acesinc1999, I wasn't implying the frozen ball rule was part of American snooker rules - it isn't. It's part of international rules and it's wacko. 
How to rid foul & miss & speed up snooker
- Thread starter Colin Colenso
- Start date
Well, the FAAM rule has changed, at least in it's implementation and I'm sure in definition. When I first started playing snooker players used to get away with missing by a few inches and running back to safety.. kinda breaking a gentleman's rule, much like the unwritten gentleman's rule in billiards that we shouldn't pot the opponent's cue ball.
Allowing a player to foul, and take the penalty, with incoming player having the choice of shot, would actually take the game closer to how it was traditionally played. They may not have called it a push out, but they were deliberately fouling... easier I think to just drop the pretense of a silly gentleman's rule and make it a simple point penalty to deliberately foul and give the incoming player the option to send the player back in, as they have done for many years.
Fact is, the player's are not giving themselves the best possible chance at getting out of snookers anyway these days, so they are deliberately risking a foul... which makes the old gentleman's agreement mute.
I can live without changing to hit a rail.. allowing the option of deliberate foul would reduce the number of the dribble behind baulk colors and into the pack shots anyway.
acesinc1999, I wasn't implying the frozen ball rule was part of American snooker rules - it isn't. It's part of international rules and it's wacko.
Thanks, now I get it. When someone says "frozen ball", I assume they are talking about an American version of a game. The "international" version in my mind is touching ball.
As for "wacko", I guess it's just a matter of perspective. I cut my teeth on the BSCC (Billiard and Snooker Control Council) Rules when I was a teenager which really goes back before the professional game was "international"ized, strictly British Empire players in those days (not meaning to offend any of the Republic of Ireland players, they were the exception being so close geographically I suppose.). The touching ball rule was always in the BSCC version and so that was just the way things were so it seems very natural to me. Just a product of our environment for both of us.
Still that rule 11) in the BCA American Snooker Rules sticks in my craw; it appears to be some kind of American Rules version of the "free ball" rule. If I am reading it right, it seems to say that if the fouling player leaves the table with the ball on snookered, then the incoming player can mark the snookering ball, remove it from the table temporarily, take his shot at the ball on, NOT pot it (would be a foul if he did), then replace the ball he removed, and it is the original fouling player's turn next no matter what. Now THAT is wacko and I have never heard of anything even remotely similar in ANY pool, snooker, or billiard game. Am I reading it right? Has anyone EVER played anything like this before? I am utterly perplexed and right now I am assuming I must be reading that incorrectly. Can anyone help me out with this one? pt?
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Hey Scaramouche,Rule change will not come about from discussions in the snooker forum of an American pool site.
Suggest proposed changes be vetted on the UK snooker forum site.
http://www.thesnookerforum.co.uk/board/
I figure here is a good place to float the idea and get some feedback, without being branded a troll on thesnookerforum.com :grin:
No idea myself either Aceinc, haven't ever seen a game where a ball is removed temporarily. Frozen ball in US games usually refers to a ball on a cushion (rail), this leads to variations of interpretations and rules, such as if that rail is dead even to CB contact when counting rails hit and whether or not the OB is considered to have hit.
Not sure if you know it, but in most US 8-ball games, I believe, if one is touching the OB with the CB, you can fire straight into it and if you fire away, it doesn't count as having touched the ball.
Interestingly, the tradition is UK 8 ball, at least in Oz where I play it, has been to allow straight hits through close to touching CB and OB. If I had my way, I'd always give the player the advantage, in the hope of creative shotmaking. Allow shooting through touching and non-touching balls, so long as there was one accellerating motion without change of direction during the stroke.
Probably off topic, but part of this may be relevant to the frozen ball issue.
Colin, I just had a flash of inspiration over my morning coffee. It goes like this:
Your original post is suggesting that we should eliminate FAAM and replace it with the option to purposely commit a foul. I don't know how big basketball is in Australia but here in the US, the NBA takes the concept of committing a foul on purpose to an EXTREME, so much so that the running joke is to not bother watching an NBA game until the final two minutes of the game which can sometimes drag out for twenty actual minutes or more in real life due to all the purposeful fouls to stop the clock. I think that is probably one of the reasons I haven't watched an NBA game in forty years. And the irony is that your intent is to speed up the game, but the NBA's purposeful fouls do just the opposite, so much so that they eventually had to go to a clock which breaks down into increments of tenths of a second. There are plays that can last (supposedly) two or three tenths of a seconds before the clock is stopped again due to a foul on purpose. (I can't help but see video clips and I do watch the very occasional college game, not NBA.)
