British 8 ball.

mnorwood

mnorwood

Moon
Silver Member
A few weeks ago someone predicted that the Britsh 8 ball players were going to do well. I have noticed that many of the Brits, most I have never heard of, are indeed playing very well.

Can anyone provide details about the difference between American and British 8 ball rules and equipment? How popular is 8 ball in Britian?
 
the main differences are that ball in hand is behind the headstring, you usually can only shoot down the table from it, and you get one extra free shot if you miss.

people usually say you only get one shot on the black as well.

the center pockets are cut very different to american pool, they're rounded. there's pro's and cons with this i feel. the near jaw is never a problem, but you cant expect to hit the far jaw side of the pocket and have the pocket take it like in american.

also the cushion's and cloth are very fast. and another thing - most pub tables use a smaller cue ball to seperate it in the ball return system. why not use a bigger one? cus when it's on the rail theres barely any cue ball to hit lol. thats just a pet peeve.

and thats about it. personally i dont like the game much. too small and fiddly, and it's also responsible for all the ignorance surrounding pool as well lol. (always frustrating when all the american pool tables are taken at my local snooker club, and you see people taking 'two shots' and 'free ball' behind the headstring, and using the tiny english pool cues when there's about three american pool cues standing right behind them. can't they realise, bigger balls, bigger cue!)

overall it's fun for fifteen minutes every now and again, but no longer!
 
worriedbeef said:
the main differences are that ball in hand is behind the headstring, you usually can only shoot down the table from it.....
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To "only shoot down the table" after ball in hand behind the headstring doesn't exist in any of the rule sets used for official pool competitions in UK and never has.That is a very localised house rule only used in pool backwaters.

The main rule sets are:-

"Fed Rules" (now in the process of being replaced by "Blackball Rules",you can find them in the rules section of wpa.com website).

"World Rules",you can find them on the epa.org.uk site.

"Old EPA Rules" ,you can find them on the same website as above epa.org.uk.These rules were the predecessors of "World Rules" yet are still used by a lot of regional leagues within the national set up.

There are two completely separate national teams,one for each of the "World Rules" and "Fed/Blackball Rules" governing organisations, for each of the countries making up the UK.

There is a certain amount of bickering and rivalry between the two camps.
 
Tables are smaller, pockets are smaller and have rounded corners (this means that playing balls down the rails is more difficult and as such most UK 8ball players are used to having to alwayys hit the heart of the pocket.

As a blackball rules player I find the game more attacking thna in the past (used to play Fed rules) but still would say that there is a big tactical side to the game. The samller table means that rarely do you try to create distance and the samller table means more clusters resulting in some very clever snookers (I would feel bad if a player could hit a ball off one cushion).
 
Lots of good info already given, I'd like to add that what gives these guys an edge in my opinion is that 8 ball traditionally in the UK has contained huge amounts of safety given the rules in the past. I have seen games last an hour before 1 BALL was even potted!!! :eek: This of course killed the game as a spectator sport so the rules have slowly evolved and the game got some TV coverage, the world championships (usually made up of only a few countries that have similar tables like Australia, Sth Africe, France, etc).

I used to practice the game 8 hours a day and I'm sure the current players d the same if not more, they are pretty dedicated, most of them play snooker also and are all great potters/cueists.

The balls and tables are the biggest change they face but they proved in the BCA nationals this year that even this handicap can't stop them.

They might fall short in this event but if the IPT survives long term expect a flood of Brits from 8 ball, 9 ball AND snooker to do extreemly well.
 
To give you an idea of tactics, the mian problem with UK 8 ball compared to the much better IMO American rules is that you can't pot your opponents ball even if you make one of your own. If you do that at any time then you give away two shots. So of course what tends to happen is that a player would put one of his balls over the top corner pocket, sometimes both of them!

Guess what happens then, yep the other player would put his ball in front of the other guys ball, sometimes two so he couldn't hit it! so you'd end up with clusters of balls, sometimes more than 5 around a pocket. So given that no player would risk going for the finish unless he was 90% sure he was going to make it the games would take a long time. Players would often get two shots, clear a few of their opponents balls and better position their own and then snooker again. Often a player would put two of how own balls over another corner pocket at the other end of the table, pot the ball over the pocket and snooker behind the other ball in the jaws making the escape almost impossible.


I realise sometime ago that the American rules are much more attacking, add to that the large balls and 9ft tables and I think you have the perfect game to bring the best players around the world together.


My money's still on the Brits though! ;)
 
To "only shoot down the table" after ball in hand behind the headstring doesn't exist in any of the rule sets used for official pool competitions in UK and never has.That is a very localised house rule only used in pool backwaters.
Click to expand...

yeah i know that i didn't articulate my point too well. i just brought it up as an insight into some of the common perceptions of the pool rules. :)
 
TheOne said:
To give you an idea of tactics, the mian problem with UK 8 ball compared to the much better IMO American rules is that you can't pot your opponents ball even if you make one of your own. If you do that at any time then you give away two shots. So of course what tends to happen is that a player would put one of his balls over the top corner pocket, sometimes both of them!

Guess what happens then, yep the other player would put his ball in front of the other guys ball, sometimes two so he couldn't hit it! so you'd end up with clusters of balls, sometimes more than 5 around a pocket. So given that no player would risk going for the finish unless he was 90% sure he was going to make it the games would take a long time. Players would often get two shots, clear a few of their opponents balls and better position their own and then snooker again. Often a player would put two of how own balls over another corner pocket at the other end of the table, pot the ball over the pocket and snooker behind the other ball in the jaws making the escape almost impossible.


I realise sometime ago that the American rules are much more attacking, add to that the large balls and 9ft tables and I think you have the perfect game to bring the best players around the world together.


My money's still on the Brits though! ;)
Click to expand...


Thankfully, the ruleset I play (Blackball) allow combination shots, this means if you pot your ball in a legal shot you can also pot an opponents ball at the same time. The combo bshot is also allowed when you are on your last ball, you can pot your ball in a legal shot and also the black.
 
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