K-Ball

The rack

All fifteen balls are racked in a regular triangle, spread out as for eight-ball with stripes and solids alternated: the 1 in front, the 2 and 3 on the back corners, and the 8 in the centre.

The official rules specifically exclude a Magic Rack or similar template, on the grounds that it almost guarantees a particular ball is made on the break. The break is meant to be a shot, not a formality.

The break

The break is struck hard and must contact the 1 ball first. To count as a legal break, four balls in total must either be pocketed or driven past the head string — made balls and balls crossing the line count together toward that four.

If a ball is made on the break, the breaker takes cue ball in hand anywhere on the table and begins playing the balls in rotation. If nothing is pocketed, the opponent takes cue ball in hand anywhere on the table instead.

Rotation and call pocket

Play proceeds in rotation: the lowest-numbered ball on the table must be contacted first, as in nine-ball and ten-ball.

K-Ball is call pocket rather than call shot, and the distinction matters. You nominate the pocket only — kisses, banks and combinations do not have to be called. That keeps the game moving without rewarding a ball that drops in a pocket nobody intended.

Every ball pocketed is worth one point. When the last ball on the table is pocketed, the shooter re-racks all fifteen and breaks again, and play continues exactly as after the opening break.

No safeties, and the fifteen-point penalty

K-Ball is an offence-only game. Safety play is not permitted at any point, including immediately after the break.

Enforcement is unusually direct: if the referee judges that a player has played a safety, that player loses fifteen points and their opponent breaks a new rack. It is the heaviest penalty in the game, and it exists because a points race with no restriction on defence would otherwise collapse into exactly the safety battles the format is designed to prevent.

This is a referee judgement rather than an objective event, which is worth knowing if you are playing without one.

Fouls

Any foul costs one point and gives the opponent cue ball in hand anywhere on the table. There is no separate schedule of lesser and greater fouls — the penalty is the same whatever the offence.

Note that this is a single-foul penalty. Unlike straight pool, K-Ball has no three-consecutive-foul rule; the fifteen-point penalty is reserved for playing a safety.

Giving the shot back

At any time, the player coming to the table may hand the shot back to the player who just shot, requiring them to play again from the position they left.

This is the game’s answer to the problem safeties would otherwise solve. A player who leaves a genuinely unplayable table cannot escape it — the option to return the shot means the difficulty they created is theirs to deal with.

How League Night scores it

K-Ball is played to a predetermined total, commonly 100 or 150, in the same way as straight pool. League Night defaults a match to 100 points.

The scoring pad adds a point per ball, with shortcuts for 5, 10 and 15 — 15 being a full cleared rack — and offers a new-rack control once fifteen balls have been recorded. That control is a prompt rather than a rule, since spotted balls return to the table and a rack can take more than fifteen pocket events to clear.

Innings, balls per inning and high run are tracked, the same measurements straight pool uses. In a format that forbids defence those numbers are unusually honest: a low balls-per-inning figure here can only mean missing, where in straight pool it might reflect a deliberately defensive match.

There is no safety button, because the format does not allow one. A plain miss is recorded with the turn-over control.

Other games

Eight-ball·Nine-ball·Ten-ball·Straight pool (14.1 continuous)·One-pocket·Bank pool