How BreakOUT League Plays

Section 1

Spirit of the Game

It's impossible to write a rule for every situation. When something isn't covered here, use common sense and play in the spirit of the rules, not just the letter of them. This league is built to be a welcoming, LGBTQ+ friendly community first and a competition second, so treat opponents the way you'd want to be treated, and settle disagreements with a conversation, not a scoresheet fight.

These rules aren't set in stone: gameplay mechanics and scoring calculations (like the upset bonus and the skill-rank formula below) can and do change based on feedback from teams and players. If something feels unfair or unclear, say something instead of just living with it.

Section 2

Membership & Teams

• • Every player needs their own membership account (dues are $15/year).
• • A player can only be on one team's roster at a time.
• • Team rosters hold exactly 4 players.
• • There's no team skill cap: captains build their roster with whoever they want, regardless of rank. If enough teams end up loaded with higher-ranked players, the league may split into two divisions instead, to keep matchups competitive.
• • Any dues-paid active league member can sub in for a team on a given night, roster or not.
• • Captains add teammates from the Team dashboard once that teammate has signed up.
• • For a session with a fee, a player who falls more than one week past due on their share can't be added to that night's lineup, in Auto-Assign or manually, until they sign in and pay (paying in full or catching up on installments both work). An admin can still add them anyway, or waive the block for that session entirely.

Section 3

Lineup

This describes a regular league night. Tournament play (Singles, Doubles, End of Session) still uses the older 4-board lineup and race format described for those events.

1. 1. Every player plays one rack (8-Ball) and one rack (9-Ball) against every player on the other roster — with 4-player rosters, that's 16 pairings per format, 32 for the night.
2. 2. Each team picks its players for each format before play starts (subs allowed for anyone unavailable). The order you pick them in doesn't matter, the app builds the schedule from your picks. On a night with both formats, a team can't lead with the same player in 8-Ball and 9-Ball (the app swaps it for you automatically).
3. 3. There's no lag: the home team always breaks pairing 1, and the breaker alternates every pairing after that. The home team keeps score for 8-Ball and the away team keeps score for 9-Ball.
4. 4. Short-handed forfeits: if a team can't field all 4 players for a format, the pairings that CAN be played (between people who actually showed up) are still played and scored normally. The pairings that can't — because the missing player would have no one to face — are forfeited: an automatic win for the other team, same as 8-Ball and 9-Ball both work today. If a player has to leave partway through the night after the lineup's already locked in, their remaining pairings can be forfeited too, from that pairing's match page.

Section 4

Phone a Friend & Coaching

• • Phone a Friend: once per player, per night, you can call in someone else to take one shot for you: a fun "celebrity guest" shot, not a strategy to lean on every board.
• • Phone a Friend can't win the game outright: your celebrity guest can't be the one to pocket the 8-ball or 9-ball for the win, and they can't be used to break.
• • Your friend has to be on that night's declared roster, either team or format.
• • It's tracked in the app (look for the 📞 button on the board scoring screen) so it can't be used twice, but the shot still counts for whoever's officially assigned to that board.
• • Coaching: each player may have up to 2 coaches per rack, also drawn from that night's declared roster. This is tracked and enforced in the app: each side gets up to 2 coaching timeouts per rack, called from the Coach button (only available on your side's turn). Calling one locks the screen with a timer until play resumes; canceling a timeout you called by mistake doesn't count against your 2, but resuming play does.
• • Asking a rules question isn't coaching: clarifying a ruling with your opponent, a teammate, or an admin never counts against your coaching timeouts. Only actual strategy or technique advice does.

Section 5

General Play Rules

These mechanics apply to both formats (noted per-format where they differ), modeled on standard tournament pool rules. Anything in the 8-Ball or 9-Ball sections above always wins if it conflicts with something here.

Racking

• • Balls are racked as tight (frozen) as possible by the non-breaking player, who racks for the opponent every time (after the lag, and after every game).
• • The breaker may request a rerack before shooting.
• • 8-Ball: all 15 balls in a triangle, 8-ball in the center, everything else in any order.
• • 9-Ball: balls 1 through 9 in a diamond, 1-ball at the front, 9-ball in the center, rest in any order.

