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

From this point, players score points by potting balls, and from 'fouls' committed by their opponents.
Play alternates between the two players - excepting that when a player pots a valid ball - he recives another turn.
The sequence that the balls must be potted in is:-

• Any red
• Any chosen colour
• Any red
• Any chosen colour

Repeat - until no reds remain.
when each colour is potted, it is replaced on its own spot.
then:-
Yellow,green,brown,blue,pink,black
(during this stage the colours do NOT come back up - unless they have been potted as part of a foul, for example, out of sequence)
Fortunately, Quicksnooker will guide you through all of this - it always shows you what to 'shoot at' in the panel at the bottom of the screen. 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.

Pool

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.

• Player A breaks and generally attempts to pot one or more balls.
• Whichever ball player A pots he adopts that set (stripes or spots) - if he pots a ball from both sets he may choose either set
• Player A must now pot all of his balls in any pockets, in any order - he must always touch one of his own balls as the first impact in any shot, if he succeeds in potting a ball he takes another turn.
• If a player - fails to hit his own ball first, fails to hit a ball at all, hits the black first, or pots one of his opponent's balls (even indirectly) he incurs a foul entitling his opponent to a free shot.
• During a free shot, a player may strike any object ball first, and may even (if for example his opponent has a pocket covered) pot one of opponents ball's - without incurring a foul.
• The winning player is the first to pot the Black - having first potted all of their own balls.