One of the craziest shots I have ever seen. What is the call?

TheNewSharkster

TheNewSharkster

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I break and the cue ball takes a short bounce like it is going off the table. It hits the rails and just stops. I look at it in disbelief and see it is spinning. It stops a few seconds later and it is balanced on the rail. I have played and seen thousands of games of pool and never once seen this happen.

I am sure the ruling is a foul but my opponent said I had to shoot it. I shot in the next ball from on top of the rail :D
 

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Your right, it is a foul. But the odds of it happening are so rare I may have to let them shoot it too just for the fun of it LOL.
 
I'm 99% sure that the rail qualifies as coming to rest off of the playing surface. It should be a foul.

What did people do before cell phone cameras? That's got to be a once in a lifetime shot, and now you've got photo proof for life. Thanks for sharing!
 
spoons said:
I'm 99% sure that the rail qualifies as coming to rest off of the playing surface. It should be a foul.

What did people do before cell phone cameras? That's got to be a once in a lifetime shot, and now you've got photo proof for life. Thanks for sharing!
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I actually almost always bring my camera around with me but that day I left it home. My cell takes ok pictures. I would have like to have video taped that just because it was so crazy looking when it happened.
 
I saw the same thing happen a few months ago during league play. The whole place came to a standstill. First and only time I've ever seen it in 40+ years of playing.
 
Not a foul

I saw this shot happen back in the "old days" in the back room of the worlds tourney in LA. about 1971. Richie Florence was playing someone and his opponent shot a shot, where the cue ball ended up on the rail, and no one in the room could decide on the ruling. CUE BALL Kelly was the Head referee in the tournament room up stairs. Money was bet, and some players went up to the T Room and convinced "CUE BALL" that he was needed in the room down stairs. He came down, saw the shot and stated, " Cue ball is in play because the ruling says the cue ball is only a foul if it LEAVES the table. It is stilll on the table so next player shoots!" THis really happened!!! Richie shot the next two balls to win the $$$$.
Any one else out there who was there that night?
Now days the ball cannnot leave the "Playing surface"?
 
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Never seen a cue ball come to rest on the rail like that.

I have seen a cue ball get up on the rail and run down the table a couple of feet and enter the playing surface again.

Nice pic.
 
spoons said:
I'm 99% sure that the rail qualifies as coming to rest off of the playing surface. It should be a foul.

What did people do before cell phone cameras? That's got to be a once in a lifetime shot, and now you've got photo proof for life. Thanks for sharing!
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It's happened to me twice so either A) I've played so many games of pool that I've beaten the odds or B) it's not as rare as you'd think.
MULLY
Oh, it's a foul
 
This happened a couple of weeks ago at Amsterdam Billiards. It is a foul (as mentioned because it did not come to rest on the playing surface). I was just passing by the table when it happened and people were discussing what the call was. I claimed it was a foul for exactly that reason. The discussion wasn't settled until Chris Lynch walked in (fortuitous timing) and called it foul for the same reason.

The playing surface does not include the felted parts of the rail, it must come to rest on the actual playing surface, that's the slate part.
 
TheNewSharkster said:
I break and the cue ball takes a short bounce like it is going off the table. It hits the rails and just stops. I look at it in disbelief and see it is spinning. It stops a few seconds later and it is balanced on the rail. I have played and seen thousands of games of pool and never once seen this happen.

I am sure the ruling is a foul but my opponent said I had to shoot it. I shot in the next ball from on top of the rail :D
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It's a foul. It should have been played the same way as a scratch on the break would have been.
 
First of all, kewl shot.....I have seen balls dance up on the rail, then spin on or off the table, but never stay....

Question....I have seem a jumped ball with a ton of spin actually make the intended ball, then bounce up on the rail, even touching not just the felt, but the wood as well, and then spin back on the surface.....is this a foul? We didn't call it, but it made me think....what if someone somehow flew the ball off the surface, it hits a wall, and then bounces back on the table in play??? What about bouncing up and hitting the pool light and then back on the table?

Just curious....seems like a fine line that bleeds into a lot of other questions...
 
I have seen this two or three times, once very recently done by myself. Nobody around had seen it before. As already stated, it is a foul.
Kelly
 
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Definitely a foul, but always fun to see. I have seen this happen with both the cueball and and an object ball (probably ever more rare).
 
