"English" 8 Ball

9 ball

9 ball

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I was watching the 2012 CSI US Bar Table Championship 8 ball division match between Francisco Bustamante & Stan Tourangeau when I heard jcin & Ken Schumann talk about English 8 ball & how tight the pockets are let just say from here I have no problem with as I like to know about other disciplines but 8 ball in Britain on a bar box is not an English game so how it got the name English 8 ball I will never know.

The game all you Americans & Brits know as English 8 ball is in actual fact an Australian invention called "Black Ball" with completely different rules so please when referring to 8 ball with the reds & yellows on a bar box please use the term "Black Ball" rather than English 8 ball.
 
9 ball said:
I was watching the 2012 CSI US Bar Table Championship 8 ball division match between Francisco Bustamante & Stan Tourangeau when I heard jcin & Ken Schumann talk about English 8 ball & how tight the pockets are let just say from here I have no problem with as I like to know about other disciplines but 8 ball in Britain on a bar box is not an English game so how it got the name English 8 ball I will never know.

The game all you Americans & Brits know as English 8 ball is in actual fact an Australian invention called "Black Ball" with completely different rules so please when referring to 8 ball with the reds & yellows on a bar box please use the term "Black Ball" rather than English 8 ball.
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I knew it was called Black Ball but didn't know it came from Australia. Thanks for that info. Johnnyt
 
9 ball said:
I was watching the 2012 CSI US Bar Table Championship 8 ball division match between Francisco Bustamante & Stan Tourangeau when I heard jcin & Ken Schumann talk about English 8 ball & how tight the pockets are let just say from here I have no problem with as I like to know about other disciplines but 8 ball in Britain on a bar box is not an English game so how it got the name English 8 ball I will never know.

The game all you Americans & Brits know as English 8 ball is in actual fact an Australian invention called "Black Ball" with completely different rules so please when referring to 8 ball with the reds & yellows on a bar box please use the term "Black Ball" rather than English 8 ball.
Click to expand...
Not as an excuse, but I think we trip up on the names English Billiards vs UK 8-ball (and no, Americans didn't make up the term UK 8-ball, as you know).

Pub rules, BAPTO rules, UK rules…. to those of us who do not closely follow these games lump them all into one. And, as you have pointed out, we are probably inaccurately calling them English 8-ball.

I thought I heard Darren call it English 8-ball, but then again I probably wasn't paying attention either.

Freddie <~~~ English Black Ball it is ( j/k - settle down)
 
Cornerman said:
Not as an excuse, but I think we trip up on the names English Billiards vs UK 8-ball (and no, Americans didn't make up the term UK 8-ball, as you know).

Pub rules, BAPTO rules, UK rules…. to those of us who do not closely follow these games lump them all into one. And, as you have pointed out, we are probably inaccurately calling them English 8-ball.

I thought I heard Darren call it English 8-ball, but then again I probably wasn't paying attention either.

Freddie <~~~ English Black Ball it is ( j/k - settle down)
Click to expand...

I call it UK 8 ball (primarily) because it's as popular in all countries within the UK as it is in England, but I suspect technically it is more proper to refer to it as English 8 ball.
 
9 ball said:
I was watching the 2012 CSI US Bar Table Championship 8 ball division match between Francisco Bustamante & Stan Tourangeau when I heard jcin & Ken Schumann talk about English 8 ball & how tight the pockets are let just say from here I have no problem with as I like to know about other disciplines but 8 ball in Britain on a bar box is not an English game so how it got the name English 8 ball I will never know.

The game all you Americans & Brits know as English 8 ball is in actual fact an Australian invention called "Black Ball" with completely different rules so please when referring to 8 ball with the reds & yellows on a bar box please use the term "Black Ball" rather than English 8 ball.
Click to expand...

Er, what!?

Can you elaborate on this please? In the meantime, I don't believe any nation that has even more crazy 8 ball rules than the UK can possibly hold any entitlement whatsoever. :wink:

But you know blackball refers to the rules, right? There are several codes here - EPA, old EPA, World and Black Ball, with BB being the newcomer, and played by relatively few. IME very, very few people know what BB is.

English 8 ball refers to the size and design of the table, not the specific rules.
 
As I recall Rex Williams (one time pro Snooker and english-Billiards player) saw this version of the game in Australia and brought it to the UK in the late 60's / early 70's for use in pubs.
 
I have yet to find anything that supports the OP claim of Australian origin.

I did find this:

Eight-ball pool (and thus its standardised form blackball), like international-style eight-ball, is derived from an earlier game invented around 1900 and first popularized in 1925 under the name B.B.C. Co. Pool by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company. Like blackball and eight-ball pool today, this forerunner game was played with seven yellow and seven red balls, unnumbered (in contrast to the international-style numbered stripes and solids, sometimes called kelly pool balls in the UK), a black ball, and the cue ball. The game had relatively simple rules compared to the modern game

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackball_(pool)
 
Some confusion here:

"English 8 ball" is what the "rest of the world" call what pool is played in the UK and I would agree it refers to the size and cut of the table and the balls. In the UK it is simply known as "pool" by the vast majority of players.

Blackball is the official rule set of the WPA and all the official governing bodes, except England, who play "world rules", which are the old Australian rules and came about because of a deal done between a promotor here called George Harwood and Australia.

If you are talking UK wide the most dominant rules, without any doubt, are blackball rules as all of Scotland, Wales and most of NI play these rules. However, most of England play their old set of rules (known here as "old EPA rules") as most pool leagues have not adopted world rules.

To further emphasise the decline in world rules, the International Pool Players Association (ipapool.com) moved to blackball rules from world rules about 2 years ago.

The world of English 8 ball is slowly bringing itself into order and under the happy umbrella of the WPA. All that really needs to happen is for the English Pool Association to have a reality check and the game will have a chance.
 
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