Reference

The rules of snooker, checked

This is the British game as the governing body actually states it, rather than as it is usually repeated. It is the reference we built the scoring from, and it is published because a surprising amount of what circulates online is either a superseded edition or somebody’s house rules.

The authority throughout is the WPBSA’s Official Rules of the Games of Snooker and English Billiards, revised September 2024.¹ Rule numbers are given as they appear in that edition — S3 R11 meaning Snooker, Section 3, Rule 11. Those numbers moved in the August 2019 restructure, so a citation copied from an older source will land on the wrong rule.²

How this page was made, and why it is worth the caution. We gathered 298 sourced claims about the rules across eight lines of enquiry. The 40 that were not fully sourced first time went to a second reviewer whose instruction was to refute them, defaulting to “wrong” unless primary-source support could be found. 33 came back corrected and one was refuted outright.

What follows is the post-review text. Where the review changed something material, it is flagged. The working behind it is on the research page.

1. Ball values

Twenty-two balls: the white cue ball, fifteen reds, and six colours.³

S3 R1(a)
Ball	Value	How many
Red	1	15
Yellow	2	1
Green	3	1
Brown	4	1
Blue	5	1
Pink	6	1
Black	7	1

The table dimensions and spot positions are on the research page, along with the three measurements everybody quotes that the rulebook does not actually specify.

2. Frame, game and match — the rulebook is inverted

This is worth getting straight before anything else, because the official hierarchy is the opposite of how everyone speaks.⁴

A frame is one rack — from the break-off to the last ball.
A game is “an agreed or stipulated number of frames.”
A match is “an agreed or stipulated number of games.”

So a best-of-19 is, in the rulebook’s own terms, a game. Every broadcaster, every player and the sport’s own marketing calls it a match. The rulebook even breaks its own definition inside the same document, using “match” to mean a single frame in its Shoot-Out annex.

The break-off alternates strictly from frame to frame. It does not follow the winner or the loser.

A break is “a number of pots in successive strokes made in any one turn by the striker.” Note what that excludes: penalty points awarded to you for your opponent’s foul are not part of your break. They go on your frame score, not your break counter — which is why a break counter and a frame score have to be two independent numbers with different inputs.

3. What you may hit — the “ball on”

At every moment there is a defined legal target, and it is in exactly one of three states.

Reds are on. Any red is a legal target. Pot one and you score one point and stay at the table.
A colour is on, after a red. You choose which. It scores its own value, and it is then returned to its spot.
The final sequence. Reds are gone. The colours must be taken in ascending order — yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, black — and each one stays down.

The trap: the last red does not end the reds. Moving to the final sequence needs two conditions, not one — every red off the table and a colour having been played at afterwards.⁵

Pot the last red and you are still entitled to a colour of your choice. A game that jumps to yellow the moment the last red drops has stolen a ball from you, and this is the single most common way video-game snooker gets the sequence wrong.

And a refinement that follows from it. “Played at” means a stroke was actually made — hit, missed or fouled. But if the last red went down on a foul stroke it was never legally potted, so no colour entitlement ever arose, and the incoming player is on yellow.

Potting several reds in one stroke is legal and every one of them scores. Striking two reds simultaneously is legal when red is on.

4. Scoring a stroke

The order matters, because a foul suppresses scoring entirely.

If the stroke was a foul, the striker scores nothing at all — even for a ball legally potted in the same stroke. The penalty goes to the opponent, and the turn ends.
Otherwise, add the value of each ball on that was potted.

Points already banked earlier in the break stay on the scoreboard. A foul ends the break; it does not undo it.

Penalty points are always added to the opponent, never deducted from the offender.⁶ A player’s score cannot go down.

5. Fouls — the value is a maximum, never a sum

This is the rule most often implemented wrongly, and the most consequential. A foul is worth at least four points, and beyond that you take the highest of the applicable values — you never add them up.⁷ The most any single stroke can ever cost is seven.

Which values enter the maximum depends on what you did:

S3 R11 — penalty values
Group	Value	Covers
R11(a)	max(4, ball on)	Hitting nothing; in-off; playing wrongly from in-hand; jump shot; striking the cue ball twice; both feet off the floor. ⚠ The ball you actually hit or potted does not enter the sum.
R11(b)	max(4, ball on, ball concerned)	Hitting a ball not on first; potting a ball not on; push stroke; forcing a ball off the table; striking while a ball is still moving; touching a ball with hand, clothing or cue.
R11(c)	max(4, ball on, higher of the two)	Illegal simultaneous first contact.
R11(d)	flat 7	Playing at reds in successive strokes; using a ball off the table; using a non-white cue ball; failing to declare when asked; any foul after potting a red but before nominating a colour.

