“Capture The Flag” pool game

D

DrDaleks

New member
Hi there,

I thought I’d share this new game I came up with. It’s basically a distant cousin of capture the flag, on a regular pool table (compatible with English pool and snooker as well). it features a blend of many existing pool variants, and a few extra touches from non-cue sports.
I’d be delighted to here your thoughts and especially feedback if you get the chance to try it out at home or at your local pool hall. Rules may definitely evolve as the game ages, so consider this just a “1.0” release.
cheers

link: https://link.medium.com/Mg8zQNLHkbb
 
Samiel said:
I'd like to see a video overview/gameplay of this game.
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Sure. I’ll shoot one as soon as I get the chance. I’ve tried to describe some of the key moments in the article, but clearly videos would greatly improve. Will update here when done.
 
Thanks for posting this and showing some creativity.

I always find it odd that more games aren’t played in billiards. My friends and I made up and play two games And play hem as much as we play Snooker. These are ‘Stalingrad) and the Battle of Britain. One focuses on long ball pocketing (snipers) and the other with safety play.( protecting colours, the bombers from red balls, the fighters).

A Benefit of making up games isn’t just the fun playing games but is also is is also a way of honing skills. I never ‘practice’ but play games that emphasize some aspect of the game.

I’ll give ‘capture he flag’ a try.
 
Geosnookery said:
Thanks for posting this and showing some creativity.

I always find it odd that more games aren’t played in billiards. My friends and I made up and play two games And play hem as much as we play Snooker. These are ‘Stalingrad) and the Battle of Britain. One focuses on long ball pocketing (snipers) and the other with safety play.( protecting colours, the bombers from red balls, the fighters).

A Benefit of making up games isn’t just the fun playing games but is also is is also a way of honing skills. I never ‘practice’ but play games that emphasize some aspect
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Thx ! That’s precisely one of the goals I had in mind when design this.

The two games you mentioned sound interesting, do you have a write up of the rules somewhere?

Fwiw I’m looking to compile a few such “exotic” pool games (among other billiardy things) into a medium publication (which the present article is a part of), so in case youd be willing to share, let me know!
 
Back in the early days of billiards they played a game called Fortification Billiards, it involved "pieces" to block the enemy that you earned I think by performing certain shots . The tables had a hole at each end thru which you sent a ball to score, again I don't remember much about the game , other than it sounded like fun.
I think a game with obstacles, and involving strategy decisions would be a lot of fun. Instead of holes you could use a cupped piece of wood with ramped sides that would capture the ball when hit at the correct speed.
 
initially seems too complex, with several nods to simplicity.

have to see it to really comment.

i love new drills that are creative.
 
book collector said:
Back in the early days of billiards they played a game called Fortification Billiards, it involved "pieces" to block the enemy that you earned I think by performing certain shots . The tables had a hole at each end thru which you sent a ball to score, again I don't remember much about the game , other than it sounded like fun.
I think a game with obstacles, and involving strategy decisions would be a lot of fun. Instead of holes you could use a cupped piece of wood with ramped sides that would capture the ball when hit at the correct speed.
Click to expand...
Yes there are quite a few variations of obstacle-based billiards out there. Some of the oldest include “bumper pool” (mostly popular in Belgium), “bar billiards” in the UK (which eventually led to the pinballs we know today), “bottle pool” in the US, or “5 pin billiards” in Italy. And of course each have had three variations as they exported to other countries. Never heard of fortification billiards, but just looked up and it seems even older so! I’ll definitely dive deeper in.
I’m planning to write about these forgotten games because they open so many possibilities that we ironically rediscover with non billiards strategy games today.
thanks for the pointer!
 
markjames said:
initially seems too complex, with several nods to simplicity.

have to see it to really comment.

i love new drills that are creative.
Click to expand...
Trust me, it’s rather simple once you actually play it. That’s the issue with official rules where you have to cover every possibility and the wording is important. Long story short: break the rack, pot in the opposite corners. The rest is just extra hacking to give bonuses or penalties (but this is arguably the whole point, as it forces the players to interact more than, say, in regular 8-ball)
 
markjames said:
initially seems too complex, with several nods to simplicity.

have to see it to really comment.

