One-pocket
Two players, two pockets, and the most patient game in pool.
In one-pocket each player owns a single corner pocket and only scores in that one. Eight balls wins. It is the most strategic game on a pool table and by some distance the slowest.
The object of the game
Each player is assigned one of the two corner pockets at the foot of the table. A ball counts for you only if it falls in your pocket. First to eight balls — a majority of the fifteen — wins the game.
A ball you pocket in your opponent’s pocket scores for them. That single rule is the source of nearly all of one-pocket’s strategy: every shot has to be weighed against what it hands over.
Why it plays so slowly
Because only one pocket out of six scores for you, most positions offer no shot worth taking. The correct play is very often not a shot at all but a manoeuvre: nudging a ball a few inches toward your side of the table while leaving the cue ball where your opponent can do nothing with it.
Games routinely go long stretches with no ball pocketed by either player. To an onlooker this can look like nothing is happening; to the players it is the entire game.
Moving balls and the bank
A great deal of one-pocket consists of moving balls toward your pocket over several innings, so that a run becomes available later. Banking is central too: because your pocket is fixed, the bank shot is frequently the only scoring shot on the table.
The best players think several innings ahead, in terms of where the cluster of balls will be rather than which single ball they can make now.
The break
The one-pocket break is not an attempt to spread the balls. The standard break sends the cue ball into the corner of the rack nearest your own pocket, nudging a ball or two toward your side while leaving the pack largely intact and the cue ball safe on the bottom rail.
Breaking the rack open would be a mistake: it hands your opponent as many opportunities as it creates for you. A one-pocket break is judged by how little it gives away, which is the opposite of every other game on this list.
Fouls
Fouls in one-pocket cost you a ball: you owe one, which is spotted back onto the table. Because the margin is only eight balls, spotting one is a serious loss, and a player who fouls twice in a tight game has usually lost it.
The severity is deliberate. Since so much of the game is manoeuvring rather than shooting, the foul penalty is what keeps players honest about making a legal hit.
How League Night scores it
One-pocket is scored by points, with a default target of 8 — the standard game. The pad adds a ball at a time to whichever player pocketed it.
Because the app records which player scored each ball rather than assuming alternating innings, the running score stays correct through the long defensive exchanges that make up most of a one-pocket game.
Other games
Eight-ball·Nine-ball·Ten-ball·Straight pool (14.1 continuous)·Bank pool·K-Ball