How to play 8-Ball Pool

Line up the perfect shot, chalk the cue, and clear your group before sinking the 8-ball to beat the computer.

Play 8-Ball Pool free → More arcade games

Eight-ball pool, on a pub table, against a computer that lines up its own cuts and banks.

The rules

Break the rack. Whichever group you pot first is yours — solids, numbered one to seven, or stripes, nine to fifteen. Your opponent takes the other.

Pot a ball from your group and you keep shooting. Miss, and the turn passes.

Potting the cue ball is a scratch: a foul that gives your opponent ball in hand, meaning they may place the cue ball anywhere.

Once every ball in your group is down, pot the eight-ball to win. Potting the eight-ball early, or scratching while potting it, loses the game immediately.

Aiming

Drag back from the cue ball like a slingshot. The direction sets your angle and the distance sets your power, with a ring filling around the cue ball to show exactly how hard you are about to hit.

A ghost-ball guide shows where the cue ball will contact the object ball. The important thing to understand is that you aim the ghost ball at the point on the object ball opposite the pocket — not at the object ball itself. Almost every miss by a new player is aiming at the ball rather than through it.

Power is a decision, not a setting

Beginners hit everything hard. Hard shots pot the ball and then send the cue ball three cushions away to somewhere unhelpful, which is why a run of one ball is common and a run of four is rare.

The point of a pool break is not just to pot; it is to leave the cue ball somewhere useful for the next shot. That means using the least power that will do the job, most of the time.

Playing the position, not the ball

Before choosing a shot, look at which of your balls you want to shoot next, and pick the pot that leaves the cue ball with an angle on it.

A straight pot that leaves you snookered is worse than a slightly harder pot that leaves you lined up. Over a whole rack this is the difference between clearing and trading turns.

When you cannot pot

Play safe. Leave the cue ball where your opponent has no clear shot, ideally with one of their balls blocked or the cue ball tight against a cushion.

Deliberately playing safe is a real move rather than a failure, and against a computer that punishes open tables it is often the highest-value shot available.

The eight-ball

Plan for it before you need it. Clearing your group and then finding the eight-ball trapped in a cluster is the classic way to lose from a winning position.

If one of your balls is sitting in front of the pocket the eight-ball needs, deal with it early rather than saving the easy pot for last.

Controls

Press and drag back from the cue ball to aim: the direction sets your line and the pull-back distance sets power.

Reading the shot

A ring around the cue ball fills from green to red as you pull, with notches at every quarter, so you can see exactly how hard the shot will land before you let go.
The dashed guide and ghost ball show where the cue and object ball will go.
Release to strike, or let go at 0% to cancel.

After a foul

On a foul you get ball in hand — drag the cue ball to a clear spot, then aim.

Strategy tips

Aim through the ball, not at it. Line the ghost ball up with the point opposite the pocket, which is where almost every beginner miss comes from.
Use the least power that does the job. A hard pot that sends the cue ball three cushions away costs you the next shot.
Pick your next ball before you take this one. The pot that leaves you an angle beats the pot that leaves you straight and stuck.
Play safe when there is no shot. Leaving your opponent nothing is a real move, and often the best one on the table.
Deal with your problem balls early. A ball trapped against a cushion is still trapped later, and by then you will have no easy shots to spend on it.
Clear the path to the eight-ball while you still have choices. Clearing your group and finding the black stuck in a cluster is the classic way to lose a won rack.
Treat a scratch as worse than a miss. Ball in hand lets your opponent set up perfectly, so a safe miss is better than a risky pot with the cue ball in danger.
Watch where the cue ball goes after every shot, not just whether the ball dropped. That is the habit that turns single pots into runs.