8 ball pool online, free in your browser

What is 8-ball pool?

Eight-ball is the pool game you find in every viewing centre and joint with a table. There are fifteen coloured balls and one white cue ball. One player takes the solids (1 to 7), the other the stripes (9 to 15). Clear your group, then sink the black 8 to win.

How to play 8-ball

1. The break. Place the white anywhere behind the line at your end and smash the rack. Pot a ball on the break and you shoot again.
2. Open table. After the break nobody owns a group yet. The first ball you pot legally decides it: pot a solid and you are solids, your opponent is stripes.
3. Keep shooting. Pot one of your own balls and you go again. Miss, and it is your opponent's turn. You do not call your pockets.
4. Sink the 8. Once your group is cleared, pot the black to win the game.

Fouls and ball in hand

Commit a foul and your opponent gets ball in hand: they place the white anywhere on the cloth before their shot. These are fouls:

• Potting the white (a scratch).
• Missing every ball.
• Hitting the wrong ball first: one of your opponent's, or the 8 before your group is cleared.
• No ball reaching a cushion after the white makes contact, when nothing is potted.

When the 8 decides the game

Pot the 8 after clearing your group, with no foul, and you win. Pot it early, or on a foul, and you lose. If the 8 drops on the break, it is simply put back on its spot and play goes on.

How to aim, shoot and spin

• Aim: press on the table and drag to point the cue. On a phone, drag around the white ball to turn it, and use the small arrows for fine steps. A dotted line shows where the white will go.
• Power: drag the power bar down and let go to shoot, or tap Shoot to fire the power you set.
• Spin: move the red dot on the spin ball. Top spin rolls the white on after contact, back spin pulls it back, and side spin bends it off the cushions.

Play pool with a friend using a room code

Your people are far away? No wahala. Every game on PylotGames has private tables you open with a code:

1. Create a free account. Online play needs a username and password. Guests can still play the computer.
2. Open Pool, tap Play online, then Private table. You get a four-letter table code on a yellow danfo number plate.
3. Send the code. Tap Copy code and drop it in your WhatsApp group, or just read it out.
4. Your friend joins. They open Pool, tap Play online, type the code and tap Join.
5. Start the game. Pool is for two. The host taps Start game when the friend has sat down, or adds a computer player to the second seat.

Games you finish at a private table show up in a friends scoreboard under the game, so you can see who is really the boss of the group. Prefer strangers? Tap Quick match to sit with whoever has been waiting longest, or open a table and wait in the live lobby list.

Play pool against the computer

Tap Play the computer, pick a level and break. Easy misses a lot, Normal has steady hands and Hard rarely misses. Guests can play without signing up, and after the first visit it plays offline too.

Pool tips

• Think one ball ahead. Pot this ball in a way that leaves the white near your next one.
• Use stun and screw. A little back spin stops the white dead, so it does not follow the ball into the pocket.
• Do not rush the 8. Clear awkward balls early, while the table is still open around them.
• Play safe when there is no pot. Leave the white tight on a cushion, but make sure a ball still reaches a cushion, or it is a foul.
• Soft is often better. Medium power keeps the balls where you can see them.