Straight Pool ring game?

[klockdoc]

I was talking with a couple of friends of mine tonight at the pool room. We occasionally practice straight pool together and when we all showed up at the same time, it got me thinking. I was asking about the possibility of three or more people playing straight pool against one another? Doesn't seem to me that there would be a conflict or anything. There isn't a ball-in-hand factor that would have to be addressed. The three individuals would just play a race to 150 or whatever. Flip or lag for the break. Alternate turns at the table. Anyone ever heard of this, or, am I missing something that I am not thinking of?

 

[ApoDra]

Just imagine you are breaking the rest of the players is Engert, Hohmann and Schmidt lets that every one of them runs 100+ balls but no one runs out and you are back to the table after 3 hours

 

[CreeDo]

It seems reasonable as long as everyone's at a pretty low level and cannot go from rack to rack.

Maybe one way to speed it up and mix in some of the fun of 9-ball would be to mix in the game of rotation. Even the best players would have a hard time keeping you in your chair for hours if they had to play the shots in order. You'd always end up with the 15 ball as the break ball, so sinking it would be worth a lot. But then you would have to smash the rack on the opening break, or maybe make the 1 and the 2 the corner balls and do a normal opening break?!

The main problem with this idea is that the feel and patterns of straight pool are completely lost, it's just rotation with a cute quirk.

 

[selftaut]

We used to do this a lot, it works just fine other than a little ribbing from one of the opponents if you smack em open and mis on a flyer. Just shorten the race though or it can go forever, to maybe 50 or 75.

 

[klockdoc]

No rules against it though, Huh? I guess this would be used for casual practice with several friends more than regular play.

 

[arsenius]

I played a form of ring game straight pool once. The difference was that instead of re-racking the balls, each ball pocketed got respotted (just like on a foul in one pocket). Since any big run resulted in a long line of frozen balls it could really limit the number of balls you could run. It was hard to get to the other side of the line of balls (you have to go up and down the table or follow through it).

It was fun and interesting. Our group consisted of an A, B, and C player and we all got our turns at the table. It was actually one of the most fun (laughing good time type of fun) games I've ever played, though that could be the other player's faults too.

 

[Str8PoolPlayer]

Try Scotch Doubles Straight Pool w/4 players ...

It can be a real challenge, especially when I play left-handed and the other three guys play right-handed ... I don't see why you couldn't do the same for One-Pocket, and the "daily" 9-Ball players do it most every day at the Joint Cue in Sacramento ...