Rules
Cowboy pool uses only four balls, the cue ball and three numbered balls, the 1, 3, and 5. The balls have a set opening placement: The 1 ball is placed on the head spot; the 3 ball on the foot spot; and the 5 ball on the center spot. As in the game of snooker, pocketed balls are immediately respotted to their starting position. Beginning with cue ball in-hand from the kitchen – the area behind a pool table's head string – the incoming player must contact the 3 ball first. If the player fails to do so, the opponent may either force the player to repeat the break shot, or elect to break him or herself.
For the first 90 points of the 101 needed to win the game, points are scored in three ways: 1 point for caroming the cue ball into any two object balls; 2 points for caroming into all three object balls; and a player scores the face value of any ball pocketed, i.e., if the 3 ball is pocketed, the player scores 3 points. Thus, the maximum score possible on any single shot is 11 points, achieved by caroming off and pocketing all three balls. The failure to score in one of the delineated manners on any shot ends the player's inning at the table. All fouls in Cowboy pool result in the player losing all points scored during the inning (not just those on the fouled stroke), and the opposing player comes to the table with cue ball in position except in the case of a scratch, which results in ball-in-hand from the kitchen.
The 90th point in cowboy pool must be reached exactly and the failure to do so is a foul resulting in a loss of turn. For example, this means that a player with 89 points, who then scores 2 points rather than exactly 1, has committed a foul. Once the 90 point benchmark is reached, all points up to the penultimate 100 must be made by caroms. The pocketing of balls during this phase of the game garners no points. The final point necessary to reach 101 and the win must be made by a losing hazard – an intentional scratch made by caroming the cue ball off one of the three object balls.
Read more about this topic: Cowboy Pool
Famous quotes containing the word rules:
“But suppose, asks the student of the professor, we follow all your structural rules for writing, what about that “something else” that brings the book alive? What is the formula for that? The formula for that is not included in the curriculum.”
—Fannie Hurst (1889–1968)
“However patriarchal the world, at home the child knows that his mother is the source of all power. The hand that rocks the cradle rules his world. . . . The son never forgets that he owes his life to his mother, not just the creation of it but the maintenance of it, and that he owes her a debt he cannot conceivably repay, but which she may call in at any time.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Children can’t make their own rules and no child is happy without them. The great need of the young is for authority that protects them against the consequences of their own primitive passions and their lack of experience, that provides with guides for everyday behavior and that builds some solid ground they can stand on for the future.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)