Pocket Pool on a Phone or PC

My Razr phone comes with a Pool game, which lends itself well to a phone because pool is not a twitch, reflex-based game so doesn't require a lot of processing power from the phone, or frantic button pressing from the player. But the limitations of the phone, the small screen, etc, can make playing the game somewhat frustrating, combine that with computer players who can line up the perfect shot, including bank shots and cannon shots, and you have a challenging game which lends itself well to the old gamer's cry of "Cheating bitch!" (as made popular by Kurt Russell in John Carpenter's "The Thing").

The game also requires you to know the rules of three games of Pool, being 8-Ball UK, 8-Ball US, and 9-Ball. While the game does provide a small Rules page you can often find yourself making a foul without knowing why. Take breaking, for example. You shoot the ball down the table and into the rack of balls at the other end, only to be told it was an Illegal Break, or you committed a Foul. Why? I had to go online to find that out, and what I found was that (naturally) an Illegal Break varies from game to game. In 9-Ball the cue ball has to make contact with the lowest numbered ball first, which is not hard on the break because the Yellow (Ball #1) is the ball closest to the shooting line. On the break you must also either pot a ball (any ball) or cause four (or more) balls to hit a cushion. If you don't do this it's an Illegal Break, or a Foul, and your opponent can choose to rerack the balls, or play the table as is. In 8-Ball (both US & UK) a similar condition to the break applies, where you must drive four (or more) balls to the cushion, or pot one (or more) balls.

When not on the break you must hit one of your own balls first then either the cue ball or your own ball must hit another ball or a cushion, or you must pocket one of your own balls. So the old backyard method of snookering your opponent by hitting the cue ball just hard enough that it touches one of your own balls then stops is actually a Foul if neither ball hits a cushion.

The Pool game on my Razr is actually rather fun, if not for the computer "cheating" through superior knowledge of geometry and vectors, and in the limitations imposed on you by the digital controls, especially when your cue ball is at the other end of the table from your target ball. Sometimes you find a single press of the key moves the targeting reticle just too far for the shot you want, so you move it back and now you have the same problem from the other side. You can either miss to the left, or miss to the right, whereas the computer doesn't seem to be affected by the same limitations and makes table-length shots with ease.

I still think one of the best and most realistic computerized Pool games I've ever played was Virtual Pool, which virtually eliminated the aiming problem so common to 99% of PC Pool games. Rather than using keys to move your targeting reticle back & forth, your Virtual Pool cue was controlled by the mouse. So as you slid the mouse left and right your point of view rotated around the cue ball and changed the direction of your shot incrementally. By sliding the mouse forwards and backwards your "virtual head" raised and lowered over the cue ball, allowing you to get down low and really line up your shot. Finally when you felt the balls were in alignment and it was time to shoot you'd press & hold 'S' then slide your mouse backwards then forwards, simulating the action required to use a real pool cue. Whereas most games required you to press a button to start then stop a power meter to determine how hard you hit the cue ball, Virtual Pool gave you more precise control; the faster you slid your mouse forward, the harder you struck the ball. Ingenious!

Of course despite the more refined control Virtual Pool gave you over your cue, when playing a computer you were still subject to the same, freakishly genius way the computer could nail bank shots & combo shots. How can you beat someone who knows not just where the cue ball is going to go, but where their target ball will go, and where any other balls involved in the shot will go, too. We can determine this ourselves to some degree, but when you shoot a ball into a pack of balls it's almost impossible to determine what will happen on the other side. But the computer knows because it has to calculate everything that's going to happen, so your computer opponent knows exactly what will happen if it hits Ball 1 at Angle X with Force F.

