Bar pool ball in hand

Pushout

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Exactly! Avoid bar room pool at all cost. It's not worth it.

This is what I learned in the early '70s when I decided to get serious about the game. Now, all these years later, I pretty much avoid bar table pool because it' NOT worth it to me to experience the aggravation.
 

Chopdoc

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Exactly! Avoid bar room pool at all cost. It's not worth it.

Depends. It can be a lot of fun.

One place I often go, a biker bar, has one beat up table. I rarely play there. But when I do, I have a lot of fun. I do not take a cue into that place.


.
 

chitownnorth

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Almost every thing works when it’s fun...but sometimes it’s not fun.
...people have been hurt or even killed in $2 games in bars......
...I’m pretty sure a lot more times than in pool halls.

Admittedly. I have very little experience gambling in bars....when I did get talked into
action a few times, I insisted we play 6-ball...same rules as 9-ball....
....rules are simple, fewer arguments.


I have (sadly) tons of experience being and playing in bars. I agree with you. That's my point of the guy who wrote about serious. Don't get serious in a bar. Just let it go and buy the guy a drink if things start to go south. Or just don't play strangers.
 

chitownnorth

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
In my experience, in bars, when you win, if you start expecting rules they don't like they say so...and will not like it...and will often quit.

And if they do play the rules you set, when they lose they will blame your rules.

Generally speaking...there are always exceptions.

I am not talking about bars that are pool halls or have several tables where pool is big. I am talking about bars that happen to have a table.

I know a biker bar with 5 Diamond bar tables. That ain't bar pool. It ain't a pool hall either, trust me.

.

I agree. I wrote that in another post regarding if you change the rules.
 

hang-the-9

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Consider this rule...

"If the cue leaves the table, into a pocket or over a rail, the next player has a shot from the kitchen (behind the toe line) and must first hit a ball that is beyond that line or bank off of a rail beyond the line."

It seems grossly unfair. If I scratch and your ball is froze against the kitchen end rail, I am not penalized in the least, but YOU are, as you have to kick at the frozen ball the length of the table.

Why is it this way? Why not ball in hand anywhere on the table like league/pro pool is? And has anyone seen ball in hand played in bar pool anywhere?

I mentioned this last night to a couple of friends at the bar and they both expressed over-the-top disagreement... "that will NEVER work around here." My point was mainly to just discuss the inequity but actually, what would be wrong having a sign on the wall that says here is how we play. Start a movement, lol. Or do you think not having ball in hand is a good rule?

This post was because of "Join Date: Aug 2018" :wink:

In behind the line on a foul rules, if all the legal balls you can hit are behind the line, the closest one to the line gets spotted. But you are not in a situation where players know the rules or care to learn them so even explaining them won't do any good. Some may though so keep trying. I try to explain this rule and how it gives the benefit to the person committing the foul and I wold say about half the players say it makes sense and adjust how they play, usually those more intelligent and/or less drunk.

When I started playing I did not play in a bar or even on a 7 footer for probably 10 or 15 years, maybe in all that time I played 3 times on a 7 footer. My first regular play in a "bar" was when I joined the TAP league, and only reason I did was because our home bar had 9 footers in decent shape. This is not really about bar rules though since even though this was in bars on crappy tables with often newer players, the TAP rules at least are for the most part "real" pool rules.
 
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chefjeff

If not now...
Silver Member
If you call 3 rails and it hits 4 instead yet you make the 8 as called, you lose. That's the time I decided that these "rules" are crap.

What problem could such "rules" create? lol...fights, ruined equipment, pizzing on the game itself.

As long as real players like us feebly excuse the ignoring of the real rules, it can't change and unnecessary fights will taint this beautiful game and it'll suffer for this.

Don't each of us, as players, have a responsibility to help keep this game intact, at the least? I get it that bangers don't care and why should they? But we players who love it and live it? wtf?

I don't get why any real players would ever touch such a farce "tournament"? What value would we get from even playing....or heaven help, "winning" it? What have you won? You might as well play tic tac toe.



Jeff Livingston
 

cuesblues

cue accumulator
Silver Member
Remember the guy who tried to rewrite bar pool rules?
Man did that goof get lit-up.
Basically bar pool isn't pool, it's just another game at the bar.
Twice in the last couple months guys in bars have tried to tell me they
play "gentlemen's pool", call every kiss & rail, no safeties, no ball-in-hand.
I had to explain to them that the only game you call every kiss & rail with no safeties
is bar pool which is not pool.
Nothing gentlemanly about scratching on purpose so your opponent has to lag for the 8-ball.
Bar pool is hillbilly pool.

Personally I won't play bar pool.
In Parker, Colorado they call split shots when two balls are close together and either
one could go in..."Imma gonna split-em"
One time I made the other ball and sat down, my opponent said I made the ball, it
was a split shot, so I got up and kept shooting.
I said "a split shot huh" dumbest thing I've ever heard.

