Re: Purposely scratching in 8-ball?
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I was playing in a 8-ball tourny at Hardtimes in Bellflower a few years ago, and an unusual situation came up. They played ball-in-hand, and have the 3 scratches rule (if you scratch on 3 consecutive shots, you lose).
Player A had scratched twice, and had only one object ball left. His object ball (OB) was near the rail, covered on all 3 sides by Player B's OBs. Player B's shot.
Player B intentionally scratched, leave A with ball in hand. However, given the setup, there was no way for A to even TOUCH his ball. He just conceded the match at that point.
Josh
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I have done this several times to people in 9-ball, but have never seen a 3-foul rule in 8-ball.
The only version of a "3-foul" rule in 8-ball I have seen was in a tournament when my opponent run down to the eight, missed it and hung it deep within the pocket. I had 3 balls right by that 8 that I could not pocket anywhere, even with ball-in-hand. So I proceeded to nudge my balls closer to the eight while leaving him no clear shot to the hanging eight. So he just kept giving me ball-in-hand without trying a crazy shot and I just kept nudging those 3 balls closer and eventually touching the 8-ball until he had zero chance to legally pocket it. So we reached a stalemate where neither of us would try to move those balls. The tournament director had to come over and declared that "after 3 consecutive shots by each player in which no attempt is made to pocket a ball or advance the game, the game is reracked and replayed". I have played competitive pool for a long time and have never seen that happen before.
And to the OP question of whether that was legal or not, those rules you are talking about only apply in bars, and every bar and town has different versions. That's why bar pool starts so many fights (aside from the booze), because there is no standard set of rules. In real 8-ball rules you can scratch on purpose if you want, but he gets ball-in-hand ANYWHERE on the table, so you basically lose the game. I know in many bars "ball-in-hand" is on the headstring and you cannot shoot backwards, only uptable, but that rule only applies on a scratch on the break in real pool rules.
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