I just can't wrap my head around the idea of committing a foul on purpose. To me, it would be like living in society and eventually saying, "Well, I guess this situation leaves me no choice but to commit murder then." My brain just can't process this.
So I postulate this theorem: If, like me, you are not a fan of the NBA, then you are likely to be in favor of the Foul and a Miss. If you are an NBA fan, then you would likely wish to see the FAAM repealed and replaced with a "push out" type rule.
Anyone, please post if you have an opinion.
Your original post is suggesting that we should eliminate FAAM and replace it with the option to purposely commit a foul. I don't know how big basketball is in Australia but here in the US, the NBA takes the concept of committing a foul on purpose to an EXTREME, so much so that the running joke is to not bother watching an NBA game until the final two minutes of the game which can sometimes drag out for twenty actual minutes or more in real life due to all the purposeful fouls to stop the clock. I think that is probably one of the reasons I haven't watched an NBA game in forty years. And the irony is that your intent is to speed up the game, but the NBA's purposeful fouls do just the opposite, so much so that they eventually had to go to a clock which breaks down into increments of tenths of a second. There are plays that can last (supposedly) two or three tenths of a seconds before the clock is stopped again due to a foul on purpose. (I can't help but see video clips and I do watch the very occasional college game, not NBA.)
I just can't wrap my head around the idea of committing a foul on purpose. To me, it would be like living in society and eventually saying, "Well, I guess this situation leaves me no choice but to commit murder then." My brain just can't process this.
So I postulate this theorem: If, like me, you are not a fan of the NBA, then you are likely to be in favor of the Foul and a Miss. If you are an NBA fan, then you would likely wish to see the FAAM repealed and replaced with a "push out" type rule.
Anyone, please post if you have an opinion.
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acesinc1999, I wasn't implying the frozen ball rule was part of American snooker rules - it isn't. It's part of international rules and it's wacko.
The touching ball rule makes perfect sense to me, the pool rule is whacked imo, you are essentially forced to play a push shot or hit another ball when you are already hitting a ball.
If the "touching ball" rule makes sense, then in a situation where the cue ball is frozen to a red (touching it 
) how can you legally shoot a color and not foul?
As for rule 11 in the Brunswick rules, I have never even seen that used in a game of snooker. I've never played by those rules - just variations that were often close.
I've no real problem with international rules but I still think the "touching ball" rule is nutty. It would be fine with me if there were tons of snooker rooms in the USA where international rules were followed.
) how can you legally shoot a color and not foul?As for rule 11 in the Brunswick rules, I have never even seen that used in a game of snooker. I've never played by those rules - just variations that were often close.
I've no real problem with international rules but I still think the "touching ball" rule is nutty. It would be fine with me if there were tons of snooker rooms in the USA where international rules were followed.
Underclocked, I think I have a way to help explain the British (International) concept of "touching ball" and perhaps make it more palatable for you. See how this works:
I am thinking of an optical illusion.....I am sure you have seen it. Simply, two symmetrical curvy vertical lines, the three segments are simply colored alternating black and white. When you look, you see on each side a forehead, eye socket, nose, lips, chin......two faces looking at each other! But you blink. Now, you see.....a vase! So which is it in reality? What the image is at any given moment is simply at the whim of the beholder.
Like Schrodinger's fabled cat is both alive and dead simultaneously, the cue ball has both made first contact with, and not made first contact with the "touching ball". I believe this is what the quantum physicists label as the "duality principle" and it works very well to explain many things of a scientific nature. The quantum wave collapses on the reality of whether or not the cue ball has made contact with the touching ball simply based on the need of the striker at the moment. Generally speaking, "touching ball" is considered a better situation to find yourself in than "very, very close" because it leaves a lot more potential shot choices.
I believe the touching ball rule is elegant, as opposed to skewering your frozen balls with your cue as if they were so many shish kabobs. No matter what spin you may put on it (no pun intended), it is a "push shot" (and a foul) in the book of any snooker player. At first, Albert Einstein didn't think that quantum physics made sense either, but he came to accept that it really is the way the world works.
"Science!" - Bill Nye :idea:
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Oh yes, that helped immensely. :grin::grin-square:
Hi Acesinc,
All games have had issues with fouls and deliberate fouls. And many solutions have been found, including several variations in billiard sports.
Occasionally we see deliberate fouls in 9-ball, such as pushing a 6 onto an 8, to make the out harder, instead of attempting kicking out of a hard snooker. The penalty of ball in hand means the shot is not one of advantage, but lessening the disadvantage.