Breaking

• • You must break from behind the head string.
• • A legal break drives at least 4 object balls to a rail, or pockets an object ball. The cue ball can't hit a rail before it hits the rack.
• • If the rack is struck but the break isn't legal, it's reracked and rebroken by the same player.
• • If the rack is struck, the break isn't legal, and the shooter scratches, it's reracked and broken by the other player instead.
• • Breaking safe or soft isn't allowed. Break as hard as you can while keeping control; a league admin can penalize a team that keeps breaking soft.

After the Break

• • A foul on a legal break gives the opponent ball-in-hand (behind the head string in 8-Ball, anywhere on the table in 9-Ball).
• • If nothing is pocketed, it becomes the opponent's turn. If a ball is pocketed, the breaker keeps shooting.
• • 8-Ball: if one or more balls from just one category are pocketed on the break, that becomes the breaker's category. If balls from both categories are pocketed, the table stays open, and the breaker may shoot any ball except the 8-ball on their next shot to try to settle it. If the 8-ball itself drops on the break, it's a win, unless the breaker also fouled the cue ball, which makes it an immediate loss instead.
• • 9-Ball: pocketed balls (other than the 9) stay down as made balls. If the 9-ball drops on the break, it's a win, unless the breaker scratches, in which case the 9-ball gets spotted and the turn passes over.

Shooting the Wrong Balls

• • You can always ask your opponent which ball or category you should be shooting, and they have to answer honestly.
• • Hitting the wrong ball first is a foul the instant it happens, whether or not anything drops.
• • If nobody calls the foul before the next shot, and that next shot legally contacts the right ball instead, it's too late to call it. In 8-Ball, legally hitting the 8-ball after a missed foul call hands you that category for the rest of the game. In 9-Ball, anything pocketed before the foul was called is marked dead (except the 9-ball, which gets spotted).

Combination Shots

Combinations are legal as long as you strike the correct ball first. In 8-Ball, you may never contact the 8-ball first in a combo, and missing your own ball while pocketing an opponent's just ends your turn (nothing gets spotted). In 9-Ball, you must strike the lowest ball on the table first, and you're credited for anything you legally pocket afterward.

Pocketed Balls

• • A ball that drops in and bounces back onto the table doesn't count as pocketed; play it from where it lies.
• • A ball hanging in a pocket for more than a few seconds that then drops on its own counts as pocketed, as long as the shooting player is still at the table. If the player has already left the table, it's simply the other player's turn.

Balls on the Floor

A ball knocked off the table gets spotted on the foot spot (or directly behind it if taken; multiple balls go in numerical order, closest ball nearest the spot). In 8-Ball, a ball knocked off mid-shot isn't spotted until your turn ends, unless it's the 8-ball, which loses the game immediately. In 9-Ball, balls are spotted right away; the 9-ball specifically gets spotted any time it's knocked off, pocketed on a scratch/foul, or pocketed early (any shot other than the break that happens before balls 1 through 8 are cleared).

Accidentally Moved Balls

An accidentally moved ball gets replaced by the opponent, unless it made contact with the cue ball, in which case it's a ball-in-hand foul instead and nothing gets replaced. A ball nudged by a bridge, cue stick, or pocket marker while it's already moving doesn't get replaced. That's different from actually striking the cue ball: if you shoot and it's not a legal hit (not your own ball first in 8-Ball, or the lowest ball on the table in 9-Ball), that's a standard foul, not an accidentally-moved-ball situation, and your opponent gets ball-in-hand.

Close Hits

Ask an agreed-upon third party to watch a shot you're worried about before it happens; their call is final once asked. The shooter has the benefit of the doubt on a close or simultaneous hit if nobody was watching, and repeatedly disputing hits without asking for a third party can draw a sportsmanship violation.

One Foot on the Floor

Keep at least one foot on the floor while shooting. It's not a foul if you don't, but it can be a sportsmanship violation. A team that brings its own bridge has to share it with the other team if the venue doesn't have one.

Marking the Table

Don't mark the cloth in any way (chalk lines, a wet finger, etc.); it's fine to rest chalk on the rail's unfelted surface.

