1 and 15 in the side 8 ball

river

Registered
1 and 15

We have played this game at senior center. Rules do vary but guarantee if you can stick with it, it will improve your banking, safety and defense play.
 

maha

from way back when
Silver Member
its hard to lose even a game to a bad player with that game. its just makes for a long game and less fun. but i dont play for fun with bad players, they have to bet something.
 

cjr3559

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
There’s also a special racking situation for this variation.

The 1 and 15 are placed directly behind the 8 to limit an advantage to either player.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Inaction

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
The first time I played this game was in a small town in Nebraska at the Senior Center. They had an 8 ft pool table and a snooker table with a 15 ball set. The 1 and 15 side pockets were determined by whoever made one first. To win, the 8 ball had to be banked into the last pocket. Played many games before I ran the table, and that was on the snooker table.

The local center in Sioux Falls, which now has 5 new Diamond 9 foot tables after a tornado caused roof damage, which led to water damage. The side pockets are predetermined, and the 1 & 15 are spotted if made in the other pockets, and the shooter continues. One game, I shot the one in eight times before making it in the right pocket.

I call it a good equalizer, where a regular player sometimes wins a game and is thrilled.
 

Johnny Rosato

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I made an opponent shoot his balls in several times during an evening of play. We were both blistering drunk, weed was involved too,
and I kept slipping his balls back on the table, not only the 1 or 15, but any of his suit.
Some games he may have had 10 or 12 balls to shoot in playing Missouri 8-ball.

We're lifelong friends and buying beers hurt neither one of us. It was funny as hell, everybody knew what was happening except him,
and he was laughing and grinning like a monkey not knowing what he was laughing at.

He would've done the same to me and prolly has before.
 
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oknazevad

Registered
The oft-repeated error that the introduction of casino balls by the BBC Co in the 20s represents the creation of 8-ball needs to die. The BCA themselves in the brief history in every edition of their rulebook state plainly that it dates from around 1900. The game was already being played with numbered balls decades before the all red and yellow sets came into being.
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
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The oft-repeated error that the introduction of casino balls by the BBC Co in the 20s represents the creation of 8-ball needs to die. The BCA themselves in the brief history in every edition of their rulebook state plainly that it dates from around 1900. The game was already being played with numbered balls decades before the all red and yellow sets came into being.
Interesting. Do you know of any printed rule set prior to the BBCCo putting it forward as their creation?

Edit: The rules of BBC Co pool, which is basically the same as eight ball but with reds and yellows, was in the 1908 BBC Co rulebook (page 117) but was not in the 1905 rulebook which did not go to page 117.
 
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Cron

AzB Silver Member
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If it help, this link has the rules I played by and they are identical to a .pdf I have somewhere from the ~1940's (it was old, the hall of fame section was filled with men and those crazy mustaches).

https://www.bestbilliards.com/justforfun/gamerules/one_fifteen.cfm

Again if it helps, if you ever played rotational Cribbage all those strategies will apply and then some (even rotational 8-ball might cover more than enough). Also with hesitation, I'll link Ta La (poker pool) which incorporates the hell out of the strategy that is exclusively for the 1 and 15 through its ENTIRE game, I mean the _HELL_ out of it (Ta La really is pool+gambling, it even uses a double deck of 52 cards or 1 Pinochle deck).

http://poolshot.org/pokerpool.php
 
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u12armresl

One Pocket back cutter
Silver Member
You guys are going to hate it when Corey gets to be senior center age, he will figure out that 1, 15 racking situation.
 

Brookeland Bill

AzB Silver Member
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I am going to be playing in a "senior league" next fall and they play this 8 ball game where the 1 ball and the 15 ball must be made in opposite (predetermined) side pockets. I've never heard of this variation of 8 ball so here are my questions.

Does this game have a name?
Is there somewhere on line or a book where I can learn the stratagies of this game?

I've Googled it and searched here but didn't have much luck.

Thanks!

When I started Playing 60 years ago that was 8 ball.
 

jay helfert

Shoot Pool, not people
Gold Member
Silver Member
One-Fifteen Eight Ball is a great gambling game. It has a lot of strategy like One Pocket. I used to play it in Dayton a hundred years ago. :wink:
 

oknazevad

Registered
Interesting. Do you know of any printed rule set prior to the BBCCo putting it forward as their creation?

Edit: The rules of BBC Co pool, which is basically the same as eight ball but with reds and yellows, was in the 1908 BBC Co rulebook (page 117) but was not in the 1905 rulebook which did not go to page 117.

Unfortunately not handy. The historical record when it comes to the rules development of the main forms of pool is sparse at best, as at the time in the early 20th century when they took recognizable forms, pocket billiards was a disreputable game played in dark, smoky pool (that is, gambling) halls, in contrast to the upright, gentlemanly game of carom billiards. Harold Wilson wasn't making things up about the public perception when he wrote The Music Man.

