Nine-ball is a contemporary form of pool, with historical beginnings rooted in the United States and traceable to the 1920s. The game may be played in social and recreational settings by any number of players (generally one-on-one) and subject to whatever rules are agreed upon beforehand, or in league and tournament settings in which the number of players and the rules are set by the sponsors. During much of its history, nine-ball has been known as a "money game" in both professional and recreational settings; but today, in major tournament settings, it is respected and remains the dominant game.
In recent years, nine-ball has become the game of choice in championship tournament matches in the United States, basically because a series of games (the "match") proceeds quickly, lends itself well to the time constraints of television coverage, and tends to keep the audience engaged. The sports network ESPN has been, for several years, a major catalyst for the popularity of nine-ball and a major sponsor of championship play.
Rules and governing bodies
The general rules the game is played under are fairly consistent and usually do not stray too far from the format set forth in the Billiard Congress of America (BCA) BCA World Standardized Rules for Nine Ball, which have merged with those of the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), to form the World Standardised Rules, although amateur league play may be governed by similar but slightly different rules promulgated by the American Poolplayers Association (APA) and other organizations.
The rise of "Texas express" rules
For much of its history nine-ball rules allowed participants to "push out" multiple times during a game (see "The push-out", below, for the modern push-out rules) , meaning any player could call a "push-out", and then hit the cue ball to any area on the table without being penalized by normal foul rules, such as failure to contact the lowest-numbered ball on the table. However, once a push-out was called and executed, the incoming player had the right to shoot or give the inning back to the opponent. If the player shooting the resulting shot fouled, the other player would have ball-in-hand; hence this manner of play was called the "two-foul" version. "One-foul" became popular in the 1970s, as play turned more aggressive for the early televised matches. This newer version of nine-ball awarded ball-in-hand on any cue ball foul. A now-standard rule variant, which started to sweep the sport of nine-ball in the mid-1980s, restricted the push-out option to once per game and only to the inning immediately following the break. This change profoundly affected the way the game was played. By about 1990 this new push-out rule had become ubiquitous and it and any additional rules appended to it were collectively referred to as "Texas express" rules, so called because of the supposed US state of origin and the speeding up of the game. Today, Texas express push-out rules dominate the way nine-ball is played and is the variant incorporated into the official rules maintained by the WPA and its affiliates like the BCA.
European alterations
As of the 2000s, the rules have been somewhat in flux in certain contexts, especially in Europe. The European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF), BCA's WPA-affiliate counterpart in Europe, has done away with standardized racking techniques, and instead relies upon divots in the cloth to position the balls, with no physical ball rack required; these indentations are carefully created using a "training template", such that the divots are slightly closer together than they would be expected to be, thus creating ball-on-ball pressure as the balls settle partially into the divot pattern, into which they cannot quite fit. This results in an especially tight rack, without any possibility of cheating by carefully manipulating the ball positions while racking. This innovative racking technique was invented and patented as the Rack-M-Rite Racking Template by US professional player David Smith and his partner Dale Craig and first used in professional events on the Billiard Channel Tour in 2000 by tournament director David Vandenburgh. It is now the official rack of the EPBF Euro-Tour.
Another Euro-Tour innovation is a new requirement that the break shot be taken from a "break box", not unlike the "D" break shot zone used in snooker and blackball, consisting of the middle 50% of the "kitchen". This change defeats the common break-from-the-side-rail technique for pocketing the 9 ball on the break and winning the game instantly. While 9 ball breaks are still possible, they are much more difficult under the new rule. This requirement was recently added to the Europe vs. US all-star team event, the Mosconi Cup, but has not otherwise been seen much by North Americans.
Yet a third EPBF change, used on the Euro-Tour for several years, is the "three above the line" rule, a stringent requirement that in order for a break shot to be legal, at least three object balls must either be pocketed or come up-table and cross the head string . Failure to do so constitutes a loss-of-turn (but not ball-in-hand) foul – even if two object balls are pocketed, a potential major windfall for the non-breaking player under these rules. More stringently yet, the requirements are independent – if a ball crosses the head string and is then pocketed, it counts as a pocketed ball but not a head string-crossing ball. This alteration (from WPA's requirement that one object ball be pocketed or four driven to cushions ) requires a powerful break shot, and was instituted to thwart a different form of break manipulation, the recently developed "nine-ball soft break", in which a languid break performed correctly, and given a tight rack (such as that produced by EPBF template-trained racking), is almost guaranteed to pocket a wing ball in a foot corner pocket, perhaps even both wing balls, meanwhile the remaining balls stay mostly or entirely on the foot end of the table, giving the breaker an easy run-out of short shots. By effectively banning the soft break, wins "on a silver platter" are much less likely. One problem with this "three above the line" break requirement is that very careful attention must be paid to whether or not particular balls cross the head string, such that even professional referees have had to resort to video playback, as happened several times at the Mosconi Cup, when this rule, too, was introduced in 2007 by the MC's organizers, Matchroom Sport, in an effort to make the event more competitive and interesting to audiences, and more even (the US has mostly dominated the annual event since its inception, and they did in fact lose the 2007 match).
Another Mosconi Cup rule change in 2007 called for racking such that the 9 ball rather than the 1 ball is on the foot spot (i.e. the racker rolls the balls forward farther; the balls remain in the same position in the rack), which further thwarts pocketing a wing ball easily.
Play
The game is played on a pocket billiards table with six pockets and with ten balls. The cue ball, which is usually a solid shade of white (but may be spotted in some tournaments), is struck to hit one or more of the other nine balls (often referred to as object balls), each of which is distinctly colored and numbered 1 through 9. The object of the game is to pocket the 9 ball in a legal manner, subject to the rules in effect at the time.
In nine-ball, on all shots including the break shot, a player must cause the cue ball to contact the lowest numerical ball on the table first before the cue ball strikes any other ball and, except when a push-out has been invoked (see "The push-out", below ), either a numbered ball must be pocketed or any ball (including the cue ball) must contact a rail to avoid committing a foul. This does not mean that object balls have to be pocketed in order; any ball may be pocketed at any time during the game, so long as the lowest-numbered ball is contacted first by the cue ball. Because nine-ball is not a call shot game, the 9 ball itself can also be pocketed in this manner for a win at any time in the game, even on the break shot.
Players alternate innings at the table, meaning play continues by one player until he or she misses, commits a foul, or pockets the 9 ball for the win. The penalty for a foul is that the player's inning ends and the opponent comes to the table with ball in hand, able to place the cue ball anywhere on the table prior to shooting.
Nine-ball is a relatively fast-paced game and is rarely played by the rack. Instead, players normally play a match (or race) to a set number of games, often five, seven or nine. The first player to win that set number of games wins the match.
The rack
The object balls are placed in a diamond-shaped configuration, with the 1 ball positioned at the front (toward the position of the breaking player), and the 9 ball placed in the center. The physical rack used to position the balls is typically triangle-shaped, usually aluminum, wood, or plastic and capable of holding all fifteen object balls, although diamond-shaped racks that hold only nine balls are sometimes used. The placement of the remaining balls is generally considered to be random. However, in some handicapped tournaments, the ball being spotted to the lesser player must be one of the two balls placed behind the 1 ball at the apex of the rack. The placement of balls is expected to be precise, especially in leagu
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