
Snooker is truly a great, intelligent game - it combines skill and strategy like no other billiard table game.
If you're not familiar with the game, do take the trouble to learn, You will not regret it.
Snooker is played on a large, (12ft by 6ft) table with 22 balls, 15 'reds', 6 'colours' and a 'white' cueball.
Each red potted is worth:-
1 point
The colours score:-
Yellow 2 points
Green 3
Brown 4
Blue 5
Pink 6
Black 7 points
A coin is tossed to determine who breaks.
The winner of the toss places the white (cueball)
anywhere inside the 'D' and 'breaks'
The 'Break'
The player strikes the cueball, The first shot must
contact a red before any other ball - or a foul is called.
Ideally - player 1 will pot (pocket/sink) 1 or more reds -
but in snooker this is very hard, and rare, the more common alternative is to
play a 'saftey' shot, clipping the 'pack' (of reds) - and returning the white to
the top (right hand/baulk) end of the table - again, ideally behind a colour.
| A good break | |
![]() Before |
![]() After |
| A BAD break | |
![]() Several balls have been left that the opponent could pocket |
It also deals with respotting
the colours, and refereeing and scoring fouls.Fouls
Failure to strike a red
(before any other ball) - penalty four points
The
penalty is increased to 5, 6 or 7 if, instead of a red, the cue-ball strikes a
colour.
Failure to strike a valid colour also carries a
penalty of four points, or more (to the value of the colour hit or the colour
that was supposed to be hit). Also, if you have just sunk a red and may now
shoot at any colour, the colour that you first hit is the one you must sink -
sinking a different one is a foul.
Snookers
It should be obvious
from the above, that often a player can score more points by forcing his
opponenet into an 'awkward' (or impossible) situation - the act of so doing
being a 'snooker'
Other rules
There are a number of other minor rules - such as the 'miss' and the 'fre ball' when they occurr they are handled by clear 'pop-ups' in the program - it should be
obvious what to do - and why.

The registered version includes 'British' pool - as
played on coin-op tables in the UK.
It features a nicely
animated set of stripes and spots. Here's my very quick summary of the rules.