I am sure the intent of the rules is that this is a foul.

However, I have run into a set of rules* where the word used in the manual was felt rather than slate. Reading something like, "the cue ball must remain on the felt to be a legal shot." If you were playinig under these rules, then play it as it lies.

(*) don't remember which ones--not BCA, APA.
 
Big Perm said:
First of all, kewl shot.....I have seen balls dance up on the rail, then spin on or off the table, but never stay....

Question....I have seem a jumped ball with a ton of spin actually make the intended ball, then bounce up on the rail, even touching not just the felt, but the wood as well, and then spin back on the surface.....is this a foul? We didn't call it, but it made me think....what if someone somehow flew the ball off the surface, it hits a wall, and then bounces back on the table in play??? What about bouncing up and hitting the pool light and then back on the table?

Just curious....seems like a fine line that bleeds into a lot of other questions...
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The rules clearly define this situation as well:

3.28 BALLS JUMPED OFF TABLE
Balls coming to rest other than on the bed of the table after a stroke (on the cushion top, rail surface, floor, etc.) are considered jumped balls. Balls may bounce on the cushion tops and rails of the table in play without being jumped balls if they return to the bed of the table under their own power and without touching anything not a part of the table. The table shall consist of the permanent part of the table proper. (Balls that strike or touch anything not a part of the table, such as the light fixture, chalk on the rails and cushion tops, etc., shall be considered jumped balls even though they might return to the bed of the table after contacting items which are not parts of the table proper). In all pocket billiard games, when a stroke results in the cue ball or any object ball being a jumped ball off the table, the stroke is a foul. All jumped object balls are spotted (except in 8 and 9-Ball) when all balls have stopped moving. See specific game rules for putting the cue ball in play after a jumped cue ball foul.

A ball can hit anything that is part of the table and return to the playing surface - ie no matter how far out to the edge the ball goes, if the spin carries it back on it's good.

It surprises me that there's so much back and forth on this - it seems to be a general rule that if the ball lands outside of the "playing surface" in most games it would be a special circumstance. Golf - too far out and it's a penalty. Baseball - too far out and it's an automatic run. basketball - it's basically a foul (other team gets possession). Football - ok that one has all sorts of rules depending on how it goes out and what's going on. Soccer - pretty sure that's just like basketball (but I don't play so have no idea). I dunno, to me it just seems logical that a ball that comes to rest on the rail would absolutely not be in play.
 
Likelihood this happens depends on the equipment

juggler314 said:
This happened a couple of weeks ago at Amsterdam Billiards. It is a foul (as mentioned because it did not come to rest on the playing surface). I was just passing by the table when it happened and people were discussing what the call was. I claimed it was a foul for exactly that reason. The discussion wasn't settled until Chris Lynch walked in (fortuitous timing) and called it foul for the same reason.

The playing surface does not include the felted parts of the rail, it must come to rest on the actual playing surface, that's the slate part.
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juggler314:

I agree, unfortunately it is a foul :( (I always love to watch players shoot that from on top of the rail, so in "fun-sey" [non-action/non-tourney] games, the crowd I hang around with likes to rule that a legal shot, and force the player to shoot it where it lies.)

Last I remember, Amsterdam has Gold Crown IIIs, and this situation actually happens more often on GC-IIIs than one would think, due to the way the cushions join the rails. (I've seen the cue ball come to rest on that "flat spot" at the very top of the cushion where it joins the rail more often that I care to remember.) And also, it's common practice in the rooms I play in, to offer a courtesy when one is retrieving the cue ball from a scratch -- to place the cue ball on the cushion on this flat spot, so the opponent knows he/she has ball-in-hand (courtesy = when the player knows the opponent was distracted and wasn't looking when the cue ball scratched).

However, in the pic, that looks to me like a Valley bar-box, and these have a "pyramid" shape where the cushion joins the rail. WOW! That is a very rare situation indeed! It sounds from TheNewSharkster's description that the cue was spinning so fast so as to have a gyroscope effect, fixating it in one position where it came to rest on the rail, and the spinning "drilled" a minute depression deep enough to hold it there after the spinning subsided. Or something like that. In any respect, it's tough enough to place a cue ball by hand like that on a Valley, much less see that be the end result from the cue ball's movement on its own!

Nice pic!
-Sean
 
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