How safe are you?

Introducing «7-8-9» - the safety game

In order to improve your overall gameplay you have to practice your safeties. I came up with an idea for  something that makes it more entertaining to practice them, and by making it into a game you can test your skills against anyone and see who's the better safety player straight away. In pool, we already have a lot of disciplines focused on potting balls. It's time for something that purely focuses on other aspects of the game. The importance of being able to play a good safety shot in a match is indisputable, so get practicing!

The game is intended for two players, but you can practice it alone or with any number of opponents.

Rules of the game

• every shot is a safety shot, you must hit the 7-ball and get the cueball safe
• you get 1 point if you snooker your opponent, and additionally 1 point if your opponent misses the 7-ball, or fouls
• every other turn, you never get two shots in a row
• the 8 and 9-ball, if pocketed, comes up immediately at their pre-defined positions (see the starting positions in the image above)
• the 7-ball can be potted at any time, f.ex. if it ends up over a pocket
  • if potted, the player potting the ball must play safe on the 8-ball instead. The 7-ball comes up after the opponents next shot
  • incoming player must then hit the 8-ball and keep in mind that the 7-ball comes up on it's spot after his shot. Next player must then hit the 7-ball again as we are back to normal play.
  • no advantage is gained in potting the 7-ball as there is one less ball to snooker behind
• when in a snookered position, you need to hit the object ball and a cushion after impact (with cueball/objectball or both)
• any form of jump shot is not allowed and is considered a foul
• ball in hand anywhere on the table on scratch only (not on fouls or misses)

Overall goals

• playing better safeties
• getting out of a safe using the cushions
• playing safe from a snookered position
• make safety play fun and entertaining

Sounds boring? It isn't!

I've been showing this game to a lot of players lately and they're all very skeptical when I tell them it's a "safety game". Regular Joe just want to pocket balls you know.. But once they try it, every single one sees the immediate value in playing it. During a game the 8 and 9-ball will move around the table as they get knocked into, and it will completely transform the game. Some situations are more interesting than others, and since the 8 and 9-ball does not move all the time, you will usually get more than one try to get your opponent into trouble using the same path with a better speed, or find a new path that is better to get the snooker. This game will not only make your safeties better, it will force you into thinking more about where both the object ball and the cueball end up. If you haven't focused on that before (because you've been busy pocketing balls) you will feel your safety skills rising quickly! 

By the way, do NOT tell the americans about this game, as they might use it as a weapon to get their standard up for Mosconi Cup! 😉

Tournament play

I have some ideas for bringing this game into tournament play if that would interest anyone. By using a fixed time limit for each match instead of a fixed distance (or both), but I'll leave that for later..

Let me know if you try the game (you should), or if you have some thoughts about it.

Example

Below you can see how me and designer Jan Thomassen played the game at the office the other day.