BAR RULES and DIRTY POOL – Why Official Rules are Important

Tonight while playing at a bar at which I'm a regular, I played a guy I'd never seen before. It was my table, and my break, and I politely introduced myself and asked him if he preferred to play "make it take it" or open after the break (I honestly didn't care). He frowned, seemingly insulted and said, "I play by gentleman's rules."
 
Jedco said:
Tonight while playing at a bar at which I'm a regular, I played a guy I'd never seen before. It was my table, and my break, and I politely introduced myself and asked him if he preferred to play "make it take it" or open after the break (I honestly didn't care). He frowned, seemingly insulted and said, "I play by gentleman's rules."
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Did he later ask you if you were unrestricted to buy Robitussin at your local Rite Aid?
 
lets see . all who complain about the govt. putting so many rules on us, are you trying to put your idea of rules on the bar players that play for fun.
in most bars they say try to make the ball you are shooting at. to do otherwise is chickenshit.
it has worked for them in the bars for as long as i remember.
 
maha said:
lets see . all who complain about the govt. putting so many rules on us, are you trying to put your idea of rules on the bar players that play for fun.
in most bars they say try to make the ball you are shooting at. to do otherwise is chickenshit.
it has worked for them in the bars for as long as i remember.
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But the real problem with “bar rules” is there are too many “rules” and they are different in every bar and depend on who you play. Watch the video again with this in mind.
 
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Jedco said:
I disagree with the statement that bar rules have been working for people as long as you can remember. As long as I can remember, inconsistent, ambiguous bar rules have caused confusion and conflict up to and including murder.
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... and don't forget all the "broken thumbs." :geek:
 
Facebook has a feature called Reels, which for those of you who don't use it, are short little videos that appear in your news feed. Of course there is an algorithm that dictates what appears, and at some point I've looked at enough pool related stuff that Reels featuring pool stuff shows up for me.

Last night I clicked on one to see how they made the shot in question, which was pretty cool, driving the cue into one object ball, into another to make the shot. Then I clocked on the comments. Ohhhh my, that was fun. All the people in there saying how it didn't go clean, and this and that. All the while a few folks tried correcting them. Comments of "most people play Straight 8, that's a foul" and such.

Thought of this thread after reading down that comment section. Heh heh.
 
2019 on a 6 month assignment in Lake Charles, Louisiana. I’m playing at a little pub called Linda’s Lounge. A desolate area as far as pool goes, with nothing but 7’ Valley bar boxes as far as the eye can see (you have go all the way to Beaumont to avoid them, and even then your met with the rare pool hall 8’ Olhausen at Fast Eddie’s).

But, Linda’s was the place that people with their own cues would go to shoot for a while, and they had sign up boards so people can rotate in.

So I’m playing and I win two in a row in not “world beating” fashion. But either way it drew the sharks out. All of a sudden my opponent lost control of his bladder and had to go to the bathroom twice in one rack, and I eventually call my ball off to carom off the 8.

As soon as I hit it, my opponent (now with, what I assume to be, a really empty bladder) calls foul since the 8-ball can’t be part of any shot. My only question was why didn’t he correct me when I called exactly that prior to shooting. All told this whole exchange didn’t bother me much.

However, at this point some bystander says “that’s the rule wherever you go in this country” - and at this point I just about lost a gasket.

Louisiana is the 11th state I’ve lived in, playing at least a rack of pool in all of them. I also spent 7 years in the Navy serving with folks from all 50 states, and figuring out how to play just a simple rack of pool was a legitimate problem we faced because the details were so different. Furthermore, that’s not even the rule 50 miles from Lake Charles.

At this point one of the other guys playing sensed the frustration on my face and clarified “yes, the pubs in lake Charles abide by this rule”
 
dave there are more rules in the pool book of rules, than in any bar.

its just the bar rules are different in every area or even bar. its their bar. and i wish as well they had more standard rules. but
dont people have different rules in their own house or place of business that they make up. sure they do and that is what we live by and a good system.

if playing for money take the time to find out all the rules or wing it as you choose.
if playing for fun in the bar go with the flow. a person's ego to have to win a game isn't in the right place in a bar.
 
dr_dave said:
If the "bar rules" were actually written in a book, to make them clear and unambiguous, the "book" would be longer. Actually, Freddie Agnir took a stab at this. See:

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The consistencies of bar pool are just as impressive as as the inconsistencies though. To the best of my knowledge there isn’t some small town in Vermont using full table BIH on a foul.

Similarly none of the 25,000+ versions of bar pool spot a ball in the kitchen when a scratch causes the incoming player to not have a clean shot. This is true even though in the time kitchen BIH was the norm, this was the corrective action to the “beneficial scratch”
 
maha said:
dave there are more rules in the pool book of rules, than in any bar.

its just the bar rules are different in every area or even bar. its their bar. and i wish as well they had more standard rules. but
dont people have different rules in their own house or place of business that they make up. sure they do and that is what we live by and a good system.

if playing for money take the time to find out all the rules or wing it as you choose.
if playing for fun in the bar go with the flow. a person's ego to have to win a game isn't in the right place in a bar.
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When we play a game at someone's we usually use the standard rules that come with the game rather than making our own up. That would be pretty easy for folks at bars to do instead of trying to make up their own ridiculous rules, especially in this day and age of smart phones and the interweb. Write out every rule to a game of 8 ball for any particular bar, I would guess that it would probably be longer than the rule books of BCAPL,WPA, etc. As for taking the time to find out the rules before you play you really cant, there undoubtably will be a situation that arises that was not covered in the rule set that they were trying to verbalize to you and in the end someone will end the night unhappy about the situation. If they had that really long rule book you speak of it could easily be researched in minutes to get an answer where everyone is satisfied.
 
dr_dave said:
But the real problem with “bar rules” is there are too many “rules” and they are different in every bar and depend on who you play. Watch the video again with this in mind.
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Same problem with leagues tho, there are a bunch of leagues and none of them use the internationally recognized rule set as far as I know.

My father, a long time us league players, was bewildered when people called foul on him during a tournament for his sweater touching a ball as he leaned over it.
 
book collector said:
I had a lot of bs things happen to me over the years in bars but the funniest story I know , I wasn't involved in.
A friend of mine and his buddy went in a bar and as the game went on they were pretty sure they would win , down to the 8 ball and oppponents had a cluster they couldn't break up easily, then the guy shooting broke up their problem balls and scratched, The eight ball was in the kitchen and my buddys friend started to shoot it in the pocket and the guy that scratched said , you have to kick at the 8 ball in this bar when behind the line, they started protesting and about 10 locals got up and the guy said what do I do , my buddy says, "I suggest kicking" . lol
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Just pretend to kick at it, miss the 8 and leave the cue ball against the head rail. Just a basic lag. Depends where their balls are though.
 
complete set of bar room pool rules:

1.play like a gentleman, no chicken shit pool allowed
2. try hard to make the ball you are shooting at
3. if unsure ask
4. do what you are told is right or fight

i was going to shorten them up for those that get confused easily but i decided to list the complete set.
 
maha said:
complete set of bar room pool rules:

1.play like a gentleman, no chicken shit pool allowed
2. try hard to make the ball you are shooting at
3. if unsure ask
4. do what you are told is right or fight

i was going to shorten them up for those that get confused easily but i decided to list the complete set.
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“Chicken shit pool” - try defining that chicken shit weasely term :ROFLMAO:
 
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