If you want to play pool like a true pro, here is the guide for you. You can learn here how to play pool by the book. You can find here the general rules of pocket billiard games as set by the Billiard Congress of America explained in a simplified manner.

The pool games that go under the sub category of pocket billiard games are 8-ball, 9-ball, pool, and one-pocket. After reading the general rules listed below, learning the specific rules of each of the pocket billiard games would be very easy and fast for you.

Rules of Pocket Billiard Games

• All the pocket billiard games are played on standardized tables with pockets.

• In all of the pocket billiard games, only the cue tip can strike the cue ball. Otherwise, it will be considered a foul.

• During a game, when a player fails to perform a legal pocketing of a ball, his or hers turn is moved to the other player.

• The player to open the game is named in a procedure called lag for break, in which both players are shooting a ball to the foot cushion and back to the head end of the table. The player whose ball reaches the closes to the head cushion opens the game.

• The opening break shot is the first shot in a game, which is performed by the player who had won the lag. In order to initiate the game, the cue ball has to cross the head string after being struck by the cue tip.

• If the breaker either stops or deflects the cue ball after crossing the head string and before hitting the racked balls, it will be considered a foul and the player will be penalized by a loss of turn.

• In the pocket billiard games where the incoming player has cue ball in hand behind the head string as a result of the breaker's scratching, the incoming player is allowed to place the cue ball anywhere behind the head string.

• The shooting player is allowed to shoot towards any object ball while the base of the object ball is on the head string or below.

• The shooting player is not allowed to shoot at any ball while the base is above the head string. That unless the first player causes the cue ball to return above the head string and hit the object ball.

• If a player places the cue ball outside the kitchen, the area between the head string and the cushion on the table ends, and shoots the cue ball, it is considered a foul.

• A pocketed ball can be defined as such only if it had arrived to the pocket as a result of a legal shot. For example, when a ball rebounds from the pocket to the table ball, it cannot be considered a pocketed ball.

• If a players shoots while any of the balls are spinning ? it is a foul.

• A stroke is complete only after all the balls have done spinning.

• In most of the billiard games, the fouling player is penalized by either ending of the inning, declaring his or hers stroke as invalid and not counting the pocketed balls.

• According to the rules of most of the billiard games, in order to be considered a legal shot, the player has to either cause the cue ball to contact an object ball and then pocket a numbered ball or to cause the cue ball or a numbered ball to contact a cushion. Otherwise, the shot is considered a foul.

• If the cue ball is pocketed on a stroke, it is considered a foul.

• Only the cue tip can contact the cue ball. Any other way, it is a foul.

• If the player touches any object ball with the cue ball when it is in hand, it is a foul.

• The shot is a foul when the cue strikes the cue ball more than once on a shot or contacts the cue ball during or after the cue ball contacts an object ball.

• If a player strikes the cue ball below center and causes it to rise off the bed of the table is a foul.

• A jump shot is generally legal, unless a miscue occurs while the jump shot is performed.

• When a stroke causes any ball to jump off the table, it is a foul.

• If any ball moves spontaneously, it should remain in its initial position.

• If an object ball is pocketed by itself, both the cue ball and the object ball are replaced to their initial positions.

• The players should alternate turns during the play. Each turn, or inning, ends either with a foul or in a failure to achieve a legal ball pocketing.

  
  

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