i love new drills that are creative.
Click to expand...
I can tell you first hand, what a difference just a minor change can make, in some games.
I used to play 8 ball in all the bars around Columbus Ohio. I usually came out winner for the night, by staying away from the haunts of the best players in town. Each one had a home base and seldom strayed from there. The big problem was, if there was actually a good gambling game , there would be 20 quarters on the rail all night long, and many arguments about whos quarter was who's.
I played a guy one afternoon and he would only play if we made the 8 ball in the same pocket you shot your last ball in . I had never seen it before , but was confident I would still beat him.
I lost 180 dollars at 10 a game over the next few hours, I won a game here and there but it was clear , the guy understood the game better than I did.
We were probably equal in skill except the last pocket strategy.
I left the bar later ,with that sick feeling you get when you blow the rent money, and it's Monday. I was driving home swearing at myself for getting in a gaff game to begin with, when I realized I had just caught a glimpse, of the mythical Golden Goose!
I had no lack of confidence in those days and I figured if I got victimized by this game , there was going to be a lot of other people, I struggled beating now, who would be my suckers afterward , at least for a while ,until they figured the game out, like I was planning on doing.
I went home and sat up all night for a few days drawing scenarios of balls and new patterns of running out .
I thought I was ready by Friday and went to a regular spot of mine early and got the table .
Back then , whoever had the table called the game , so I said 8 ball 5 a game ,, but you have to make the 8 ball in the same pocket you make your last ball.
I played well, and I got lucky a lot, but I kept the table pretty much , all night long , Over the next few years, I had many many nights where I would start on a table at about 7 and never lose a game and play till closing. I doubt even a world champion could have done that just by out shooting everyone in a regular game. and I was a low to mid B player at best.
I was lucky in a way , because for quite a while ,people seemed to really like the game, and they all thought they played it better than everyone else, After a while the games got to be for less and less money for me, and harder to get anyone to try, so I just semi retired from the scene.
I must say a thanks to Kingfish for introducing me to the game though, it made a huge impact on my pool economics. I just realized when I finished this, that it happened 50 years ago, seems like it was only a few years ago in my mind. Bear in mind that bar
players were no where near the caliber of players they are today, leagues have improved the play tremendously.
 
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DrDaleks said:
Yes there are quite a few variations of obstacle-based billiards out there. Some of the oldest include “bumper pool” (mostly popular in Belgium), “bar billiards” in the UK (which eventually led to the pinballs we know today), “bottle pool” in the US, or “5 pin billiards” in Italy. And of course each have had three variations as they exported to other countries. Never heard of fortification billiards, but just looked up and it seems even older so! I’ll definitely dive deeper in.
I’m planning to write about these forgotten games because they open so many possibilities that we ironically rediscover with non billiards strategy games today.
thanks for the pointer!
Click to expand...
Re ‘Bar Billiards’. This was the first billiards game I ever played. In Brighton in the late 1960’s on a trip to a pub with my uncle. I still play a very loose variation cross table on half my Snooker table using wooden 3” skittle pins and 2” balls. Extra pins substituting for holes.

I’ve never seen a Bar Billiards table here in Canada. Might build one some day. Use the scraps from a freebie Pool table.
 
This is very cool! Thank you for sharing. I read your write up and it is obvious you’ve spent a lot of time and thought on this game.

One thing I think would make the game cooler would be to treat the 8 ball as the flag. Learning to break up clusters to continue a run and playing position to center of the table are both important skills. By making the eight ball the flag you could encourage position routes through center table that would place the 8 in a favorable position. When in the run to make a move would add to the strategy.
 
VarmintKong said:
This is very cool! Thank you for sharing. I read your write up and it is obvious you’ve spent a lot of time and thought on this game.

One thing I think would make the game cooler would be to treat the 8 ball as the flag. Learning to break up clusters to continue a run and playing position to center of the table are both important skills. By making the eight ball the flag you could encourage position routes through center table that would place the 8 in a favorable position. When in the run to make a move would add to the strategy.
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Actually, I had several more ways in mind to use the 8-ball more than it is now, but there are several reasons I didn’t go forward (yet).
Firstly, I figured the game would become too complex (as some readers have already pointed out), and most people probably won’t try a new game if it takes hours to get the rules (unless you’re a board gamer of course, but that’s not a fully overlapping population 😉)
Secondly, when trying out this option, I quickly realized that fighting for the same “flag” makes the game last *considerably* longer, since you spend a lot of time un-building what the opponent constructs, and Vice versa.

In any case, all these ideas are duly noted, and may appear in “official variants” of the game at a later stage
Here is one you might like (I removed it last minute for the above reasons, but it might come back if people like it): if you capture a ball starting with a direct hit on the 8-ball, you get a double jailbreak (two of your lost balls are respawned). This is somewhat of a gamble: if you miss the capture, you get a penalty, because you just hit the 8-ball first.
 
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