If you've seen UK 8 ball (blackball), a game I've played heaps of, deliberate fouling happens very often, sometimes several times a frame... most usually potting an opponent's ball that is blocking a pocket. The penalty is 2 shots away, but this strategy is often the best way to lessen the disadvantage and sometimes it is even a match winning shot.
In one pocket the deliberate foul is used too... also in billiards at times. And fact is, it is a part of the tradition in snooker, albeit with the pretense of innocence. And, the original 9 ball, the game that the best chose to play, allowed deliberate fouls, albeit with a penalty. It's FAAM that stands out as the weirdest solution to this age old dilemma, and it grew out of trying to enforce a gentleman's agreement.
I think it's a matter of trying to reward appropriately and punish appropriately, and to do it in a way that allows a game to flow naturally. I am certain that the 1 deliberate miss rule would make snooker and faster and more aggressive game, in the same way it affects 9 ball.
As a reminder: 1st miss, the penalty is that the opponent can send you back in. 2nd miss, the penalty is ball in hand. This ball in hand will happen rarely, and almost always it will be a penalty against the player who missed deliberately and messed it up by snookering himself.
Not a big basketball watcher, but I have seen the effect you're talking about. In that case, they haven't found a just rule to penalize the team that fouls deliberately it seems.
I'd say snooker's touching ball rule is arbitrary, and that it eliminates a very interesting and creative skill set from the game.
There's an art, via use of english, direction and speed to push through a touching ball to send it toward a pocket if it's within 5 degrees of the line of balls. There's another art in manipulating the cue ball to various positions around the table from these shots, at times incorporating masse'. Shots that might astound the viewers, if only they weren't deemed fouls. There in lies elegance imho
There's an art, via use of english, direction and speed to push through a touching ball to send it toward a pocket if it's within 5 degrees of the line of balls. There's another art in manipulating the cue ball to various positions around the table from these shots, at times incorporating masse'. Shots that might astound the viewers, if only they weren't deemed fouls. There in lies elegance imho
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Snooker is like great music it requires dynamics. All out defense or offense is tedious and you lose the drama, I like it just the way it is. :thumbup:
Perhaps my final word on this subject:
I believe that there are three mighty boughs on the great tree of cue sports, and one vastly smaller branch. First, the small branch we will simply call "Miscellaneous" and it includes the novelty games like "Bumper Pool" and that goofy round billiard table from the movie "Silent Running". We won't discuss these as they are sort of like the crazy uncle on your family tree.
Second is the Billiard games which split into (I believe) three individual branches: the French based (no pockets), the English based (with pockets on what people nowadays call a "snooker table"), and Russian Pyramid. I must admit I am mostly ignorant of Pyramid so some may argue that it deserves its own mighty bough, but to my knowledge, Pyramid belongs in the "Billiards" category.
Third is the Pool games, of which there are of course multitudes. Herein, I believe lay the problem. There is a version of a pool game which is commonly called American Snooker and as such, it has a variety of foundational rules which have precedent in the other Pool games.
Lastly, there is Snooker, which also has several variations. And it would seem that American Snooker SHOULD be within the Snooker branch of the great tree, and obviously, it has characteristics that put it in this family. American Snooker is sort of like the (American) football shaped intersection of a two circle Venn diagram the circles being "Snooker" and "Pool". It seems to me that the advocates of Pool are looking to change that Venn diagram so that the "Pool" circle engulfs the "Snooker" circle completely like an amoeba feasting on a protozoan.
To my mind, American Snooker is like a horse that has been selectively crossbred over generations from a lineage of black horses and white horses to result in a horse with black and white stripes. Snooker is a zebra. They may look an awful lot alike, but there are fundamental characteristics that will forever keep them separated. So, perhaps at the risk of offending some, either you are a pool player who can quite rightfully enjoy a game of American Snooker, or you are a snooker player steeped in its own history and tradition. The good news is that both versions have coexisted for a long time and crossover to either rule set is certainly allowed according to an individual's preference.
