Does anyone have a complete set of rules for Cowboy?

TKama

Blind squirrel gets nut
Silver Member
fun game

Object balls: 1,3,5 and cue ball
One ball placed on head spot
3 ball placed on foot spot
5 ball placed on center spot

Object of game: first to score 101pts.
Scoring
First ninety points,
Pocketing any object ball equals its face value
Carom of cue off any two object balls equal one point
Carom of cue off any three object balls equal two points
Points 91 through 100 must be scored by these caroms shots
Point 101 must be scored by caroming the cue off the 1 ball into a called pocket cleanly, that is without touching any ball so you must scratch to win and only off the 1 ball which can’t be pocketed
Opening break
Cue ball in hand, behind head string, must hit three first
At the completion of each shot pocketed balls are replaced on their respected spots
Must hit 90 pt. exactly or it is a foul
During 91 thru 100 it is a foul to pocket a ball
Three consecutive fouls is loss of game
 

TKama

Blind squirrel gets nut
Silver Member
Forgot, on any shot you get cumulative points, so max pts. is 11 by sinking all three balls on a three ball carom.
 

whoaaaa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Fouls during any of your innings results in loss of point accumulated for that inning.
 

Dave Nelson

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
They are in the BCA official rules and records book which you can buy from any billiards supply house for about 10 bucks.

Dave Nelson
 
Object balls: 1,3,5 and cue ball
One ball placed on head spot
3 ball placed on foot spot
5 ball placed on center spot

Object of game: first to score 101pts.
Scoring
First ninety points,
Pocketing any object ball equals its face value
Carom of cue off any two object balls equal one point
Carom of cue off any three object balls equal two points
Points 91 through 100 must be scored by these caroms shots
Point 101 must be scored by caroming the cue off the 1 ball into a called pocket cleanly, that is without touching any ball so you must scratch to win and only off the 1 ball which can’t be pocketed
Opening break
Cue ball in hand, behind head string, must hit three first
At the completion of each shot pocketed balls are replaced on their respected spots
Must hit 90 pt. exactly or it is a foul
During 91 thru 100 it is a foul to pocket a ball
Three consecutive fouls is loss of game

well done!
 

Tramp Steamer

One Pocket enthusiast.
Silver Member
Cocobolo Cowboy. What a guy. Always losing something. Now he can't find his rules. Probably left them at Sally's. I saw him there...what? It's not Cocobolo Cowboy? It's the rules for the game, Cowboy?
My bad. Carry on. :smile:
 

elvicash

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
To play it as a practice game use the 1-head spot,2-center spot,3-foot spot. Ball in kitchen, pocket a ball and carom into one of the other balls. Spot the ball back to its spot. We give the ball number of the pocketed ball and the caromed ball to the shooter so if you make the 2 and carom into the 3 that is a five. We do not do anything special at the end. We will play go to 50 or 100 whatever to warm up. We play it is always needed to pocket a ball and make the carom. I am pretty sure this is not the official rules.

This lite version of cowboy was shown to me by a friend who is a great player and it really brings up your cue ball game. My friend was shown this version by Gregg Hatch (Dennis's father) and as a youth Dennis had a daily Cowboy routine as part of his practice regimen.
 
I was always under the impression that in order to score any points, you had to both POCKET A BALL, and CAROM the cueball into another object ball on the same shot.

To score points for simply pocketing a ball seems to cheapen the game a little, and I would most likely never play it by those rules.
 
To play it as a practice game use the 1-head spot,2-center spot,3-foot spot. Ball in kitchen, pocket a ball and carom into one of the other balls. Spot the ball back to its spot. We give the ball number of the pocketed ball and the caromed ball to the shooter so if you make the 2 and carom into the 3 that is a five. We do not do anything special at the end. We will play go to 50 or 100 whatever to warm up. We play it is always needed to pocket a ball and make the carom. I am pretty sure this is not the official rules.

This lite version of cowboy was shown to me by a friend who is a great player and it really brings up your cue ball game. My friend was shown this version by Gregg Hatch (Dennis's father) and as a youth Dennis had a daily Cowboy routine as part of his practice regimen.

That sounds much closer to the rules I was shown one time.
 

bflgvs

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
We played it almost on a daily basis. But we had our own rules for the game. We wanted to emphasize on learning where the QB was going and how to control it. So we got 2 points for a carom and only 1 point for a pocketed ball. You could get a max of 6 points for 3 caroms on one shot. Also we'd go to 25 points counting a mix of points and caroms and for the remaining 25 points or 75 with only caroms. After we go to 25 points and were shooting only caroms if we scratched or accidently made a ball it was back to zero.

There were more rules than that but thats it in a nutshell. Like I said we focusing on learning QB control.
 

Pushout

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
They are in the BCA official rules and records book which you can buy from any billiards supply house for about 10 bucks.

