8-ball pool online

8-ball on a bar table, one on one. Pot every ball of your group (solids, 1 to 7, or stripes, 9 to 15) and then the 8.

1. Aim by dragging on the table (or with the ← → arrows), set the power by pulling the bar down or with the slider, add spin by tapping the cue ball on the panel and press Shoot. The guide lines show the ghost ball and where the balls will go.
2. Break: place the cue ball behind the head string and break the rack. Balls potted on the break don’t decide the groups.
3. Open table: the first player to legally pot a ball after the break takes that group (if both kinds drop, the first one in decides). With an open table you can’t hit the 8 first.
4. As long as you pot balls of your group without fouling, you keep shooting.
5. Fouls: potting the cue ball, hitting no ball, hitting first a ball that isn’t yours (or that isn’t the 8 when you’re on it), no ball touching a cushion after contact when nothing drops, or knocking a ball off the table. Your opponent gets ball in hand and places the cue ball anywhere; if the foul was potting the cue ball on the break, behind the head string.
6. The 8: once your whole group is down, pot the 8 and you win. You lose if you pot it too early, if you pot it while fouling (including scratching the cue ball) or, with called pockets, if it drops in a different pocket. If the 8 drops on the break, it’s respotted and play goes on.

Tips and options

• Spin: top (follow) makes the cue ball roll on after impact; bottom (draw) brings it back towards you; side changes how it comes off the cushions.
• Every shot has a time limit: if it runs out, it’s a foul and your opponent gets ball in hand. Three in a row and you lose for inactivity.
• In ranked games you win or lose Elo, as in chess. In a room with friends you can add bots of three levels to practise.