Pool

Pool is a cue sport played on a table with pockets, in which two players or pairs take alternate visits and clear an assigned group of balls before potting the black. That much is common to every version. Almost everything else is not.

The single most useful thing to know is that there are three codes, not one. English eight-ball, played on a small-pocketed 6ft or 7ft table with red and yellow balls, is the pub and league game across most of Britain. Blackball is the internationally standardised version of it, with the rules tidied and unified. American pool is played on a larger table with bigger balls, spots and stripes, and its own rules. They disagree about the things beginners argue over: what a foul costs, whether you get two shots, whether you must nominate a pocket, and what happens if the black goes down early.

The rest of the game is a small number of ideas — angle, side, position, safety — applied endlessly. It is unusually flat as a skill curve at the start, which is why it works as a social game, and unusually deep afterwards, which is why leagues are full of people who have played for forty years.

Codes in common use

Three

What most pub arguments are

Different rulebooks

Cost to start

A pound a game

Room needed for a table

About 5.5 × 4m

1. 1

   Step 1: Ask which rules you are playing, every time

   Before the break, once, in a sentence. It costs nothing and prevents essentially every dispute the game produces.

   You will know it worked when: You and your opponent are playing the same game.

2. 2

   Step 2: Fix the stance and the bridge before anything else

   A stable bridge hand and a still head are what make a cue go where you aimed. Everything else in this game is built on them, and they are the two things a beginner can improve alone in an evening.

   You will know it worked when: The cue travels straight without you steering it.

3. 3

   Step 3: Practise stop, follow and draw with the cue ball only

   Hitting centre, above centre and below centre, and seeing what the cue ball does afterwards. This is position play in its entirety and it is far more valuable early than potting harder balls.

   You will know it worked when: You can make the cue ball stop where you meant it to.

4. 4

   Step 4: Learn to play a safety deliberately

   Leaving your opponent nothing is half of match play and almost none of casual play. The moment you start choosing between a hard pot and a good safety, you are playing the sport rather than the pastime.

   You will know it worked when: A frame you won without potting the most balls.

5. 5

   Step 5: Join a league

   Pub and club leagues run everywhere, cost £20–£60 a season, and will take a complete beginner into a low division. It is the cheapest structured competition in this catalogue by a wide margin.

   You will know it worked when: A fixture list and a handicap.

6. 6

   Step 6: Then buy a cue

   Once you know your code and your game. A straight £30–£80 cue plays better than most people assume and is a sensible place to stop for a season or two.

   You will know it worked when: Equipment chosen on evidence.

What follows is the shape of the disagreement rather than a rulebook. Every league and every event runs to a specific published code, and that code — not this page and not the person you are playing — is the authority. Ask which one is in force before the first break; nobody minds, and it prevents the argument entirely.

• What a foul costs — The largest single difference. English pub rules typically give the opponent two visits — "two shots" — while blackball and American pool generally give one visit with the cue ball in hand. If you learn one and play the other, this is what you will get wrong.
• Where the cue ball goes after a foul — In hand anywhere, in hand behind the line, or played from where it lies, depending on the code and sometimes on where the foul happened. Worth establishing before it matters.
• Whether you nominate — American pool generally requires you to call the ball and pocket. Most English pub play does not, except on the black. Nominating when nobody expects it is harmless; not nominating when they do can lose you the frame.
• What happens when the black goes early — Immediate loss in some codes, a re-rack in others, and in some it depends on whether it was a foul. One of the most common sources of a stand-up argument.
• Table and ball sizes — English tables are 6ft or 7ft with tight pockets and small balls; American tables are 7ft to 9ft with larger balls and more forgiving pockets. The same shot is a different shot on each.
• Where the codes are written down — Governing bodies publish the current rules and revise them. A league secretary will tell you which edition you are playing to, and that is the answer to any dispute.

• Nothing, for a long time — House cues exist and are fine to learn on. The commonest beginner error is buying a cue before knowing whether you want to play seriously or which code you will play.
• A cue that suits the code — English cues have narrower tips — around 8–9mm — and American cues wider, around 12–13mm, because the balls are different sizes. A cue bought for the wrong game feels wrong for reasons you will not identify.
• A straight shaft, before anything else — Roll it on the table. Straightness, a well-fitted tip and a length that suits your height matter far more than weight, brand or figuring, and cost far less.
• Chalk, and the habit of using it — Pennies, and the single cheapest improvement available. Most amateur miscues are unchalked-tip miscues.
• A tip, replaced when it glazes — £5–£15 fitted. A hard, shiny, mushroomed tip is the commonest cause of a cue that has mysteriously stopped working.
• A glove, if your bridge hand drags — £10–£20 and it fixes an inconsistency people usually blame on technique.
• A rest, which is not a concession — Using a rest is normal play, not a failure of reach. Learning to use one properly is a skill worth deliberate practice.
• A table, only if the room genuinely takes one — £400–£2,000 second-hand and the constraint is space, not money. About 5.5 by 4 metres for a full cue stroke on a 7ft table, and a short cue in the corners if you have less.

The first stage is mechanical and short: a stable bridge, a still head, and a cue that travels straight. Most people never do this deliberately and it is why most people plateau at the level they reached in their twenties. An evening of practising the cue ball alone is worth a year of frames.

The second is position, which is where pool becomes a sport. Deciding where the cue ball should finish before playing the shot, and using stop, follow and screw to put it there. Alongside it comes safety play — choosing to leave nothing rather than to attempt a low-percentage pot — and the two together are what separate league players from good pub players.

After that it is competition and code. Leagues are everywhere, cheap and handicapped, which makes them unusually welcoming; from there the structure runs up through county and national play. Blackball is the route to standardised international competition. Some players move to American pool for the different tactical game, and some to snooker for the larger table. And a great many stay exactly where they are, playing the same league on a Tuesday for decades, which the sport is entirely built to support.

• English eight-ball — Small table, tight pockets, red and yellow. The pub and league default across most of Britain and the version most people mean by "pool".
• Blackball — The standardised international form of the same game. Increasingly what organised leagues run, and the rulebook to read if you want one answer rather than several.
• American nine-ball — Bigger table, spots and stripes, and a rotation format where the lowest ball must be struck first. Faster, more televised, and a genuinely different tactical game.
• Straight pool and one-pocket — Older American formats, deeply tactical and largely played by enthusiasts. One-pocket in particular is a strategy game that happens to use a cue.
• Snooker — The adjacent sport: a much larger table, far tighter pockets and a different scoring system. Skills transfer partly and the tables are unforgiving in comparison.
• Bar billiards and English billiards — Older cue games on their own tables with their own scoring, both still played in leagues and both frequently confused with pool by everyone except their players.