RULES: 8-BALL 9-BALL

These are the two most popular forms of pool played in America today. Remember that each game can be played several different ways, you and your opponent should agree on rules variations before you begin.
All 15 balls are racked with the 8 in the middle (and many players also alternate stripe and solid balls at the end of the bottom row of the rack). The balls are broken wide open. No matter what happens on the break, the shooter still has his choice of playing stripes or solid. The first player to sink a called solid-color ball (1 through 7), or a striped one (9 through 15), is committed to those balls for the remainder of the game. After a player has pocketed all his solid or striped object balls, he may shoot at the 8, calling his pocket

Nine-Ball
This is today's most popular pro or televised tournament game. Nine-Ball is really a simpler, shorter version of the old game called Rotation, except that you don't total up the points on the balls. The balls are racked as you see in Figure 14, in a "diamond" shape, with the 9 in the middle. The shooter must make contact with the lowest-numbered ball on the table first; if he does that, any ball that goes in is good, and he continues to shoot. Whoever makes the 9-ball wins

As in Eight-Ball, the penalty
numbered ball first is that your opponent is awarded ball-in-hand again. (IMPORTANT: As played today, there's one exception to the ball-in-hand rule in Nine-Ball. Immediately after the break, if the player at the table chooses, he may roll the cue-ball to a more advantageous position. His opponent then has the option of accepting the resulting shot, or leaving it for the shooter.)