Pool
Blackball online
- Races to 3–9 racks
- WPA Blackball rules
- 9 ft table, or the 7 ft bar table
Two groups of seven, the yellows and the reds, and the black, racked with the black on the foot spot. Pocket all of your colour and then the black to win the rack. Nothing is called, and every foul gives the opponent a free shot. Matches are races: first to win N racks.
It plays straight away in your browser, with nothing to download. To play without a connection too, download and install it as an app, on phone, tablet and computer: free, and without going through an app store.
- Free
- No sign-up
- Online multiplayer
- Plays in your browser
Blackball rules
Scoring
- 8The blackOnce your group is cleared, pocket the black, in any pocket, to win the rack
- 1Your group firstThe first ball the cue ball touches must be one of yours (the black once they are gone)
- +Keep shootingPocket one of your balls on a legal shot and you stay at the table
Fouls
After a foul the opponent has a free shot: they may hit any ball first, and play the cue ball where it lies or take it in hand in baulk (behind the line a fifth of the table from the head cushion). After a scratch it is always in baulk.
- Wrong ball first
- The cue ball touches a ball of the other colour first, the black before your group is cleared (or on an open table), or no ball at all.
- No cushion
- After the contact no ball is pocketed and none reaches a cushion; not a foul when you were snookered, with no straight line to any part of a ball you may hit.
- Opponent’s ball
- You pocket a ball of the other colour without one of your own.
- Scratch
- The cue ball goes into a pocket or off the table.
- Ball off the table
- An object ball jumps off the table: it is spotted on the foot spot.
- Losing on the black
- You lose the rack if the black drops on a foul, or while any ball of your group is still on the table.
The break and the groups
- Breaks alternate. The cue ball is placed in baulk and may hit any ball first; the break must pocket a ball or send at least two balls across the middle of the table, or it is a foul.
- The black pocketed on the break is no loss: the balls are racked again and the same player breaks again.
- The table is open after the break. Pocketing balls of one group only, on a legal shot that is neither the break nor a free shot, gives you that group; the opponent gets the other one.
- A cue ball touching one of your balls may be played away from it (that counts as hitting it), never into it.
The official rules
The rules above are the ones Biliardo Plus applies in a match, in short, and they are in the game too, in the Rules window. The full text is the federation’s (in Italian for FIBiS):
