Most Ridiculous Pool Rules!

Colin Colenso

Colin Colenso

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Someone suggested the other day that we should have a thread on the worst, silliest, most ridiculous rules we've come across on our travels into dens of eniquity, or just to mates places who had their own set of crazy rules.

Anyway, the standout worst rule I've come across was the 'any foul on the 8-ball' is loss of game. Talk about destroying the incentive to go for tough out. I'll be knocking my balls all around the 8 ball.

Other crazy rules I've seen are:
Cue butt width pushout of CB from rail.
6" rule - If CB is miscued and goes less than 6" you can put it back and try again.
 
Colin Colenso said:
Anyway, the standout worst rule I've come across was the 'any foul on the 8-ball' is loss of game. Talk about destroying the incentive to go for tough out. I'll be knocking my balls all around the 8 ball.
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The any foul on the 8 loses rule, to reach its full potential, should be combined with the absence of any ball in hand rules, so that your opponent can tap-freeze to an object ball when you're on the 8.

Cory
 
The most ridiculous rule always has to be the one some guy in a strange place dreams up about the time you are stroking to shoot the money ball. I have always went along with any rule they can dream up without comment. Sooner or later they will get a shot at the money ball and that is when I remind them of their "rule"! :D :D :D

Hu
 
Our oldest league in town has a lot of stupid rules as every year they are voted on by the whole league participants----can you imagine?..50 or so drunks voting on the rules of 8-ball at the annual "meeting." (actually, drunk fest)

Here's one that finally got voted out: If anything touches a ball it is a foul. This "rule" was used against women with long hair and was called if even one strand of hair touched a ball. Btw, the "foul" was loss of turn, not ball-in-hand.

Jeff Livingston
 
Sweet Marissa said:
I hate seeing people scoop the cue ball to "jump" it. I called a foul on one guy once, and he went nuts.
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In the league I run, half the better players were quite distraught that I had outlawed their powerful scoop jump strategy :rolleyes:
 
I read someplace that one of the legit leagues (BCA, TAP, or APA) has a rule that applied in a weird situation. 8 or 9 ball, the shooting player slammed a shot into a side pocket, the object ball hit the back of the pocket and the pocket rejected the ball throwing it back out onto the playing surface where it came to a dead stop..................................and was called for a no cushion foul. Actually, there is some legitimacy to calling it a no cushion foul if you read the rules. Says something like an object ball has to either be pocketed, sent into a cushion, or the cue ball (or another ball) has to go into a cushion or else it's no cushion foul.
Just sounds like a freak accident to have something like that called foul. I know it's almost impossible for a rejected ball to pop out and then not go into a cushion someplace, but I guess with the right kind of spin/speed on an object ball that it's possible.
dave
 
chefjeff said:
Our oldest league in town has a lot of stupid rules as every year they are voted on by the whole league participants----can you imagine?..50 or so drunks voting on the rules of 8-ball at the annual "meeting." (actually, drunk fest)

Here's one that finally got voted out: If anything touches a ball it is a foul. This "rule" was used against women with long hair and was called if even one strand of hair touched a ball. Btw, the "foul" was loss of turn, not ball-in-hand.

Jeff Livingston
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When I played in Australia it was a foul to put your chalk on the rail. Often players would do this deliberately when the wanted to give the opposition 2 shots from that position, rather than play at their ball.

Eventually a better set of rules came out, but the older English pool rules were often crazy leading to all kinds of imaginitive ways to wrought the system. eg. A guy would play the OB onto the CB to hook it and give up 2 shots. But the next player had to shoot from that hooked position....ouch!
 
My former APA league had a sharking rule...whereby any breaking down of your stick during your opponents turn was consider sharking. Which I completely understood...but then when I broke my stick down during MY turn at the table, they tried to call sharking on me...I am like...wtf...am I sharking myself or what?

Turns out I was in the wrong on another rule instead, you can't use a jump cue in ANY APA league. I wasn't using it to jump, but rather to shoot over a ball. League operator was going to write in a special rule for me, but he soon forgot about it I am sure.

Oh well...goodbye APA, hello SERIOUS pool again!

Shorty
 
flash

Anyone ever play 8 ball where if you lose with all 7 of your balls on the table on the table you have to drop your drawers?

Them's were house rules growin' up and Dad was mighty strict (jk).
 
