8 Ball
Eight-ball (often spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called spots and stripes, stripes and solids or, more rarely, bigs and littles or highs and lows) is a pool (pocket billiards) game popular in much of the world, and the subject of international professional and amateur competition. Played on a pool table with six pockets, the game is so universally known in some countries that beginners are often unaware of other pool games and believe the word "pool" itself refers to eight-ball. The game has numerous variations, including Alabama eight-ball, crazy eight, last pocket, misery, Missouri, 1 and 15 in the sides, rotation eight ball, soft eight, and others. Standard eight-ball is the second most competitive professional pool game, after nine-ball and for the last several decades ahead of straight pool.
Eight-ball is played with sixteen balls: a cue ball, and fifteen object balls consisting of seven striped balls, seven solid-colored balls and the black 8 ball. After the balls are scattered with a break shot, the players are assigned either the group of solid balls or the stripes once a ball from a particular group is legally pocketed. The ultimate object of the game is to legally pocket the eight ball in a called pocket, which can only be done after all of the balls from a player's assigned group have been cleared from the table.
Read more about 8 Ball: History, Standardized Rules of Play
Famous quotes containing the word ball:
“I don’t like comparisons with football. Baseball is an entirely different game. You can watch a tight, well-played football game, but it isn’t exciting if half the stadium is empty. The violence on the field must bounce off a lot of people. But you can go to a ball park on a quiet Tuesday afternoon with only a few thousand people in the place and thoroughly enjoy a one-sided game. Baseball has an aesthetic, intellectual appeal found in no other team sport.”
—Bowie Kuhn (b. 1926)