When was 9 ball invented/introduced, and what were the original rules.
Please and thank you.
Please and thank you.
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9 Ball Origin
- Thread starter YubaCushion
- Start date
One good source for info like this is Mike Shamos's "Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards." It has about 2000 entries about billiards with a lot of references. The first printed set of rules he has found is from 1967, but a special diamond-shaped rack for nine balls was being sold in the 1920s. Shamos mentions that the transition from 14.1 to nine ball for tournament play happened in the 1970s.
What Bob (and Mike Shamos) said is true...
But I will humbly add this little tidbit:
The exact origin of 9ball is unclear because (not unlike today) many pool and billiard games began as undocumented local and or regional variations of existing games. Some local variations and fads went on for years with no official rules in print and some have come and gone that we'll never know anything about.
One thing is clear, however, and that is the fact that 9ball is obviously derived from the original 15 ball "rotation" style game(s), such as 'Rotation Pool' and 'Chicago' which date back to at least 1900 or thereabouts. Exactly when the change took place is the million dollar question.
Whatever the answer, by the 1960s, 9ball had reached the point of no return, now it will go down in the history books as having stuck around for quite a while.
But I will humbly add this little tidbit:
The exact origin of 9ball is unclear because (not unlike today) many pool and billiard games began as undocumented local and or regional variations of existing games. Some local variations and fads went on for years with no official rules in print and some have come and gone that we'll never know anything about.
One thing is clear, however, and that is the fact that 9ball is obviously derived from the original 15 ball "rotation" style game(s), such as 'Rotation Pool' and 'Chicago' which date back to at least 1900 or thereabouts. Exactly when the change took place is the million dollar question.
Whatever the answer, by the 1960s, 9ball had reached the point of no return, now it will go down in the history books as having stuck around for quite a while.
Mike has two encyclopedia's of pool books, the one you referenced and a "new"
encyclopedia of pool. Witch one do you recommend, and what other books would you
recommend for a starter kit.
encyclopedia of pool. Witch one do you recommend, and what other books would you
recommend for a starter kit.
The "new" one has some additional entries so it's the one to get. It's less than $10 delivered from the web.
If you mean books for pool/billiard history, that's tough. One of the first you should get is William Hendricks' History of Billiards. The lowest price I see right now is $60, but it ought to be more like $30. I think Hendricks is still selling them.
Shamos has another book called "Pool" that has a historical part. Stein and Rubino's Encyclopedia has quite a lot of historical info and amazing pictures but it's a little pricey.
There are several good biographies or autobiographies that are informative and/or fun reads. Fats's book, "The Bank Shot and Other Great Robberies" is very entertaining thanks to the co-author, Tom Fox. If you want to learn about a player who might have been the best who ever lived, get Rickett's biography about Walter Lindrum. Mosconi's autobiography is pretty good.
John Grissim's book has some historical info. Fensch's "The Lions and the Lambs" describes US pool as it was about 1968 but the price has gone out of control.
Lots of the older books have sections about "what's been going on lately in billiards." The book "Modern Billiards" has a listing of all the known major money matches that had occurred up to the printing (about 1890). Some old books are available on-line with Google books, but I have paper copies of most of them so I don't have specific recommendations.
If you want to get pre-1900 books, be very careful of the ones that are modern "reprints." Sometimes they are simply the text gotten by bad OCR and no diagrams. There are a few old book reprints that are very carefully done, such as Carter Adams' reprinting of White's 1807 book, "Treatise on the Game of Billiards."
If you decide on a particular book you want to get and can't find it elsewhere, I probably have an extra copy.
When I first started playing nine ball around 1964, we played for say a dollar on the nine ball and half on the six. So the game was usually called Six Nine. Hit lowest ball first everything stayed down except a money ball on a scratch. Cue ball behind the line on a scratch. No call shots including nine ball. It was all about the money, so the game was set up to play fast.
Who did you learn the game from. Did you ask how long they've been playing?
9 ball pool is a contemporary form of pool with historical beginnings started during 1920s. In the beginning, 9 ball has also been known as a "money game" in both professional and recreational settings.
What part of the country can the earliest games of nine ball be traced to?
I know George Rood played Fats 9 ball in 1930 for the first time in Marietta Ohio,so it is older than that. George was 16 and worked at the poolroom , the owner was a bookie and backed George.
5,7,9 and oddball
In the '50s, we played the 5, 7 and 9 were money balls and they were spotted when made out of order. Once played a ring game in which 11 money balls were made!
We played that if the shooter didn't make a legal hit, the next player could make him shoot again. IMO, the only way to play a 9-ball ring game. We played slop too, but when the big boys played for money they played call, and the same no-ball-in-hand, make your opponent shoot again on an illegal hit. Two consecutive fouls (in one inning) was the same as a scratch, and 3 consecutive fouls by one player was loss of game. Three fouls were also loss of game in 8-ball from the late '80s till the '90s in some leagues and tournaments.
We also played "odd ball", which as I remember was just full rack rotation with every odd-numbered ball a pay ball. In the '60s we played three variations of "golf" on bar tables, which was great fun...almost as much strategy as one pocket in the most popular version.
In the '50s, we played the 5, 7 and 9 were money balls and they were spotted when made out of order. Once played a ring game in which 11 money balls were made!
We played that if the shooter didn't make a legal hit, the next player could make him shoot again. IMO, the only way to play a 9-ball ring game. We played slop too, but when the big boys played for money they played call, and the same no-ball-in-hand, make your opponent shoot again on an illegal hit. Two consecutive fouls (in one inning) was the same as a scratch, and 3 consecutive fouls by one player was loss of game. Three fouls were also loss of game in 8-ball from the late '80s till the '90s in some leagues and tournaments.
We also played "odd ball", which as I remember was just full rack rotation with every odd-numbered ball a pay ball. In the '60s we played three variations of "golf" on bar tables, which was great fun...almost as much strategy as one pocket in the most popular version.
I grew up in Kenosha Wisconsin, and was in the military in Arlington, VA. Kenosha is the north part of metro Chicago, so I would think that the 6-9 game might have come out of Chicago. There were still older guys who were playing Rotation and counting the balls. I always thought 9 ball came out of Rotation but without the scoring. Nobody in VA played 6-9, just straight 9ball that was around 1968