Scratch/Reverse Pool Rules?

Floppage

Floppage

True Beginner
Silver Member
I ran across this game between Efren and Shane from last year and Efren briefly calls it "scratch pool" and someone else I know thought it was actually "reverse pool". Whatever you call it, I have started playing it a little on my own and I like the way it forces me to think about the tangent line more than usual.

Watch from 47:00 on to see the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kL9ena6j6M

The idea is that you hit a numbered ball with the cue stick, contact the cue ball and scratch the numbered ball to keep control of the table.

It seems like the rules roughly follow straight pool but there are some gaps I can't figure out and they don't really talk about it in the video. Are there rules for this game somewhere?

For example: it looks like the cue ball goes in the apex of the rack but what do you do if you pocket a ball on the break? Does it stay down?

Anyone familiar with this game?
 
Floppage said:
Anyone familiar with this game?
Click to expand...

'Polish' pool, 'carom' pocket billiards. And yes, you got the basic rules down. All balls pocketed on the break stay down. Some play that he cue spots on the head spot, and object balls spot on the foot spot. Lots of variance on the subtle aspects of the game, but all games require the object ball to be shot off the cue ball.
 
Yes, it's a good practice game, although it's pretty easy on anything less than a really tight table. You can use any ball other than the white as your cue ball on any shot, and to score a point, you must "scratch" by caroming it in off of the white.

It's a lot of fun and develops your angle management.
 
I always heard it referred to as carom pool (not carom billiards). I think it's a great practice game to learn angles and how not to scratch. I wish some of my playing pals felt the same way; I usually have to play it alone.
 
We called it 'zootz' in the 60's, same game. You can play 1 pocket this way by racking the cue ball as the head ball and take an object ball behind the line and scratch it off the head ball ( CB ) into ur pkt and continue / Good game.
 
We used to play this along with regular straight pool and "call position". After a while you start to control where you send the cue ball for position (or to break up clusters). Learn to recognize half-ball hits (the "30-degree" rule) and your life will be easy.
 
Always clean the balls after playing this game unless you want skids galore when you switch back to real pool.
 
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