Frozen Balls

A ball touching another ball or a rail is "frozen," but only once both players agree it is (or an agreed third party confirms it). The exact legal-contact rules get fairly technical, so the short version:

• • Object ball frozen to a rail: after contacting it, you need the cue ball to hit a rail, the frozen ball to hit a rail or a pocket, or a chain reaction into another ball that sends something to a rail or a pocket.
• • Cue ball frozen to your own ball (your 8-Ball category, or the lowest ball in 9-Ball): shooting into it counts as legal contact on its own. Shooting away from it only counts if you come back and hit it again, or (8-Ball only) hit another one of your own balls first.
• • Cue ball frozen to your opponent's ball (their 8-Ball category, or a non-lowest ball in 9-Ball): you must shoot away from it. Shooting into it is an automatic foul.

Fouls

Every foul below gives the opponent ball-in-hand anywhere on the table (except a scratch on an 8-Ball break, which is ball-in-hand from behind the head string, contacting a ball outside the head string). Only the shooter or their Team Captain can officially call a foul, and a foul not called before the next shot can't be called after the fact.

• • The cue ball ends up in a pocket, on the floor, or otherwise off the table.
• • Failing to hit the correct ball first.
• • Failing to send a ball to a rail or pocket one after contact.
• • Failing to satisfy the frozen-ball contact rules above.
• • Intentionally scooping the cue ball over another ball.
• • Getting advice from a teammate (other than your designated coach) during a timeout.
• • Touching or moving the cue ball outside of a ball-in-hand situation.
• • Altering the course of a moving cue ball, including a double-hit.
• • The cue ball contacting a ball that was accidentally moved.
• • The cue ball not touching any object ball during a shot.
• • Touching another ball while placing the cue ball during a ball-in-hand.
• • Doubles only: shooting out of rotation is a foul the moment it happens. If the sitting team doesn't call it before the next shot, no ball-in-hand is awarded, and the new rotation just carries on for the rest of the match.

How to Win a Game

8-Ball: you win by legally pocketing all of your category plus the 8-ball in a marked pocket, or your opponent hands it to you by: pocketing the 8-ball out of turn or knocking it off the table, pocketing it in the wrong (unmarked) pocket, altering the 8-ball or cue ball's path to dodge a loss, or scratching on a shot that makes contact with the 8-ball (whether or not it drops), which is an automatic loss just like scratching while pocketing it. If you shoot at the 8-ball and the cue ball never touches it, that's just a regular foul: ball-in-hand for your opponent, not an automatic loss. You can't pocket the 8-ball on the same shot as your last group ball; that's a loss, not a win. A coaster or similar marker goes next to your intended pocket before you shoot for the 8-ball; both players can share one marker, and touching it with the 8-ball isn't a foul.

9-Ball: you win by legally pocketing the 9-ball on the break, or after balls 1 through 8 are already off the table. If the 9 drops on any other shot, whether on its own, off a combo, or off a carom, it doesn't win: it gets spotted and play continues.

Section 6

8-Ball

This describes a regular league night's 8-Ball table. Tournament boards score differently — see the Tournament Format section below.

• • 16 pairings a night (every home player vs. every away player, once each); one game decides each pairing outright.
• • No lag: the home team breaks pairing 1, and the breaker alternates every pairing after that.
• • Pocket your assigned group (solids or stripes), then legally pocket the 8-ball to win the pairing.
• • Scorekeeping: the home team keeps score for 8-Ball. The scorekeeper runs the scoring screen for every pairing that night; the other team can follow along on the match page.
• • Points: every pairing is worth 1 team point, awarded flat to whoever wins it, plus any upset bonus below. Your team's score for the night is the total of those points.
• • Upset bonus: if the two players are more than 2 ranks apart and the lower-ranked (weaker) player wins the pairing, their team earns a bonus point for that pairing: 2 points instead of 1. A higher-ranked player winning as expected is still just 1 point, and the losing side's share (0) never changes.

How a Game Is Played

Everything above is how this league specifically runs a night: boards, race length, who breaks. It always wins over anything below. What follows is standard shot-by-shot 8-ball play, for how an individual game is contested at the table.