In the last 15-years many bars have adapted to BCA rules, even APA rules in APA
type bars, which is fine with me, but bar pool as we know it is a shitshow.
 

Robert58

AzB Gold Member
Silver Member
What does the above mean?


It means not rolling the Cue ball around the table without hitting your ball or just hitting your ball without making an attempt to make it. In an attempt to obviously play a safety.


If you have a half way good shot at one of your balls you should try to make it

Or if you don't want to make it because the rest of your balls are tied up and you would be giving up an easy runout to your opponent at least make it look good when you miss the ball.
 

Bob Jewett

AZB Osmium Member
Staff member
Gold Member
Silver Member
Remember the guy who tried to rewrite bar pool rules? ...
You mean Pool Killer or Push & Pool or whatever he was calling himself at the time? He seemed to put an awful lot of work into it for someone who never played in a pool hall.
 

cuesblues

cue accumulator
Silver Member
You mean Pool Killer or Push & Pool or whatever he was calling himself at the time? He seemed to put an awful lot of work into it for someone who never played in a pool hall.

Yep
Something like push & pool
Good memory
Pool killer was someone else
 

Swighey

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
People will only respect rules that they feel comfortable with in a bar. It's normally winner's choice and they can set up whatever game/rules they choose (within reason) and that's how it's been for a very long time.

Making the 8 on the break is not the same as making the 9 on the break in 9 ball. In 9 ball you can sink the money ball at anytime on a legal shot to win the game. In 8 ball you have to pocket your group first. This is one of the many reasons that 8 ball is the game that is played on bar tables in bars.

Regarding scratching on the 9 and losing - the rules of 9 ball don’t say this but it’s the sporting thing to do to concede the game if you scratch when the 9 ball is the only object ball on the table. Same in 8 ball if it’s the only ball but this doesn’t need to extend to any scratch on the 8.

Regarding winners choice, well it depends on the environment of the bar. If a bar has rules posted for 8 ball those are the rules played by the winner and the player who is paying for the game. Sure they can agree on a variation within reason but it certainly shouldn’t be winners choice unless that’s an established culture of the bar. And that is not a healthy culture for a bar.

Also, regarding making the 8 on the break to win the game - yes it’s different on a coin-op bar table because you can’t re-rack in this situation but the fairest way to do it is that the game is void, the winner still holds the table, and the same player has the option to pay again or pass the option to the next name on the list.

Sure, anything can go - but that just is not a good set up for bar pool, it’s much better to have an established set of rules that encourage the pool culture of the bar to grow and the players to grow with it.
 

Mr. Wiggles

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
My favorite banger rules was a young lady told me I hit one of HER balls! I cannot run into HER balls while shooting! I adjusted to that and somehow won anyway!!
 

chitownnorth

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Also, regarding making the 8 on the break to win the game - yes it’s different on a coin-op bar table because you can’t re-rack in this situation but the fairest way to do it is that the game is void, the winner still holds the table, and the same player has the option to pay again or pass the option to the next name on the list.

Sure, anything can go - but that just is not a good set up for bar pool, it’s much better to have an established set of rules that encourage the pool culture of the bar to grow and the players to grow with it.

Making the 8 on the break without scratching and winning is most definitely fair in a bar. Anything else is not fair to the breaker or the next guy waiting to play. I have never in my life been to a bar where making the 8 on the break without scratching is not considered winning.
 

cuesblues

cue accumulator
Silver Member
You mean Pool Killer or Push & Pool or whatever he was calling himself at the time? He seemed to put an awful lot of work into it for someone who never played in a pool hall.

Now I remember, the name was pocket point.
Then pocket point 1 through 13, until he got tired of getting banned.
I'm certain he has been back under various aliases since, with his recognizable character.
In fact pocket point was an alias.
 

CGM

It'd be a lot cooler if you did.
Silver Member
League/pro rules are starting to bleed into the bars in San Antonio as its very difficult to find a bar table tourney that doesnt incorporate APA/BCA rules into the event. Now venturing into the small towns around
SA youre going to run into the old school bar rules. As league popularity grows I think you are going to find that the old rules fade away.
 

ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Making the 8 on the break without scratching and winning is most definitely fair in a bar. Anything else is not fair to the breaker or the next guy waiting to play. I have never in my life been to a bar where making the 8 on the break without scratching is not considered winning.
Yep, pretty much has to be that way cause you can't retrieve the 8-ball without pumping more money in to the table, just as if you make the 8-ball on the break and scratch, you lose.

It's funny how that concept seems to have bled over in to some people who claim you lose the game if you scratch on the break - they are just confusing it with making the 8-ball on the break and scratching. If scratching on the break did indeed result in a loss, why would anybody ever want to break?
 
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