poolgame.aplusz.app/enPool, played properly, in a browser

Everything in itWhat this game does

Twenty things that make it a table rather than a picture of one. All of them are at poolgame.aplusz.app/en.

The rules, shortHow eight-ball is played

Play it against the bot right now at poolgame.aplusz.app/en — Beginner to Master, offline, no waiting.

TechniqueThe four things that decide a shot

And the fourth: pace

The same aim at a different speed sends the cue ball somewhere else after contact. Choosing pace is choosing your next shot. That is the whole of position play, and it is the one thing a video of a game cannot teach you — you have to hit them. Hit some.

The namesPool, billiards, snooker, carom — what is what

One family, many games, and a different name in every country. Eight-ball — the game played here — is the most played of all of them.

• Pool — the American game on a six-pocket table — the one here
• Pocket billiards — pool's formal name, still used by federations
• Billiards — the whole family: pocket games, carom games, snooker
• Eight-ball — seven solids, seven stripes and the black — the world's most played pool game
• 8-ball — the same game, written the short way
• Blackball — the British and world eight-ball code, reds and yellows
• English pool — blackball on a smaller table with smaller balls
• Nine-ball — balls 1 to 9, lowest ball first, the 9 wins it
• Ten-ball — nine-ball's stricter cousin: everything called
• Straight pool — 14.1 continuous — any ball, called, counted to a target score
• One-pocket — every ball into one chosen pocket; the chess of the game
• Bank pool — every ball banked off a cushion first
• Rotation — the lowest ball first, scoring by number
• Snooker — the 22-ball English game on a 12-foot table
• Carom billiards — no pockets: score by striking both object balls
• Three-cushion — carom with three cushions before the second ball
• Russian pyramid — a wide table, tight pockets, near-white balls
• Kaisa — the Finnish pyramid game
• Bumper pool — the small table with obstacles
• Cutthroat — three players, three groups, last group standing
• Killer — a lives game, a shot each
• Billar / Biljart / Biliardo — Spanish, Dutch and Italian for the same family
• Billard — the French and German spelling
• Бильярд — the Russian name
• 撞球 / 台球 — the Chinese names for pool
• ビリヤード — the Japanese name
• Sinuca — Brazilian snooker-style pool

The wordsEvery term, in one line each

Read them once here, then go and do them — screw, stun, a half-ball cut and a kick off two cushions are all in the game at poolgame.aplusz.app/en, and Learn & Drill teaches them a shot at a time.

• Break — the opening shot into the rack
• Rack — the triangle of balls at the start, and the frame that holds them
• Cue ball — the white one — the only ball you are allowed to hit with the cue
• Object ball — the ball you are trying to pot
• Pot / pocket — to put a ball in a pocket
• Cut — to strike the object ball off-centre so it leaves at an angle
• Full ball — a straight hit, no cut
• Half-ball — a cut of about thirty degrees — the most useful reference angle
• Thin — a cut of sixty degrees or more; the object ball takes very little pace
• Throw — the object ball pushed off its true line by friction on a cut
• Screw / draw — low on the cue ball: it comes back after contact
• Follow / top — high on the cue ball: it runs on through
• Stun — a cue ball sliding, not rolling, at contact — it stops dead on a full hit
• Side / English — left or right of centre: the cue ball bends off the cushions
• Miscue — the tip slipping off the ball — struck too far from centre
• Position / shape — leaving the cue ball where the next shot is easy
• Safety — a shot played to leave your opponent nothing
• Snooker — to leave the cue ball with no direct line to a legal ball
• Bank — the object ball played off a cushion into a pocket
• Kick — the cue ball off a cushion first, then the object ball
• Combination — one ball onto another, and that one in
• Carom — the cue ball glancing off one ball into another
• Jaws — the two cushion ends either side of a pocket mouth
• Rattle — a ball bouncing in the jaws and staying up
• Scratch — potting the cue ball — a foul
• Foul — a shot against the rules; the other player gets ball in hand
• Ball in hand — the cue ball may be placed anywhere before the next shot
• Slop — a ball potted that was not called; it does not count here
• Head string — the line across the table the break is taken from behind
• Diamonds — the markers on the rails, used to aim banks and kicks
• Nap / cloth — the baize the balls run on
• Chalk — the cube on the tip, so it grips when you strike off-centre
• Run out — to clear your group and the eight in one visit
• Break and run — a frame won from the break without the opponent playing
• Frame / rack — one complete game
• Push out — nine-ball's optional second shot after the break

The playersThe names worth knowing, and what each one does

Pool, snooker and three-cushion carom. Full names, and the method each is known for — the thing to watch for when you find them playing.

QuestionsThe ones people actually ask