Pool

Pool, a game played on a billiard-table. Any number may play. Each is provided with a coloured ball, taken at random from a pool-basket. The first in order (white) is spotted on the billiard spot. The next (red) plays from hand on the white. Red is called white's player. The next (yellow) is red's player, and so on, in the order indicated by the marking-board. The owner of each ball has three lives. If the player holes the ball he plays on, or any other ball, after having first hit the ball he plays on, the owner of the ball holed loses a life, and has to pay to the player a sum previously agreed on. The player plays again, from where he stopped, on the nearest ball; and so on until he fails, when the next player goes on, or until there are no other balls on the table, when the striker's ball is spotted. After the stroke from hand the player, unless spotted, always plays from where he is on the table; when he is holed he plays his next stroke from hand. If the player holes his own ball or gives a miss he loses a life, and plays his next stroke from hand. When the owner of a ball has lost all his lives he is dead, and plays no more that pool. The first dead may star—i.e. may come in again with the smallest number of lives on the board. In the end one or two of the players, who have not lost all their lives, remain in. They continue to play until they have an equal number of lives, when they divide the pool (a sum contributed by each player, generally equal to the value of three lives, the star paying an extra pool). If one of the two who remain in has more lives than the other, and kills his adversary, he takes the whole pool. The above describes briefly what is called following pool. The principal varieties are selling pool, where the player may play on any ball he likes; and black pool, where an extra ball is spotted on the centre spot and has to be played on under certain conditions, about which there are no fixed rules. When the black is holed at black pool each of those in has to pay a life; if missed or run in off the player has to pay a life all round. There is no pool, and no one has any specified number of lives, the game continuing for a given time (generally half an hour). Snooker pool is played in the same way as snooker (see PYRAMIDS), the players following each other as at pool, and the order of play being determined as at pool.