• • Legal break: pocket a ball, or drive at least 4 numbered balls to a rail. An illegal break is a foul: the incoming player gets ball in hand, or can choose to re-rack and break it themselves.
• • Open table: after a legal break, nobody owns solids or stripes yet. Shoot any ball except the 8-ball until you legally pocket a called ball, which assigns your group for the rest of the game.
• • Calling shots: obvious shots don't need to be called out loud. Anything unclear, like combos, banks, caroms, or safeties: call the ball and pocket before you shoot.
• • Legal shot: your cue ball must hit one of your group's balls first, then either pocket a ball or send some ball to a rail. Anything less is a foul.
• • Fouls: scratching the cue ball, hitting the wrong group (or the 8-ball early) first, no rail contact, or knocking a ball off the table.
• • Ball in hand: after any foul, your opponent can place the cue ball anywhere on the table before their shot.
• • Safeties: a legal shot played with no intention of pocketing is allowed, not a foul, as long as you still hit your group first and satisfy the rail/pocket requirement.
• • Winning & losing: clear your group, call your shot on the 8-ball, and pocket it clean to win. Pocketing the 8-ball early, on the same shot as your last group ball, in an uncalled pocket, or with a scratch loses the game immediately.

Special Events

The board scorer tracks these automatically: they show up in your stats and the game log, but never change who wins beyond what's already true under the rules above.

Section 7

9-Ball

This describes a regular league night's 9-Ball table. Tournament boards score differently — see the Tournament Format section below.

• • 16 pairings a night (every home player vs. every away player, once each); one rack decides each pairing outright.
• • The rack, and the pairing, ends the moment either player legally pockets the 9-ball on the break, or after balls 1 through 8 are already off the table. Pocketing it any earlier doesn't win: it gets spotted and the rack keeps going.
• • No lag: the home team breaks pairing 1, and the breaker alternates every pairing after that.
• • Scorekeeping: the away team keeps score for 9-Ball (the home team keeps score for 8-Ball). The scorekeeper runs the scoring screen for every pairing that night; the other team can follow along on the match page.
• • Points: every pairing is worth 1 team point, awarded flat to whoever pockets the 9, plus any upset bonus below. Your team's score for the night is the total of those points.
• • Upset bonus: if the two players are more than 2 ranks apart and the lower-ranked (weaker) player pockets the 9, their team earns a bonus point for that pairing: 2 points instead of 1. This is separate from the personal ball-point stat below, and the losing side's share (0) never changes.
• • Ball points are a personal stat, not the win condition: balls 1 through 8 are still worth 1 point each and the 9-ball 2 points, tallied per player for your lifetime stats, but they no longer decide who wins the pairing. Only the 9 does.
• • Special events: the board scorer tracks 9 on the Break (the 9-ball legally pocketed on the break shot) and Break and Run (clearing the whole rack without missing); neither changes who wins the pairing, they just show up in your stats.

How a Rack Is Played

Same deal as 8-Ball: the scoring format above is how this league runs the format, and it always wins over anything below. What follows is standard shot-by-shot 9-ball play.

• • Ball order: every shot must contact the lowest-numbered ball on the table first, but you don't have to pocket that ball. Combos and caroms off it are legal, and any ball pocketed on a legal shot counts, in or out of order, except the 9: pocketing the 9 out of order (other than on the break) doesn't win the rack, it just gets spotted. Everything else you pocket on that same shot still counts.
• • Legal shot: after hitting the lowest ball, either pocket a ball or send some ball (cue ball included) to a rail.
• • Fouls: hitting the wrong ball first, no rail contact, a scratch, or a ball jumped off the table. Your opponent gets ball in hand anywhere on the table.
• • Winning: legally pocketing the 9-ball wins the rack immediately on the break, or once balls 1 through 8 are already cleared. Pocketing it any earlier than that doesn't win: it's spotted and the rack continues.

Section 8

Tournament Format

Singles, Doubles, and End of Session tournament boards use this Skill-Based scoring instead of the league-night pairings above (an End of Session tournament created with the Round Robin option instead uses the league-night format for both games).

Lagging

Regular league night pairings skip the lag entirely — the home team breaks pairing 1 and the breaker alternates from there (see the Lineup & First Out, 8-Ball, and 9-Ball sections above). Lagging only happens on a tournament board.

