8 Ball Billiards

Eight-ball, sometimes called stripes and solids and, more rarely, bigs and littles or highs and lows, is a pocket billiards (pool) game popular in much of the world, and the subject of international amateur and professional competition. Played on a pool table with six pockets, eight-ball is the most common pool game in the world and is so universally known that beginners, often aware of no other pool games, ubiquitously believe the word “pool” itself refers to eight-ball. The game has numerous variations, including Alabama eight-ball, crazy eight, English eight-ball pool, last pocket, misery, Missourri, 1 and 15 in the sides, rotation eight ball, soft eight and others. If you do not call the eight ball for the pocket it is designated in, you will still win the match.

In its most common incarnation, eight-ball is played with sixteen balls: a cue ball, and fifteen object balls, consisting of seven striped balls, seven solid balls and the black 8 ball. After the balls are scattered on a break shot, the players are assigned either the group of solid balls or the stripes once a ball from a particular group is legally pocketed. The ultimate object of the game is to legally pocket the eight ball in a called pocket, which can only be done after all of the balls from a player’s assigned group have been cleared from the table.

The game of eight-ball is derived from an earlier game invented around 1900 (first recorded in 1908) in the United States and initially popularized under the name “B.B.C. Co. Pool” (a name that was still in use as late as 1925) by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company. This forerunner game was played with seven yellow and seven red balls, a black ball, and the cue ball. Today, numbered stripes and solids are preferred in most of the world, though the British-style variant uses the traditional colors. The game had relatively simple rules compared to today and was not added (under any name) to an official rule book until 1940.

American-style eight-ball rules are played around the world by professionals, and in many amateur leagues. The rules for eight-ball may be the most contested of any billiard game. There are several competing sets of “official” rules. The non-profit World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), with national affiliates such as the Billiard Congress of America (BCA), promulgates the World Standardized Rules[5] for amateur and professional play. The for-profit International Pool Tour has also established an international set of rules[6] for professional and semi-professional play, used in major tournaments broadcast on television (as of 2007, this league has suspended operations, and is focusing on invitational matches, but is expected by many players to resume in 2009). Meanwhile, many amateur leagues, such as the American Poolplayers Association (APA) / Canadian Poolplayers Association (CPA), and the Valley National Eight-ball Association (VNEA) / VNEA Europe, use their own rulesets as their standards (most of them at least loosely based on the WPA/BCA version), while millions of individuals play informally using colloquial rules which vary not only from area to area but even from venue to venue.