EDIT:
I think that it is easy to believe that what we think of as snooker is a game that evolved from what we think of as pool. This is not technically nor even remotely true, as snooker is generally is agreed to have evolved around the 1870's from a game that was called "Black Pool" although Black Pool had very little in common with modern pool games despite the similar moniker. So the Billiard games came first. Their distinction is that each player used his own individual cue ball. Russian Pyramid was different in that each cue ball was not unique to each individual but there were (and are) a whole bunch of cue balls and any player can use any of them (if I understand it correctly). Russian Pyramid very likely evolved completely separately without relation to the other Billiard games at all. Then the early "Pool" games evolved but the big difference was that each player still had their own cue ball like in the Billiard games, but the point of the game was to pot the other players' cue balls, with "Life Pool" pre-dating Black Pool and the object of Life Pool was that every player started with a certain number of "lives", perhaps three, and when an opponent potted that player's cue ball, he would lose a life. Lose all your lives and you are out of the game (and out of the money that you had previously put in the "pool" of money to be won. Whoever is left at the end wins the pool of money. Bet you didn't know that is where the name of Pool came from, did you? And our great billiard forebears invented the concept of "lives" over a hundred years before the first video game was invented.) While Black Pool was the first real ancestor of Modern Snooker, the equivalent first real ancestor for Modern Pool was a game called "Pyramids" (absolutely no relationship at all to Russian Pyramid mentioned earlier, just the same name) which was very basic: common cue ball, fifteen reds, whoever potted eight reds first won. And all the modern pool games started from there. The big difference in Modern Pool then is that both (or all) players use a single cue ball. Snooker evolved on a separate, but parallel path. It took the concept of Pyramids-a single cue ball and fifteen reds-and combined it with the older Black Pool (which, even though it has the word "Pool" in the name was really a Billiard game), expanded on all of those concepts to evolve completely separately from Modern Pool. At some point, I cannot guess exactly when, the Modern Pool branch crossed over and took the concepts of Snooker to start American Snooker as a distinct game with the underlying foundation of the previously developed rules for other Pool games, much like Snooker had gone back to use the concepts of Black Pool and Pyramids, and much like the whales and dolphins had decided to return to the ocean. But the point is that Modern Pool and Modern Snooker should be seen as they are, separate entities, both with long and storied histories and there is no need at this late stage to cram American Snooker and International Snooker together and force them to be one and the same. I even scoff at calling it International Snooker; to me, it's just "snooker" and American Snooker is a pool game with a lot of similarities but some distinctions.
I don't really consider myself an historian on these things; I have just taken an interest in how the great games have evolved through time. There is probably a lot more to it than most would realize which is why I am very slow to accept a proposed change to long historical tradition. I respect that things are the way they are for very good reason.
I believe that there are three mighty boughs on the great tree of cue sports, and one vastly smaller branch. First, the small branch we will simply call "Miscellaneous" and it includes the novelty games like "Bumper Pool" and that goofy round billiard table from the movie "Silent Running". We won't discuss these as they are sort of like the crazy uncle on your family tree.
Second is the Billiard games which split into (I believe) three individual branches: the French based (no pockets), the English based (with pockets on what people nowadays call a "snooker table"), and Russian Pyramid. I must admit I am mostly ignorant of Pyramid so some may argue that it deserves its own mighty bough, but to my knowledge, Pyramid belongs in the "Billiards" category.
Third is the Pool games, of which there are of course multitudes. Herein, I believe lay the problem. There is a version of a pool game which is commonly called American Snooker and as such, it has a variety of foundational rules which have precedent in the other Pool games.
Lastly, there is Snooker, which also has several variations. And it would seem that American Snooker SHOULD be within the Snooker branch of the great tree, and obviously, it has characteristics that put it in this family. American Snooker is sort of like the (American) football shaped intersection of a two circle Venn diagram the circles being "Snooker" and "Pool". It seems to me that the advocates of Pool are looking to change that Venn diagram so that the "Pool" circle engulfs the "Snooker" circle completely like an amoeba feasting on a protozoan.
To my mind, American Snooker is like a horse that has been selectively crossbred over generations from a lineage of black horses and white horses to result in a horse with black and white stripes. Snooker is a zebra. They may look an awful lot alike, but there are fundamental characteristics that will forever keep them separated. So, perhaps at the risk of offending some, either you are a pool player who can quite rightfully enjoy a game of American Snooker, or you are a snooker player steeped in its own history and tradition. The good news is that both versions have coexisted for a long time and crossover to either rule set is certainly allowed according to an individual's preference.