Shorty said:
My former APA league had a sharking rule...whereby any breaking down of your stick during your opponents turn was consider sharking. Which I completely understood...but then when I broke my stick down during MY turn at the table, they tried to call sharking on me...I am like...wtf...am I sharking myself or what?

Turns out I was in the wrong on another rule instead, you can't use a jump cue in ANY APA league. I wasn't using it to jump, but rather to shoot over a ball. League operator was going to write in a special rule for me, but he soon forgot about it I am sure.

Oh well...goodbye APA, hello SERIOUS pool again!

Shorty
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That is very annoying when good rules get twisted by evil / greedy minds into situations they were never intended to be enforced against when writen.

I had a feeling this topic would catch fire...I'm guessing minimum 40 replies! Must be a lot of pent up angst waiting to be released :D
 
NaClBandit said:
Anyone ever play 8 ball where if you lose with all 7 of your balls on the table on the table you have to drop your drawers?

Them's were house rules growin' up and Dad was mighty strict (jk).
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That is almost universal I think!

I think the IPT should have brought back that rule when Mike Sigel played Loree Lee Jones. :eek:
 
Or the one where when you accidently move an ob and your opponent can leave it there or move it to where he wants it. A friend of mine takes the (my) object ball, goes outside, comes back in and says he put it in his glove compartment and declares, "It's your shot" (!!!)

Jeff Livingston
 
Tokyo-dave said:
I read someplace that one of the legit leagues (BCA, TAP, or APA) has a rule that applied in a weird situation. 8 or 9 ball, the shooting player slammed a shot into a side pocket, the object ball hit the back of the pocket and the pocket rejected the ball throwing it back out onto the playing surface where it came to a dead stop..................................and was called for a no cushion foul. Actually, there is some legitimacy to calling it a no cushion foul if you read the rules. Says something like an object ball has to either be pocketed, sent into a cushion, or the cue ball (or another ball) has to go into a cushion or else it's no cushion foul.
Just sounds like a freak accident to have something like that called foul. I know it's almost impossible for a rejected ball to pop out and then not go into a cushion someplace, but I guess with the right kind of spin/speed on an object ball that it's possible.
dave
Click to expand...

Actually, that happens in a league I play in all the time. For some reason the pockets spit 'em back out. It never occurred to me (or anyone else) that it might be a no-cushion foul. It's bad enough the shot doesn't count. Next time I'm feeling crabby I'll call it and see what happens :)

Cheers,
Regas
 
Tokyo-dave said:
... the shooting player slammed a shot into a side pocket, the object ball hit the back of the pocket and the pocket rejected the ball throwing it back out onto the playing surface where it came to a dead stop..................................and was called for a no cushion foul. ...
Click to expand...
Good rulesets take this possibility into account, and include the top of the rail and the pocket liner and pocket facing in the "to a rail" rule.
 
In bars around me, they play the stupidest billiard game on the whole planet. It's a game played by casual players.

It's basically last pocket 8ball, but...
- no ball in hand on fouls
- no call shot
- no such thing as a legal hit with rails, etc...anything is allowed
- cue ball always on the head spot after scratch
- just touching the 8ball is automatic loss of the game
- you're allowed to shoot at opponent's group using rail first
- if you touch opponent's group ball directly, that one goes into pocket
- you're allowed to shoot at opponent's 8ball two cushion 'escape'...used mostly to remove 8ball from 'his' pocket
- special racking order of stripes and solids
- no such thing as 'open table' like in international rules, you have to accept whatever drops on the break...if balls from both groups fall, then it's open for interpretation
- safety play is considered 'chicken'
- scooping under the cueball to produce sort of a jump is considered 'heroic'
- there are a few more, but it's been more than 5 years since I last played using those stupid rules
- where I live, old gamblers play only this game...they won't play anything else...
 
There used to be a pool hall in Anchorage called Son of River City Billiards. A very cool place and definitely had character. The owner had one particular rule that he enforced that was kind of strange.

One foot flat on the floor

Now I am 5’7” so I am on my toes half the time anyway. Playing in the annual 14.1 State tournament was always a challenge to remember to keep one foot flat, I even got my name in the BCA rule book one year ( don’t remember which one) for winning the Alaska State 14.1 “B” division playing with that rule. Unfortunately the municipal no smoking ordnance forced them out of business a few years ago. I kind of miss that old rule.
 
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