack

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I made up a new (I think) game that emphasizes safety play and kicking as well as shotmaking. Here goes:

You rack 9 balls (short rack) or 15 balls (full rack) and break normally. For the short rack game the 5 is the money ball and for the full rack game the 9 is the money ball. You play in rotation and the person who legally pockets the money ball wins.

The extra balls are just blocking balls to enable safety play. More blocking balls = easier to get ball in hand and harder to run out.

You can only legally pocket a ball if you start your inning with ball in hand. Ball in hand rules are consistent with rotation games. Table scratches, scratches and illegal hits are ball in hand fouls.

So if you get ball in hand and run to the 5 you win.

The general strategy would be to maximize every ball in hand you get and try to avoid giving your opponent ball in hand. So you would be playing safe, kicking or jumping like heck, and putting your opponent in places where they can't play a good safety. Also moving balls to set up future safeties while not allowing your opponent to capitalize on it.

The difficulty of the game can be modified by adding or removing blocking balls and making the money balls higher. Handicapping can be done by the players having different money balls.

One player might be the 5 and the other might be the 6. Or the 3 and 7 racking 10.

An absolute beginner in safety play might be a 1, meaning if they can get ball in hand and make the 1 ball they can beat a good player who might be going to 5.

An 8 ball variation might be racking all balls with the stripes all being blocker balls and the solids not taken in rotation.

Thoughts?
 

hang-the-9

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Years ago a friend and I played some games where you had to get the person on 3 fouls before you can start pocketing balls.
 

BC21

https://www.playpoolbetter.com
Gold Member
Silver Member
This sounds awesome! I think I'll try s fee racks and see how it goes. Thanks. I don't recall ever seeing anything like this.
 

woodhams

Registered
when I was a kid we would .05 on the 3 ball ...........10 on the 5ball and .25 on the 9ball but it was .60 cents per hour to rent the table
 

Yotehntr

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Pretty original idea, sounds like it could be a good game. I'll have to give it a try.
 

sbpoolleague

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I made up a new (I think) game that emphasizes safety play and kicking as well as shotmaking. Here goes:

You rack 9 balls (short rack) or 15 balls (full rack) and break normally. For the short rack game the 5 is the money ball and for the full rack game the 9 is the money ball. You play in rotation and the person who legally pockets the money ball wins.

The extra balls are just blocking balls to enable safety play. More blocking balls = easier to get ball in hand and harder to run out.

You can only legally pocket a ball if you start your inning with ball in hand. Ball in hand rules are consistent with rotation games. Table scratches, scratches and illegal hits are ball in hand fouls.

So if you get ball in hand and run to the 5 you win.

The general strategy would be to maximize every ball in hand you get and try to avoid giving your opponent ball in hand. So you would be playing safe, kicking or jumping like heck, and putting your opponent in places where they can't play a good safety. Also moving balls to set up future safeties while not allowing your opponent to capitalize on it.

The difficulty of the game can be modified by adding or removing blocking balls and making the money balls higher. Handicapping can be done by the players having different money balls.

One player might be the 5 and the other might be the 6. Or the 3 and 7 racking 10.

An absolute beginner in safety play might be a 1, meaning if they can get ball in hand and make the 1 ball they can beat a good player who might be going to 5.

An 8 ball variation might be racking all balls with the stripes all being blocker balls and the solids not taken in rotation.

Thoughts?


Great game idea. I might add a spin...the ability to spot a pocketed blocking ball, perhaps with a variety of spot locations. If you legally pocket a ball and a blocking ball is also pocketed, then you get to spot the ball. Otherwise, your opponent gets to spot it.
 

sixpack

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Great game idea. I might add a spin...the ability to spot a pocketed blocking ball, perhaps with a variety of spot locations. If you legally pocket a ball and a blocking ball is also pocketed, then you get to spot the ball. Otherwise, your opponent gets to spot it.

That's a good idea. In order for the game to work blocking balls need to be spotted and object balls out of turn need to be spotted. This solution could handle both situations without turning the spot into a conga line.
 

sixpack

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Years ago a friend and I played some games where you had to get the person on 3 fouls before you can start pocketing balls.

I vaguely remember something like that but I couldn't remember how it went. I don't know if the game I described is similar to that or not.
 

sixpack

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
when I was a kid we would .05 on the 3 ball ...........10 on the 5ball and .25 on the 9ball but it was .60 cents per hour to rent the table

We used to play something similar back in the day. 15 ball rotation ring game. Pay on every ball divisible by 3. So 3, 6, 9, 12, 15...

If a guy can run a rack of rotation he can make out pretty good even playing for a quarter.
 

Bobkitty

I said: "Here kitty, kitty". Got this frown.
Gold Member
Silver Member
I made up a new (I think) game that emphasizes safety play and kicking as well as shotmaking. Here goes:

You rack 9 balls (short rack) or 15 balls (full rack) and break normally. For the short rack game the 5 is the money ball and for the full rack game the 9 is the money ball. You play in rotation and the person who legally pockets the money ball wins.

The extra balls are just blocking balls to enable safety play. More blocking balls = easier to get ball in hand and harder to run out.

You can only legally pocket a ball if you start your inning with ball in hand. Ball in hand rules are consistent with rotation games. Table scratches, scratches and illegal hits are ball in hand fouls.

So if you get ball in hand and run to the 5 you win.

The general strategy would be to maximize every ball in hand you get and try to avoid giving your opponent ball in hand. So you would be playing safe, kicking or jumping like heck, and putting your opponent in places where they can't play a good safety. Also moving balls to set up future safeties while not allowing your opponent to capitalize on it.

The difficulty of the game can be modified by adding or removing blocking balls and making the money balls higher. Handicapping can be done by the players having different money balls.

One player might be the 5 and the other might be the 6. Or the 3 and 7 racking 10.

An absolute beginner in safety play might be a 1, meaning if they can get ball in hand and make the 1 ball they can beat a good player who might be going to 5.

An 8 ball variation might be racking all balls with the stripes all being blocker balls and the solids not taken in rotation.

Thoughts?


How about this one: Playing 9 ball, one guy breaks and has to try to pocket every ball typical of 9 ball. The other guy plays safeties and only when the rotation player shoots at the nine ball, he can shoot at it also. NO early 9 balls. The safety guy has to have 3 fouls in the entire game (not just in a row to win). The rotation guy breaks and tries to run out. Super fun game, then rotate players.
 

sixpack

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
This sounds awesome! I think I'll try s fee racks and see how it goes. Thanks. I don't recall ever seeing anything like this.

How about this one: Playing 9 ball, one guy breaks and has to try to pocket every ball typical of 9 ball. The other guy plays safeties and only when the rotation player shoots at the nine ball, he can shoot at it also. NO early 9 balls. The safety guy has to have 3 fouls in the entire game (not just in a row to win). The rotation guy breaks and tries to run out. Super fun game, then rotate players.

That sounds pretty cool too!
 
Top