In 9-Ball you have an easy out. Unlike 8-Ball where it's an automatic loss-of-game if you sink the Black out-of-turn, in 9-Ball it's a game winning shot as long as you hit the lowest numbered ball first. Sink the 9 on the break, you win. Hit the 8 (legally) into the 9 and sink it, you win. Hit the 1 and cannon the cue ball into the 9, sinking it, and you win. The computer knows this, too, but will often ignore this facet of the game. I've played games where the computer is on a run and I've been waiting for him to make a mistake because the 9 is poised over a corner pocket so as soon as it's my turn, it's Game Over, I Win! Cheating? Hardly, it's within the rules of the game :)

So while I never played 9-Ball until I came here to the U.S., I'm finding it's my game of choice against a computer opponent. Especially when playing a jammy bastard who pulls off impossible shots, and does things like bounce his target ball off the two corners of a pocket sending it back out into play, where it rolls down the table and drops into the opposite pocket. When the computer has precise control of every ball on the table and they play a shot like that, you know they meant to do it. Just like when the best player in the game repeatedly sinks the 9-Ball on the break. Jammy bastard! So when I get the chance to sink the 9-Ball out-of-turn I grab it with both hands.

"You got lucky this time," says the best player in the game. Hey, a win is a win, and I'll take them whenever I can get them.

*EDIT*

I was going to respond to Wolf's comment with one of my own (Noob ;) but realized it was quickly turning in to an entry length post, so I figured I'd add it here.

Growing up I had a grandfather who had a room in his house devoted to his pool table, and so I became very familiar with the three mainstream Pocket Pool games, being 8-Ball Pool, Billards, and Snooker. 8-Ball Pool you already know how to play, while Snooker you may have seen on the Tele' but billed as Pot Black (or at least that's the name the older series went by). Snooker is played with 10 red balls initially racked in a triangle a la 8-Ball (which uses 15 balls) but in addition to the 10 reds you have 6 colored balls: yellow; brown; green; blue; pink; & black, which are placed on the spots that you may have seen on better quality pool tables. The object of Snooker is to pot a red ball, then pot a colored ball of your choice (which gets respotted after potting), then pot another red ball, another (or the same) colored ball, and so on. You score 1 point for a red, and 2 to 7 points for a colored ball (in order as named earlier). After the reds are all sunk you work on the colored balls, again in successive order, until the black is sunk. The winner is not necessarily the person who potted the black, but who scored the most points during the game. Sink the most reds but only pot yellow and brown (or not sink a colored at all) and you might find yourself losing to someone who sinks the pink or black each time they pot a red. The term "snooker", meaning to finish your turn leaving your opponent no clear shot at a legal ball without making a bank shot, comes from this game.

Finally there's "English Billiards", the gentleman's game, best played among friends while smoking cigars and drinking expensive wine, whiskey or cognac. English Billiards (henceforth just called Billiards) is played between two players, each with their own cue ball (one of which is marked with a spot), and a single red ball. Yep, just the one red ball, which is placed on the dot at the bottom of the table. Technically there's no "break" in Billiards (no racked balls to break), so the person with the first shot has just one way to shoot and keep their turn; sink the red ball, or their own cue ball, on the "break". If you fail to score your opponent places his ball in the D at the top of the table and takes his first shot shooting down the table, that is, his ball must cross the line before striking the red ball or your own cue ball.

Now with three balls on the table you can also score with a "cannnon", that is striking both balls in either order with your own cue ball in one shot. You can also sink any or all of the balls during a cannon and score additional points. Be warned that if you sink the red or your own cue ball they come back out and get placed on the table and you keep your turn, but if you sink your opponent's cue ball it does not return to the table until the start of his turn, leaving you with just your own cue ball and the red with which to score points, which once again can now only occur through potting a ball. So it's not necessarily a good idea to pot your opponent's ball because it limits the ways you can score; it's better to attempt to pot your own cue ball, if possible. Billiards is played until one player wins by reaching a predetermined score, usually 100 but sometimes higher if players are particularly skilled and have no trouble scoring 100+ points in a single run.

Walter Lindrum: "G'day son. How about a game of Billiards?"
Sonny Jim: "If it's ok with you, sir, let's just say we played and you won."


Walter Lindrum's gravesite at Melbourne General Cemetary in Carlton North, Victoria, Australia. The man wasn't a fanatic, he was that damn good.