peer2peergames

Pool

American eight-ball on a nine foot table, to the WPA rules with one thing left out: you never call a shot. Pot a ball of your group, keep shooting, and pot the 8 last. The physics is real, so the cue ball goes where you send it and not always where you meant.

Play Pool Leaderboard

The rules

  1. Shots are not called: the first ball to drop on a legal shot after the break picks your group, solids (1 to 7) or stripes (9 to 15), and the other player has the rest. Until then the table is open and you may shoot at anything but the 8.
  2. Aim by dragging on the cloth or with the arrow keys, set the power, put spin on the cue ball by moving the dot on it, and shoot. The server plays the shot and every ball is where the physics left it.
  3. The break must send four balls to a rail or pot one. If it does not, the other player may accept the table as it lies, re-rack and break, or re-rack and have you break again.
  4. Pot a ball of your group and you shoot again. Miss, or pot nothing, and the turn passes.
  5. A foul gives the other player ball in hand anywhere on the table: potting the cue ball, hitting a ball of the wrong group first, hitting nothing, or no ball reaching a rail after contact.
  6. The 8 on the break is not a loss: it is spotted, or the table is re-racked, at the choice the rules give.

How a game ends

  1. Pot the 8 in any pocket once your group is clear and you win.
  2. Pot the 8 before your group is clear, or pot it on a foul, or pot the cue ball with it, and you lose.
  3. A resignation or a missed deadline ends the game against that player.

Worth knowing before you start

  1. Power is not accuracy. A soft shot at a pocket drops more often than a hard one, and leaves the cue ball where you can use it.
  2. Spin is on the cue ball only: top spin (the dot above centre) makes it follow through the ball it hits, back spin makes it come back, side spin changes how it leaves a cushion.
  3. Ball in hand is the strongest thing on the table. When a foul gives it to you, put the cue ball where the next two balls are easy, not just the next one.
  4. The 8 is only a win when your group is gone, so leaving it near a pocket while you clear is a plan and not a risk, unless you pot it by accident.

The seed decides who breaks and the sub-millimetre jitter in the rack, so no two breaks are the same; it is published when the game ends. The shots themselves are physics, not chance.

Pool terms

Ball in hand
The cue ball placed anywhere you like before you shoot; behind the head string after an illegal break.
Open table
Before groups are decided: any ball but the 8 may be hit first.
A scratch
The cue ball potted, which is a foul.

Playing it here

  • Against a person or the bot. The bot needs no account and starts at once. To play a person, be rated and keep your games, you need an account: an email address and a password.
  • At your own pace. Every move has a deadline you both see, from one minute to a week. A game can take an evening or it can take a fortnight.
  • Nothing to buy and nothing to win. No stakes, no prizes, no boosts, no undo. The only thing on offer is a place on a leaderboard, and only if you want one.
  • Every game can be checked. Anything decided by chance comes from the game's seed, and the seed is published the moment the game ends, so any finished game can be replayed and verified by anyone. See fair play.