| These
are the official rules of the EPA and most official competitions
(World Championships as well as BUCS) use them. You should familiarise
yourself with these rules as soon as possible. You will pick them
up quickly with practice in any case. Links to the rules, including
a great summary doc and a comparison with other rules are on the
right. Some of the key points are:
1. Penalty
for fouls
If your opponent
fouls, you get 2 visits. These visits carry, which means that if
you pot on your first shot, you still get another visit if you then
miss again. THIS INCLUDES THE BLACK. You may be
used to a 'one shot on the black rule' after a foul, which a lot
of pubs seem to have as an official rule (even though it's ridiculous),
but NO official set of rules has this, nor have they ever. If you
have 2 shots, you have 2 shots.
2. Something
has to hit a cushion
When you take your shot,
after contact one of the following has to happen:
a) You pot the ball
b) The ball you hit touches a cushion
c) The white ball touches a cushion
Failure to do this is
a foul and your opponent gets 2 visits. I think this is an excellent
rule (except when I under-hit my shot and no ball touches the cushion,
in which case I normally wish a horrible death upon the family of
the person who invented the rule) because it means that there's
no simple rolling the white up behind your ball to lay a snooker.
Old EPA rules didn't have the cushion foul rule, and having played
a few competitions with these rules, believe me it gets ****ing
boring! What happens far too often is players just roll up to lay
a snooker over and over again, and frames often last hours, especially
when it's an important game.
The only time you DON'T
have to hit a cushion after striking your ball is if you are total
snookered. So, if you cannot see EITHER side of any of your object
balls, you have to say, out loud, "total snooker" (most
people just say "total") and then you can, for example,
go off a cushion and hit your ball, but nothing has to hit a cushion
after you make contact with your ball.
3. If
you pot anything on the break, you have to nominate a colour.
Don't ever forget this!
If you don't nominate (by saying out loud, e.g. "reds")
and then you take your shot after potting something on the break,
it is a foul and your opponent gets 2 visits.
The great part about
this rule is that you don't have to be on the colour that you potted
on the break. In the old rules, you were on whatever colour went
in (if only one colour went in). I'm sure you can imagine how frustrating
it is to pot a yellow on the break, but all the reds are in awesome
open positions and all the yellows are on the cushions. In World
Rules, if you pot off the break, you have the privilege of being
allowed to choose the best colour.
Now, if you decide to
stay on the same colour that you potted (let's say red), all you
have to do is say "reds" and you will officially be reds.
If, however, you decide you want to be yellows, after you say "yellows",
you have to pot a yellow in order to be yellows officially. If you
miss that yellow, it is open table and your opponent has the table.
If you decided to be reds, however, then you are reds even if you
miss the red that you go for.
4. Going
in-off on the break
If the white is potted
on the break, the opponent has ONE shot only. It was decided that
this was a 'non-standard foul', and rightly so I think, because
the nature of the break-off shot is such that you cannot really
expect to control the white, and it's not your fault if it goes
in the pocket, so you shouldn't be penalised any further than the
opponent getting on the table. However, if the white ball jumps
off the table on the break, your opponent gets TWO shots. This is
fair, since if you do this, you're probably a tard.
5. Foul
Break
The rule is that 4 balls
have to hit a cushion off the break (or you have to pot a ball).
If fewer than 4 balls hit a cushion off the break, your opponent
gets 2 visits. This is very rarely a problem and only the biggest
pansies in the world fail to get 4 balls to hit a cushion on the
break :)
6. Free
ball when foul-snookered
Ok, let's say your opponent
fouls, and as a result, the white ball is in a position whereby
you are at least partially snookered. By partial (as opposed to
total) is meant that you cannot see both sides of any of your balls.
In such a scenario, you should call a foul snooker. Then you have
the following 2 options:
a) Take a free ball from
where the white is - so if you are yellows and snookered after your
opponent's foul, you can hit one of his reds (or pot it, and you
get 2 visits of course since it's a foul) or the black. BUT... you
MUST nominate which ball you are going to hit before you do so,
otherwise it is a foul. So point to the red (or black) that you're
going to hit before doing so.
b) Pick the cueball up
and place it behind the line and take your first shot from there.
If, as sometimes happens, you are still at least partially snookered
from anywhere behind the line, you still have the option to nominate
a free ball.
What you decide to do
depends on the state of the table of course and what would best
work to your advantage.
7. Deliberate
fouls
You can play
a deliberate foul - you will still give away 2 visits, but that's
the only punishment (in the old rules deliberate fouls were frowned
upon and resulted in immediate loss of game - but given how difficult
it is to decide whether or not a foul was deliberate in all cases,
it was decided to include it). For information on when and how best
to use deliberate fouls, which are a HUGE part of the game and can
often change the game massively in your favour if you're clever
about it, see my Tips Section.
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