Rule differences ... HS vs PC vs MCF

Quick primer for people who haven't been around long enough (or may have forgotten) the differences between High Spirits, Pool Competitions and Miniclip Forum rules. We don't run many competitions at HS now anyway, so you're forgiven for not knowing the differences.

Flukes
Every HS 8 Ball league, HS 8 Ball Handicap Cup (HS HC Cup) and HS 8 Ball Handicap League uses called pocket rules. To call a pocket you must have in mind 1 pocket and 1 ball. If you have a shot where you think you might pocket 2 balls, and only 1 goes in, you must pass the turn if it's the wrong one. Obviously, you can pot more than 1 ball in a shot, provided that you pot the intended one.

In professional rules you can even Call a Safety and pocket a ball in the same shot. I've literally done this once in all the games I've played league/cup, etc. Tell your opponent ***before the shot*** that you intend to play a safety. You can pocket one of your balls but forfeit your turn, provided you've told your opponent that it is in fact a safety shot, and make your opponent play from where the balls finish.

How to pass your turn: If you fluke an unintended ball into an unintended pocket you forfeit your turn. Your opponent must play from the position left; you do *not* have ball in hand. A fluke is not a foul shot, so you cannot move the white.

At High Spirits, our members are chosen for their integrity, so we 'trust' our opponents in their intentions. Players at Pool Competitions and MCF are not so reliable, and may use this method to cheat, i.e. claim they intended a shot which was actually a fluke. It's particularly common in Indirect, where you are smashing the balls around the table quickly and it can be difficult to ascertain the intended shot. Funnily enough, Guybrush, who first wrote the rules for HS Indirect competitions actually allowed flukes in Indirect for this reason, and I would do the same if I ran an indirect competition.


Mouse slip

A mouse slip is when you accidentally release the cue early and the cue ball travels with the unintended power for your shot. In High Spirits, the rule was codified, saying that if this happened and no other balls were disturbed the cue ball should be replaced, and the player allowed to retake the shot. (Obviously if balls were disturbed, it may be impossible to replay the exact shot.) It also depends on the situation ... say there is a mouse slip immediately when aiming and neither player was sure whether a shot was on it's probably best not to attempt replacing the balls.

Shots which demand an exact low power, such as laying a delicate snooker on a ball, usually aren't given the benefit of the doubt.

In Pool Competitions, many of the players will probably follow the same rules, allowing players to retake shots from the original position, but the rule is *not codified*. It's at the discretion of the players if they wish to pass the turn back. This is 1) to simplify the rules; 2) because it's kinda your own fault anyway if this happens. And who knows, maybe some mouse slips are actually caused by nerves, not just by shitty mouse buttons, which makes them analagous to a 'miscue'. One thing your opponent cannot do, however, if you tap the cue ball back, is pick up the white and put it anywhere they choose, claiming that they did not know of the 'mouse slip' rule. Simple observation should tell them you're allowing them to replay the same shot, not pick up the cue ball and place it at will.


teleports

When teleports first began, HS had a bunch of different rules which were very flexible, and very reliant on trusting your opponent to describe the situation fairly and accurately.

https://s1284.photobucket.com/user/offdutytrip/media/teleport_zpscf24b5dd.jpg.html

If the teleport caused a pocketed ball to be respotted on the table, the player could be given the option of continuing from where the balls finished, or replaying the frame, or even being awarded the frame, depending on how likely winning from that position was, how difficult the table was to clear, how severe the teleport was, etc.

It seemed to be the case that many teleports affected the shot immediately after the break, sometimes causing dry breaks when in fact the breaker saw some balls being pocket. (This difference even cost someone the League one month, *cough*). Still, the teleports were so common that it became impractical to restart and replay every frame. And some people thought that missed shots were caused by teleports when they were in fact caused by bad aiming. (I carried these rules over in a PCT where I played Speako, since it seemed silly to allow teleports to affect a big match with someone you regard as an honest player. It's always possible, ofc, to agree with a rule set with a player before playing. Still, I gave him a replay in a frame in which he swore he had a teleport, but which in retrospect I think was just bad aiming - I have the video for this if you're interested ). It's not a joke to say the game was pretty much unplayable during this period. And of course it became impossible to trust opponents, either because they could claim every miss was a teleport, or because even honest players sometimes misjudge easy shots and thought they were aiming correctly.

I think the HS rules on this were pretty bad, and I harangued Allex repeatedly (who ran the league for a few months) because of the HS rules. The only sensible way to play is PC rules (described by Anders):

"To deal with it, I believe you just need to play on, and hope it will even out over time, just like flukes. Resetting the game every time it happens feels like a mess, and difficult to judge whether a frame should be replayed or not, especially when the opponent can't even see the transitions."

