If you play with people who don't know the game you will hear all kinds of stupid rules. The most common variation is the one where you can't pocket an opponents ball together with your own without losing your turn. The "YMCA" rule mentioned earlier is also common. I played in a place once where you were not allowed to use the mechanical bridge, though every table had one?! I didn't make a lot of difference since I play ok one handed.
Around here almost every banger plays last pocket 8 ball, with some using opposite to last pocket instead. I once played in a place where, if you made both stripes and solids on the break you lost your turn!
I've made at least a dozen threads related to bar room last pocket, how come you never mentioned it was a common game in your area? Where do you live? Here 99.99% of all pool games are last pocket with bar rules. The other 0.01% would be official tournaments I guess, and even the guys who compete in those tournaments often switch to last pocket 8-ball once they're done with official matches.
I think I've encountered the other rule a couple of times, the one about losing your turn if you pocket both stripes and solids on the break, and I'm glad it's not very common.
This whole thread boggles my mind. It's like a guilty pleasure. I read and I laugh and I shake my head. I feel like I'm in another world but yet I've somehow been there before.
There's a local bar that opens the bar boxes up on Sunday and Monday for free play. I used to go all the time and knew that I was gonna come up against the rules atleast a few times per night so I would just play along.
Bar pool is always an adventure in human studies lol
I could take the same ppl that most of us are talking about with their "rules" and change my attitude or demeanor and they will have no complaints. Ex. After every shot walk up to them and say something funny or take a dead bank over an obvious cut bc both lend position but they don't know the difference so they are dazzled by the shot that whatever you do now is ok.
but back to the OP question.
FATBOY had a post about when he went gambling in a foreign country and they had some gaftty type tables with really strange but deadly equalizing rules. Here's the original post.
the game was on a 8' coin op table, big CB, there was 3 14 balls LOL and 2 9 balls, there was the correct number of stripes and solids just the numbers were messed up, and tehy werre from different sets, so they weighed different so the big CB would just roll thru some some balls and not teh others, there was no way to know where the CB was going.
it wasnt pool, it was their game, when you scratched the CB goes on the spot, if you make a solid and strip you lose the inning, so cant open break, the correct break was to glance off the head ball and scratch. another fantastic rule was when you scratched the CB was spotted and you couldnt hit any ball that was below the center of the table, so you had to kick at everything. and If you hook a guy were he cant see the edge of the ball its push out-so no hooks. no rail aint a foul, keep all that straight and play on a table that rolls off every direction possible and see how ya do? there are more rules, i just cant recall them now,
Me and another guy played it, I played better than the guy who won, the guy with me plays a hair below Mad Max i'd guess, he couldnt win that game last night. he robbs me period on regular equipment-i got ZERO chance ever in life to play his speed( we played 5 hours tonight). he couldnt out run that game-it as their game period, SVB might not win, no knock its that brutal. I think maybe Bobby Cotton, Matlock and Danny Medina(RIP) could win cause they could play big ball CB. Cotton plays good 1P and runs the balls good, he of everyone i know in pool would have the best chance in that game, forget JA, Hatch, SVB, those skills aint required to fade that action. no knock but only the old big ball guys have a chance and still mite not get there.
then we find out the whole story today, about who we played. Wow, lets say i got nothing to say right now. it could have been worse if we won.
never again will i play last pocket 8 ball, not a single rack ever.
I remember that thread. It happened in Serbia if I remember correctly. Their rules have a lot of similarities to ours here in Croatia, but the description of that particular night was fascinating. I mean, I've played with bad equipment for years and seen all sorts of wonders, but very little could surpass the amount of horror Fatboy was facing. It's quite common CB is heavier than the other balls due to the ball return system. Bigger? I'm not so sure. Balls from different sets which vary in weight and size? That's just epic on a whole new level. Dirty tables, unpredictable rail deflections, table surface which causes spontaneous rolls in certain areas, not enough space around the table - these are, on the other hand, a common sight in most bars I know.
Now to the rules. CB going to the spot after scratch and you're not allowed to shoot anything on that half of the table directly is what most of us here use. There are some variations on the theme, but I don't wanna go into details. Also, "no requirement to hit the rail" is what everybody plays here. The rest of the rules Fatboy mentioned are surprisingly different. First, we don't have such a thing as a push-out in any situation. Intentionally scratching on break would just be stupid. And like I said before, losing your inning by pocketing a solid and a stripe on the break is very rare.
So, you may call rules like those deadly, but I call them fun. It's interesting to see how people from different parts of the world have totally different perceptions of pool. I really like where this thread is going
