Snookerस्नुकर

The table and the balls

The table is full size: the cloth inside the cushions is 3569 by 1778 mm, with six pockets. The pockets on this table are about 10 cm across at the corners and 11 cm in the middle, much tighter than on a pool table. The balls are 55 mm, a touch bigger than the real 52.5 mm so they read well on a phone.

There is one white cue ball, the reds (15, 10 or 6 of them, as you choose) and six colours: yellow 2, green 3, brown 4, blue 5, pink 6 and black 7 points.

The baulk line runs across the table near the bottom cushion. The D is the half circle on it, and the yellow, brown and green sit on the line, with the yellow on the right as you look up the table. The blue sits in the middle of the table, the pink halfway between the blue and the top cushion, and the black near the top cushion. The reds are packed in a triangle just behind the pink.

The break-off

The first player places the cue ball anywhere in the D, lines included, and plays. A red must be hit first, as on any shot when reds are on.

Most players clip the side of the pack thinly so the cue ball runs off the top and side cushions back to baulk, leaving the reds tight and the cue ball far away.

Reds and colours

When a red is on, the cue ball must hit a red first. Every red that goes in scores 1, two reds score 2, and you carry on.

After potting a red you are on a colour. Choose (nominate) the colour you are playing; this table takes the colour you aim at, or you can tap one. Hit and pot that colour to score its value.

While reds are left, every colour that goes in is put back on its own spot. Reds never come back.

Keep alternating red, colour, red, colour. The points you score in one visit to the table are your break. Miss, and the other player comes to the table.

The colours at the end

When the last red goes in you are on a colour as usual, and it is spotted again.

After that the colours must go down in order of value: yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and finally black. Now each one stays down when it is potted fairly.

The frame ends when the black goes in, or with a foul while only the black is left. If one player is more than 7 ahead with only the black left, nothing can change the result, so the frame ends there.

Fouls

These shots are fouls:

• The cue ball misses every ball.
• The cue ball hits a ball that is not on first.
• A ball that is not on goes in a pocket.
• The cue ball goes in a pocket (an in-off).

A foul gives the other player 4 points, or the value of the ball on, or of the ball wrongly hit or potted, whichever is highest. So hitting the black first by mistake costs 7.

Colours that go in on a foul come back to their spots, even in the final sequence. Reds that go in on a foul stay down and score nothing.

After an in-off the next player has the cue ball in hand and places it anywhere in the D.

After a foul: play on, or make them play again

The player fouled against chooses: play the next shot from where the balls lie, or make the player who fouled play again. Tap Play again to hand the shot back.

Free ball

If a foul leaves you snookered, you get a free ball. You are snookered when, for every ball on, a ball that is not on blocks a straight shot at one side or the other of it.

With a free ball you may nominate any colour and play it as if it were the ball on. When reds are on, a potted free ball counts 1, like a red, comes back to its spot, and you go on to a colour. In the final sequence it counts the value of the ball on.

The free ball must be hit first. You can also play the ordinary ball on instead, or make the other player play again.

Re-spotting colours

A colour goes back on its own spot. If something is in the way, it goes on the highest-value free spot instead, black first. If every spot is covered, it goes as near its own spot as it fits, towards the top cushion, or else towards the bottom cushion.

When two colours come back at once, each still goes on its own spot if that is free. If both spots are covered, the higher colour takes the best free spot first.

Winning the frame and the match

The player with more points when the frame ends wins it.

If the scores are level after the last black, the black is spotted again and lots decide who plays first, with the cue ball in hand in the D. The first score or foul then ends the frame.

Play one frame, or the best of three, with the break-off passing to the other player each frame.

A frame stops after 240 shots with 6 reds (320 with 10, 420 with 15), which no real frame reaches. The player ahead wins it; level scores go to the higher break, then to the player who did not break off.

Aiming, power and spin

Drag on the table to aim, and use the arrow buttons to fine-tune. The guide line shows the cue ball's path, a ghost ball where it first touches a ball, and where both balls go after the hit; it turns red if that first ball is not on. Pull the power bar down and let go to shoot, or set it and press Shoot.

With the cue ball in hand, drag it anywhere inside the D first. Tap the white ball above the power bar to add top, back or side spin.

Every shot is played out by the same physics on every phone, so what you see is exactly what happened.

Where these rules come from

This table plays the WPBSA Rules of Snooker, the rules of the professional game, with the changes most club and hall games make:

• The table, the spots, the scoring, fouls of at least 4 points, re-spotting, the free ball and the re-spotted black: the WPBSA rules.
• No miss rule. Professionals must try their best to hit the ball on, or the referee can put the balls back. Here, the answer to a deliberate foul is to make the player play again.
• Snookered is decided by balls only; a cushion corner in the way does not give a free ball. There is no free ball with the cue ball in hand, and no foul for snookering the other player behind the free ball.
• A cue ball touching a ball is not special: playing away from it is not a foul, and does not count as hitting it.
• Push shots, jump shots and balls leaving the table cannot happen in this game.
• 6-red and 10-red frames: the popular short games, played with the same rules. The most you can score in one break without free balls is 75 with 6 reds, 107 with 10 and 147 with 15.

Number of reds

6 reds is the default: a frame takes about a third of the time of the full game, and the pack sits in three rows behind the pink. Choose 10 reds for a longer frame, or 15 for the full game with a maximum break of 147.

Frames

One frame is the default. Best of 3 plays until someone wins two frames, with the break-off alternating between the players.