Dave Nelson

This^. You'll always get local/regional rules which may conflict with official rules. I got into a hell of an argument years ago over rules for Bottle Pool. Turns out the guy I was arguing with was talking about rules for Bottle Billiards and not Bottle Pool:rolleyes:
 
This^. You'll always get local/regional rules which may conflict with official rules. I got into a hell of an argument years ago over rules for Bottle Pool. Turns out the guy I was arguing with was talking about rules for Bottle Billiards and not Bottle Pool:rolleyes:

Yes, you do have a point. But what if my rebuttal was this: Does a rule being official make it the best rule? Or in other words, are official rules correlated with the best rules?

I for one, would disregard any rule where points are obtained for simply pocketing a ball without making a successful carom, and it appears many others have played that way as well. And that is for the sake of making the game more skilled, more engaging to the mind etc.

But we can easily discuss causal links in terms of rules.

Your retort will be something along the lines that the various bar rules for 8-ball are a detriment to the game, and official rules help everyone stay on the page.

My defense will be that these bar players, while important to the overall, are outside the sphere of pool players, even though they may shoot very well. We can safely ignore them, and thus only consider the 8-ball rules played by those who are truly engaged in playing pool. And then you will find that the variety of 8-ball rules played around the world is refined if you exclude the "bar only" players.

I am not trying to diminish the importance of the bar player, I am offering the possibility that his input on the rules of various games does not need to be taken seriously.
 

Pushout

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Yes, you do have a point. But what if my rebuttal was this: Does a rule being official make it the best rule? Or in other words, are official rules correlated with the best rules?

I for one, would disregard any rule where points are obtained for simply pocketing a ball without making a successful carom, and it appears many others have played that way as well. And that is for the sake of making the game more skilled, more engaging to the mind etc.

But we can easily discuss causal links in terms of rules.

Your retort will be something along the lines that the various bar rules for 8-ball are a detriment to the game, and official rules help everyone stay on the page.

My defense will be that these bar players, while important to the overall, are outside the sphere of pool players, even though they may shoot very well. We can safely ignore them, and thus only consider the 8-ball rules played by those who are truly engaged in playing pool. And then you will find that the variety of 8-ball rules played around the world is refined if you exclude the "bar only" players.

I am not trying to diminish the importance of the bar player, I am offering the possibility that his input on the rules of various games does not need to be taken seriously.

I honestly don't know what the hell you're getting at. I don't see anything wrong with playing a game by the rules, that was the way I played and I've also played Bottle Billiards which is what you're talking about and they are two different games.
 
I honestly don't know what the hell you're getting at. I don't see anything wrong with playing a game by the rules, that was the way I played and I've also played Bottle Billiards which is what you're talking about and they are two different games.

The only argument I am bringing forth is the question of whether official rules are necessarily the best rules for a given game. We can entertain the question for each game if you wish.

For certain other games such as chess, if I proposed we play by different rules, you would say that we could do that, but we then are no longer playing chess.

But is it different for pool games? Perhaps the official rules state that an 8-ball on the break wins the game. Is that necessarily the BEST rule to play by?

Certainly you now see the nature of my intended discussion. And we can apply this to any of the pool games and discuss the merits of the argument.
 
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Pushout

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
The only argument I am bringing forth is the question of whether official rules are necessarily the best rules for a given game. We can entertain the question for each game if you wish.

For certain other games such as chess, if I proposed we play by different rules, you would say that we could that, but we then are no longer playing chess.

But is it different for pool games? Perhaps the official rules state that an 8-ball on the break wins the game. Is that necessarily the BEST rule to play by?

Certainly you now see the nature of my intended discussion. And we can apply this to any of the pool games and discuss the merits of the argument.

Not worth arguing over, IMNSHO.
 

John Novak

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Object balls: 1,3,5 and cue ball
One ball placed on head spot
3 ball placed on foot spot
5 ball placed on center spot

Object of game: first to score 101pts.
Scoring
First ninety points,
Pocketing any object ball equals its face value
Carom of cue off any two object balls equal one point
Carom of cue off any three object balls equal two points
Points 91 through 100 must be scored by these caroms shots
Point 101 must be scored by caroming the cue off the 1 ball into a called pocket cleanly, that is without touching any ball so you must scratch to win and only off the 1 ball which can’t be pocketed
Opening break
Cue ball in hand, behind head string, must hit three first
At the completion of each shot pocketed balls are replaced on their respected spots
Must hit 90 pt. exactly or it is a foul
During 91 thru 100 it is a foul to pocket a ball
Three consecutive fouls is loss of game

Penalty for Fouls

All points made this inning are forfeit. Scratch or cue ball off table is ball in hand behind the head string. For all other fouls opponent takes the table in position.
 
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