Dawgie said:
Mike, click on the APA site as posted above and print the rules. Read them and know them.
I recently had an incident where I broke but miscued and hit the side of the rack and 4 balls did touch the rails. Our oppenet's team cap't. called a foul. My team cap't went along with the "foul" and gave BIH (ball in hand). I am fairly new myself and didn't give it another thought. The next day I did think about it and looked up the rule. Guess what! this is NOT a foul. It is re-rack and re-break by the breaker, me. The next day I spoke to my team cap't and he again told me this was a foul and stated that he should know b/c he is a APA rep.
Sooooooo - know your rules. You can't depend on others and in this case a team cap't and APA rep. for the answers.
yeah always have a copy of the rule book around. Especially for the APA - it always amazes me how many urban legend/myth rules float around out there.
I constantly hear people saying you can't use money to mark your pocket either when someone uses a wallet or when discussing "proper" markers in general. Fact of the matter is you can use anything *including* chalk, the rule book only says "To properly mark the pocket, a coaster or some other
reasonable marker (to avoid confusion, we do not recommend marking the
pocket with chalk) must be placed next to the pocket the 8-ball is intended to enter." Be sure to read this years rule book as it was changed from the prior one that said chalk couldn't be used.
APA rules are always confusing for no good reason. The rule should not say "some other reasonable marker". Anything that does not interfere with the path of the cue should be allowed. Putting in "some other reasonable marker" just means that eventually someone will argue with you about whether or not your marker is reasonable - people always find something to argue about in the rules...
This is another big failing of the APA - they should simply adopt the world standardized rules and have a list of exceptions (like ball in hand behind the line after the break would be an exception, you have to stick with whatever group goes down on the break would be another). There are more vagueries and inconsistancies in the APA rules than the world standardized ones.