A question to those that play the game more than I do:
First the situation. I'm playing on a ball-return table, so balls have to be taken out of the return and put on the correct side of a rack attached to the table for score-keeping.
I broke the first game, and when my opponent broke in the second, he chose the same side I had broken from first, meaning we've now switched pockets from one game to the next.
I've made the first 4 balls in the second game. My opponent has just made a ball in his pocket, making the score 4-1.
If it matters, we're playing for money, but very cheap.
He racks his ball and says, not in a joking tone, "Man, I didn't even remember pocketing all those balls."
Confused, I look at the foot end of the table, and there are 5 balls on his side. I realize I have mistakenly racked my 4 balls on the wrong side; I hadn't adjusted to the fact that we switched sides between games.
I point out that he didn't pocket all those balls, and that I'd been racking mine on the wrong side, and the score should be 4-1. He smiles and says "let's just leave them where they are." This time he does sound like he's joking, and he follows up by agreeing that one ball was his and the rest were mine.
But it occurred to me that I was at his mercy. Racking the balls on his side was my mistake, and I don't know the guy well enough to assume he'd be a gentleman about it.
So finally the question: would any of you have told me "tough sh*t, they're on my side" and insisted the score was 5-0 in your favor? Have you seen other players do so? And if he had done that, would I have had any real recourse, other than to either accept it or quit (forfeiting the game in progress)? Just curious whether this situation always plays out the way it did for me, or whether it often gets uglier.
-Andrew