But it's logical. Firstly, the idea that eight-ball pool was created out of nothing doesn't pass the sniff test. It's a natural development from basic pyramid pool, which dates to the late 1700s. In pyramid, whoever sinks the majority of the balls first wins; for 15-ball pyramid, that would be 8 balls. To simply designate one of those balls, the middle of them, as the last that must go in is a straightforward way to make the game more complex, increasing the strategy. Likewise, splitting the balls so that one player can only pocket the balls lower than 8, while the other pockets the ones higher than 8 is also a straightforward addition of complexity. Those are the two essential things that distinguish eight-ball from basic pyramid pool, and both date from no later than 1900. The claim that eight-ball isn't derived from basic pyramid is unsubstantiated, and illogical.

Of course, all of that requires the balls to be numbered, but they already had been since the mid 1800s, as required by the game of 61-point pool, where each ball is worth its number in points, making a total of 120 available points, and the player to get a majority of points (as opposed to balls) wins. That variant was popular in the mid 1800s, but by the 1880s it became apparent that one could simply win by targeting the highest value balls and winning with fewer balls than the opponent, which was seen as unsatisfactory. So two different ways to deal with the problem were introduced.

One was to do away with the varying point values (in that sense going back to basic pool), but requiring that winner to accumulate a large number of points over continuous play with the balls re-racked when the table was cleared. The tweak in 1910 of re-racking with one object ball remaining, which was done to discourage defensive play, is what created modern straight pool.

The other was to require the players to aim at the balls in numerical order, creating the category of rotation games. It was for ease of play of rotation games that the practice of using a distinct color for each ball arose, but the limit on how many distinct colors are practical led to repeating the colors with solids and stripes. And while 61-point rotation is still sort of a thing, it can get repetitive when the 11 always wins, as would be the case if a player runs the rack. So the added gambling element of each player having a different, random "money ball" gave us Kelly pool, which is why multi-colored pool balls are still sometimes called Kelly pool balls. However, the disrepute of the gambling around the game (once again nodding to Mr Wilson) lead it to be banned in many places, and the simplification of using the same money ball for all players got around that. By around 1920, the 9 became the standard money ball, though it didn't become that prominent until TV wanted a fast paced game.

But to return to the BBC Co., doesn't it seem more logical that they would introduce a product to capitalize on a recent trend while claiming it makes the game easier to play and more visible for spectators? After all, if the game is played without called shots (which date from the 1880s, but aren't often used in casual games), then the balls don't need individual numbers. That's all they were doing, not creating the game themselves.

And as a sideline to that, the idea that English-style eight-ball/blackball retained some older form doesn't jibe with either the dubiousness of the claim that it's the original form or the fact that pub pool tables were almost non-existent in Britain until the 1960s, long after the solids-and-stripes were standard. They didn't retain a continuous use, they revived an old equipment variation because it is cheaper to replace a missing ball if they all look the same. But, as I said, that's a sideline, as there's numerous other elements that show that British blackball is a relatively late creation, not a continuation of an older form.
 
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jeephawk

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
So you were allowed to make the 1 or 15 in any pocket?
Why would you be not just be playing 8-ball?

Is that all there was to the first rule?

Obviously you had to make the 1 and 15 in the proper pocket. If you didn't, the ball was spotted, it wasn't loss of game, nor were the other things you mentioned part of the rules as I recall. Looking at Mosconi's Pocket Billiards which was published for many years those additional "special" rules weren't listed either, but I've seen the rule that if the opponent pockets your 1, for example, it stays down, elsewhere.

All sorts of variations, that's why I asked where you were reading those particular rules. Again, just curious.
 
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Bob Jewett

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Unfortunately not handy. ... .
Until I see something written from prior to 1908 when Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company published the rules for "BBC Co. pool", I'll continue to go with them as the inventor of the game. Admittedly, it had slightly different rules but it was still groups of seven balls and then the black (eight) ball.
 

oknazevad

Registered
And I'm saying that conclusion ignores that development of games, pool or otherwise, invariably predate publication of rules. Rules aren't published for games no one is playing, they're published to write down that which already exists. The first publication isn't the creation of a game, it the codification. And, in the case of BBC Co, they undertook that codification so they could try to sell more specialized sets, completely glossing over that no such sets are actually needed to play the game. It's marketing, not invention.
 

Bob Jewett

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And I'm saying that conclusion ignores that development of games, pool or otherwise, invariably predate publication of rules. Rules aren't published for games no one is playing, they're published to write down that which already exists. The first publication isn't the creation of a game, it the codification. And, in the case of BBC Co, they undertook that codification so they could try to sell more specialized sets, completely glossing over that no such sets are actually needed to play the game. It's marketing, not invention.

People make up games for various reasons. Take 7-ball for example. I think BBCCo was just trying to sell ball sets. Without an earlier written reference, I think I'll go with BBC as the inventor. Please let me know if you do find some documentation.
 
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