peer2peergames

Snooker

One frame of snooker on a twelve foot table, to the WPBSA rules with two things decided for you: there is no miss rule, and you do not nominate a colour, because the colour your white meets first is the one you are on. Twenty-one balls, a hundred and forty-seven at the very most.

Play Snooker Leaderboard

The rules

  1. The colour you hit first is the colour you are on: after potting a red you shoot at any colour, and whichever the white meets first is the one that counts, so there is nothing to nominate.
  2. Reds are worth one, then yellow 2, green 3, brown 4, blue 5, pink 6, black 7. Pot a red, then a colour, then a red, and the colour goes back on its spot until the reds are gone.
  3. When the last red is down, the colours are potted in order from the yellow to the black, and they stay down.
  4. A foul gives the other player at least four, or the value of the ball involved if that is higher: hitting nothing, hitting the wrong ball first, potting the white, potting a ball that was not on, or hitting two balls at once.
  5. After a foul the other player may shoot from where the balls lie, or make you shoot again from there. If they are snookered on every ball that is on, they may name any ball as a free ball and it counts as the ball on.
  6. The miss rule is not played: a referee judges whether a player tried to hit the ball, and there is no referee here.

How a frame ends

  1. When the black is the only ball left, the frame ends the moment it is potted or fouled, and the higher score wins.
  2. The frame also ends itself as soon as the lead is more than the points still on the table, since the trailing player could no longer win.
  3. Level on the black: the black is respotted, the white is in hand, and the seed says who shoots first at it.
  4. A resignation or a missed deadline ends the frame against that player.

Worth knowing before you start

  1. Pace matters more than power. A red potted at a crawl leaves the white for a colour; a red potted hard leaves it wherever the cushions decide.
  2. Snookering is legal and winning: a shot that leaves the white behind a colour, with no red in a straight line, forces a foul or a wild escape.
  3. The black is worth seven every time it is respotted, which is why the black spot is the centre of the game while there are reds.
  4. The break of fifty is where a clearance starts: reds and blacks, three at a time.

The seed decides who breaks off, the tiny jitter in the pack of reds, and who plays the respotted black on a tie; it is published when the frame ends. The rest is physics.

Snooker terms

The ball on
The ball, or the kind of ball, you must hit first: a red, then a colour, then a red, and finally the colours in order.
A free ball
After a foul, when you are snookered on every ball on, any ball you name counts as the ball on.
The D
The half circle in baulk where the white is placed when it is in hand.

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.