• • Both players lag from behind the head string at the same time; whoever stops closest to the head rail wins the lag. Hitting the head rail is fine.
• • Re-lag if the two balls touch each other, both players fail to hit the foot rail, or a ball stops in a pocket jaw.
• • Any other miss (a side rail, any pocket, failing to hit the foot rail alone) loses the lag.
• • Using the cue ball to lag is discouraged, and insisting on it is a sportsmanship violation.
• • The lag winner breaks Game 1 of the board; after that, the winner of each game breaks the next one.

Roster Eligibility (End of Session)

• • Attendance: to play in an End of Session tournament, a player needs to have been in the lineup for at least half of this season's league nights (in that tournament's format).
• • No substitutions: a tournament roster is frozen to whoever's currently on the team — no outside subs, even ones who'd otherwise be allowed on a regular league night.
• • Ineligible or missing spots forfeit: if a team can't fill a board with an eligible roster player — whether that's because a player didn't meet the attendance bar or simply isn't there — that board is forfeited to the other team instead of being played.
• Example: an 8-week session means a player needs to have appeared in the lineup at least 4 of those 8 nights to be tournament-eligible.

8-Ball

• • 4 boards a night, one player per board per team.
• • Each board races to 3 game wins out of up to 5 games.
• • A 2-2 tie after 4 games plays a single 5th tiebreaker game.
• • The lag winner breaks game 1 of a board; after that, the winner of each game breaks the next one.
• • Points: every board is worth 3 points, and there's only ever one of two splits: 3-0 or 2-1. Win the board comfortably (3-0 or 3-1 on games) and your team takes all 3 points. If the loser pushes it all the way to a 3-2 hill, they've earned a bonus point: the split becomes 2 points for the winner, 1 for the loser.
• • Upset bonus: if the two players are more than 2 ranks apart and the lower-ranked (weaker) player wins the board, their team earns a +1 bonus point on top of the split above: a comfortable win becomes 4 points instead of 3, a hill-win becomes 3 instead of 2. The loser's share never changes.

9-Ball

Each player races to their own point target below, based on rank, instead of a single one-rack pairing.

Team Points Per Board (9-Ball)

Every 9-ball board is worth 20 team points (same idea as 8-ball's 3-points-per-board, scaled up). The losing player's points determine the score, same as it always was — the app scores it automatically, but here's how to read it yourself at the table: find the losing player's rank in the left column, then find how many points they reached in that row to see the resulting score.

Example: a rank 3 player (target 25) loses their rack but reached 12 points — that's in the 10-14 range, so the board scores 16-4.

Section 9

Skill Ranks

Every player starts at rank 1 in both formats. Here's exactly how a suggested rank gets calculated, and when.

• • When it starts: a suggested rank only kicks in once you've played in at least 2 different league or tournament nights in that format. Before that, your suggested rank just stays wherever it already is (rank 1 for a brand-new player). This is deliberate: one night is only ever against a single opposing roster, so a suggestion built on just one night would really be measuring how you did against that one team, not how good you are.
• • The formula: win rate, games won divided by games played, where a "game" is one 8-Ball game or one 9-Ball rack. This counts every game or rack you've played, league night and tournament alike, so a strong tournament run helps push your suggested rank up just as much as a strong league night does.

• • Sandbagging flag: separately from rank, once you've logged at least 10 innings, a defensive-shot ratio (defensive shots divided by innings) over 50% flags your account for admin review as possible sandbagging. This doesn't change your rank by itself, it just surfaces the flag.
• • Nothing changes automatically: a league admin has to review and apply any rank change, so nobody gets silently promoted or demoted mid-session.

Section 10

Scheduling

• • Sessions run on a set day of the week, so we can run separate Monday and Tuesday leagues.
• • Scheduling automatically skips major holiday weeks and shifts the season later to still hit the full week count.
• • Teams register for a session before its signup close date; matchups are then built as a round-robin.
• • A week's matches stay locked until a league admin releases that week for scoring.

Section 11

FAQ

Quick answers to the questions that come up most. If an answer here ever disagrees with a section above, the section above wins.