EDIT:
I think that it is easy to believe that what we think of as snooker is a game that evolved from what we think of as pool. This is not technically nor even remotely true, as snooker is generally is agreed to have evolved around the 1870's from a game that was called "Black Pool" although Black Pool had very little in common with modern pool games despite the similar moniker. So the Billiard games came first. Their distinction is that each player used his own individual cue ball. Russian Pyramid was different in that each cue ball was not unique to each individual but there were (and are) a whole bunch of cue balls and any player can use any of them (if I understand it correctly). Russian Pyramid very likely evolved completely separately without relation to the other Billiard games at all. Then the early "Pool" games evolved but the big difference was that each player still had their own cue ball like in the Billiard games, but the point of the game was to pot the other players' cue balls, with "Life Pool" pre-dating Black Pool and the object of Life Pool was that every player started with a certain number of "lives", perhaps three, and when an opponent potted that player's cue ball, he would lose a life. Lose all your lives and you are out of the game (and out of the money that you had previously put in the "pool" of money to be won. Whoever is left at the end wins the pool of money. Bet you didn't know that is where the name of Pool came from, did you? And our great billiard forebears invented the concept of "lives" over a hundred years before the first video game was invented.) While Black Pool was the first real ancestor of Modern Snooker, the equivalent first real ancestor for Modern Pool was a game called "Pyramids" (absolutely no relationship at all to Russian Pyramid mentioned earlier, just the same name) which was very basic: common cue ball, fifteen reds, whoever potted eight reds first won. And all the modern pool games started from there. The big difference in Modern Pool then is that both (or all) players use a single cue ball. Snooker evolved on a separate, but parallel path. It took the concept of Pyramids-a single cue ball and fifteen reds-and combined it with the older Black Pool (which, even though it has the word "Pool" in the name was really a Billiard game), expanded on all of those concepts to evolve completely separately from Modern Pool. At some point, I cannot guess exactly when, the Modern Pool branch crossed over and took the concepts of Snooker to start American Snooker as a distinct game with the underlying foundation of the previously developed rules for other Pool games, much like Snooker had gone back to use the concepts of Black Pool and Pyramids, and much like the whales and dolphins had decided to return to the ocean. But the point is that Modern Pool and Modern Snooker should be seen as they are, separate entities, both with long and storied histories and there is no need at this late stage to cram American Snooker and International Snooker together and force them to be one and the same. I even scoff at calling it International Snooker; to me, it's just "snooker" and American Snooker is a pool game with a lot of similarities but some distinctions.
I don't really consider myself an historian on these things; I have just taken an interest in how the great games have evolved through time. There is probably a lot more to it than most would realize which is why I am very slow to accept a proposed change to long historical tradition. I respect that things are the way they are for very good reason.
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whut? :grin:
The OP posed the question "How to rid the foul and miss", presumably in anticipation that everyone would WANT to eliminate the FAAM, to which philthepockets provided the ideal response of "I think this subject is more akin to banning Unicorn hunting." meaning that you are wasting your time to even try.
I provided the history lesson above to demonstrate that to change to a "push out" would by design eliminate one of the foundational rules of snooker, "best effort". It has been part of the rules now for over one and a quarter centuries and will not be changing anytime soon. Snooker is not pool. However, anyone who wishes to play by those rules may certainly do so (American Snooker has been doing exactly that for many, many years now), just don't expect the game to change. Foul and a miss is not really a "new" rule.....it is simply a new way to enforce a very, very old rule.
Interesting point Phil. I agree with you, though inherently, I like to see most sports played with a predominantly offensive strategy.
I did read your entire post Acesinc and appreciate your contributions to this discussion.
In regard to the part quoted above, I don't see that as my reason for suggesting this rule change. I've played billiards and snooker on a 12 foot table at home since I was 8. 40 years ago. I watched Pot Black with amazement as a young kid... my heart is in snooker and started there.
But I think we can learn from other games. One example is inside and outside english compared to check and running side. The US terms are so much better and more accurate than traditional english terms.
I've also seen rules develop in different games, particularly english 8 ball, to a point where arguments are rare. Yet, the FAAM is a constant source of arguments in our local leagues.
You directed me to that list of options, which I very much appreciated. I was unaware of such options being promoted for lower level competition. And I'd like the rule I suggested to be trialled as an option for game play somewhere some time.
I must admit that I thought of a situation where one might critique the fairness of my suggested rule... say you pot a red and get bad position on a color. You could push out to a color in a way that snookers the opponent on all reds. In that case, it may be fairer to reset a player's break after a push out, so they are always shooting a red, or lowest point color if reds are gone. hmmm
Best regards,
Colin
Pathetic Shark
Banned
The problem is your leagues, not FAAM. I don't know the standard you lot play at but I can't imagine it's a pro league. Only pros should play FAAM.
As for inside/outside English Vs check/running side, I'd say the latter is more of an apt description than the former, but then again, I am biased lol.
Pathetic Shark
Banned
Clarity is the most important thing with any rule. The touching ball rule in snooker is perfectly clear. It MUST be a foul if you do not play away from it because it MUST be a push shot, and push shots are not allowed.
I'm sure there must be a push shot rule in pool but I'm buggered if I know what it is. There are dozens of variants, as far as I can tell. I know it must be written into the rules somewhere, but I don't know anyone who knows them definitively, certainly not across all forms of pool, yet EVERYONE knows them for snooker. This is a considerable advantage, whether the rule is good or bad.