The type of teleports which happened in mid-shot appear to have been fixed now. The current rare ones affect the shot after the balls have finished rolling, causing balls to jump around the table. I guess the current HS rule is still if you're put completely out of position (snookered) by a teleport, or you pot a ball which comes back on the table, you can ask your opponent to replay the frame. Shots which are missed but where the ball isn't potted on either players' screen cannot be replayed. On other forums (PC and MCF), you just have to carry on playing and smile.

deliberate fouling

Isn't allowed in HS competitions, but is allowed in PC tournaments. I guess the UK bias of HS, or at least the origin of HS, meant many players were really snooker spectators, since snooker is covered a lot on UK television, and 8 ball/9 ball competitions hardly televised at all. Yet all the official rules of 8 and 9 ball allow deliberate fouls. As always, there are local variations in rules which need to considered. And now the main type of competitions played in HS are in fact PC tournaments, which makes communication and deciding which rules to play more difficult/ambiguous.

Mr Anders again:

I'm in favour of allowing them mainly because I find it so extremely silly being snookered by somebody, and then "having" to attempt hitting something. I could be down on the black or my last object ball, that is placed awkward, tied to something or over a pocket. And at the same time the opponent can't do something to win. So he just does nothing, because he knows on my next turn I'm "forced" to try something that is suicide. And what am I supposed to do if it's physically impossible to hit the object ball? Or what would disallowing deliberate fouls actually consist of? A fair attempt of shooting towards your object ball, or just some very weird nonsense about not allowing you to play a shot that is intended to destroy for your opponent....well I could describe it in a million ways, it would be stupid however you think about it, I'm guessing. That said, situations with deliberate fouling appears so rarely in 8 ball that it feels unnecessary to deal with. It's just that once it happens, it seems some people get extremely annoyed. But that's really their problem, imo. It's not about bad sportmanship from the opponent.

If you would do prefer to forbid deliberate fouling in general, begin saying so and we can clear out whether this is just a discussion about clarification, if we need to address. Or whether it's a discussion about deliberate fouling's existence.

My reply, for what it's worth:

But about deliberate fouls ... I'm still unsure whether they should be allowed. I like to play 9 ball without them, since it seems to put more pressure on good safety play. There's less pressure when trying to escape from a snooker if you choose instead to mess up the table by pushing two balls together, which is easy to do in 9 ball. And it's so easy to tie up a 9 ball table it might actually de-skill the game, since you remove just a few balls at a time, but if you make a mistake at the very end of the frame your opponent will have an easy clearance with just his balls left on the table. And this turns the game into more like the MC version of 8 ball, where whoever makes the final mistake leaves an easy clearance on an empty table for his opponent. 9 ball is usually fun precisely because it's unlike 8 ball in finishing with easy clearances. And deliberate fouling seems to reduce the power of snookering shots, imo.

In 8 ball, I guess I'm in favour of them being used, and I have used them, even in matches against you. As you say, it's pretty rare that they are useful. You might as well try to hit your final ball and fluke it, since you're almost bound to lose the frame anyway. In 1 in 1000 frames it might help save a re-rack situation rather having to play a suicide shot.

But again, I'm still unsure whether this is a good move for players generally. Most here are used to disallowing deliberate fouls, except maybe KAPTEN, who gives a masterclass in them. And I think most would be against a rule using them, even though they have already been allowed for months, as you said. It would almost be better to disallow deliberate fouls by default, and saying you can play them in normal 8 ball if you both agree, but it's so rare a situation that I don't think anyone would say this before a match. And it's strange to make disallowing them default, since they are really allowed IRL 8 and 9 ball. But I think in the version of MC 9 ball, the game is better without them, idk.

It seems in certain situations, either allowing or disallowing deliberate fouls can create stalemates. But most deliberate fouls (seen against players in high 1v1 tiers) are pretty desperate and leave easy enough clearances with bih, so it's a huge disadvantage to foul. Deliberate fouling isn't really something I've seen in matches against other HS players, though, so it's probably wise to steer away from this tactic.

annoying opponents

MCF: is full of known cheats and hackers, and tournament organisers are powerless to throw them out of their competitions. Most of them are really terrible at the game, which is why they turned to cheating in the first place. Rarely, someone who is competent, like Tiesto or Junior, will appear, and they are extremely difficult to beat. No use complaining about them, though, if you agreed to enter the competition in the first place.

PC: these tournaments are controlled and we throw out obvious cheats. But opponents can still be annoying in a variety of other ways. They can chat spam, brag, show poor sportsmanship. These things occur at all levels of sport, but they are not excuses for not playing such opponents; rather they are integral to sport competitions. And it seems that some players are quite weak mentally, and would sooner be distracted by their opponent than punish them for playing deliberate fouls or taunting them in comments/chat spam. For the purpose of PC tournaments, only actual cheating (lying about scores or hacking, etc.) warrants a ban from competitions.

HS: is replete with totally sound individuals and perfect sportsmanship. That's why we have no arguments, ever.