Worked examples

Every one of these is a real position
Situation	Arithmetic	Penalty
Red on, cue ball hits nothing	max(4, 1)	4
Black on, cue ball hits nothing	max(4, 7)	7
Red on, hits the yellow first	max(4, 1, 2)	4
Red on, hits the blue first	max(4, 1, 5)	5
Brown on, hits the black first	max(4, 4, 7)	7
Red on, hits a red, knocks the black in	max(4, 1, 7)	7
Pink on, in-off	max(4, 6)	6
Red on, pots a red and goes in-off	max(4, 1)	4
Blue on, blue potted but the pink drops too	max(4, 5, 6)	6
Red on, a red forced off the table	max(4, 1, 1)	4
Pot a red, then play at a red next stroke	flat	7
All at once: red on; hits the blue first (5), knocks the black in (7), then goes in-off (4)	max(5, 7, 4)	7

That last row is the whole rule in one line. A naive implementation scores it 16. It is 7.

Two consequences worth knowing as a player. Pot a red and go in-off and the red stays down — reds are never returned to the table, “regardless of the fact that a player may thus benefit from a foul.” And a ball potted on a foul stroke scores nothing for anybody; colours come back, reds do not.

6. Four rules that are commonly got wrong

Touching ball

If the cue ball comes to rest touching a ball that is on — or could be on — the referee calls touching ball. You must play away from it without moving it.⁸

The touch itself satisfies the requirement to hit the ball on. You do not have to go and hit anything else. This is the commonest escape in the game, and treating it as a foul makes legal play look illegal.

Jump shot

A jump shot is when the cue ball passes over any part of an object ball. The cue ball merely leaving the cloth is not a jump shot — a hop over nothing is legal, and so is the ordinary hop into an object ball that lands before passing its far side.

Every exception is qualified “other than a touching ball”, so jumping over a ball you were touching is always a foul — which is exactly the escape a player will try.

Push stroke

A push stroke is when the tip stays in contact with the cue ball after it has begun to move, or as it reaches the object ball. There is an exception: where the cue ball and object ball are almost touching, hitting a very fine edge is not a push stroke. Without that exemption, legitimate expert thin safeties off nearly-frozen balls would all be fouls.

Simultaneous contact

Exactly two simultaneous first contacts are legal: two reds when red is on, and a nominated free ball together with the ball on. Everything else is a foul — including when one of the two balls is the ball on. Red on and the cue ball touches a red and the black together is a foul worth seven.

7. Snookers and the free ball

You are snookered when a ball that is not on obstructs a straight line from the cue ball to both extreme edges of every ball that is on.⁹ Partial obstruction is not a snooker. If any ball on can be struck full at either extremity, you are not snookered.

If your opponent fouls and leaves you snookered, the referee calls free ball. You may then nominate any ball as if it were the ball on.

The nominated ball takes the value of the ball on, not its own. A free-ball black, with reds on, is worth one.
If you pot it, it is returned to its spot — unless it is genuinely a red.
You may strike the free ball and the ball on simultaneously; that is legal.

There is no such thing as an angled ball giving relief in snooker. Being stuck in the jaws with no straight line to the ball on is simply bad luck; you play the stroke. The angled-ball rule people remember is from the American game.

8. Re-spotting

Colours always come back while reds remain. When a colour’s own spot is occupied, the cascade is strict and is resolved one ball at a time, not as a set:¹⁰

Its own spot.
If occupied, the spot of the highest-value colour that is free.
If every spot is occupied, as near as possible to its own spot on the centre line, between that spot and the top cushion.
If there is no room there either, as near as possible below its own spot.

“Occupied” means a ball cannot be placed there without touching another ball — not merely that something is sitting on the mark.

9. Points available, and “snookers required”

With R reds on the table, the maximum still available is 8R + 27 — eight per red because each red brings a colour with it, plus 27 for the final sequence.¹¹

A player needs snookers when the deficit is strictly greater than the points available. If the deficit exactly equals the points available, clearing the table produces a tie — which goes to a re-spotted black, so that player does not need snookers. They need a clearance. Using “greater than or equal” here is a genuine off-by-one that mislabels a live frame as dead.

Counting the snookers needed is an estimate, not an arithmetic fact: a foul is worth four but a foul on the black is seven, and a snooker can itself produce a free ball. This is why commentators say “one snooker, maybe two”.

10. The miss rule

The striker must “to the best of his ability, endeavour to hit the ball on.” If the referee judges that they did not, the call is foul and a miss, spoken as one unbroken phrase.¹²

The non-offender may then either play from where the balls lie, or have them replaced as they were and make the offender play again. The replacement restores all disturbed balls, not merely the cue ball.

The rule does not apply where the striker is snookered, and it does not apply once a frame is in a position where any player needs penalty points.

A clause that the internet still quotes was deleted. There used to be an exception covering the case where the points available exactly equal the points difference. It is gone from the current text. The live rule turns on a strict inequality where the old one was inclusive — a difference of one character that decides frames in exactly the tight endings snooker is judged on.

Three misses in the same position, with all balls replaceable, awards the frame to the opponent — but the referee must have given the formal warning first.

11. The end of a frame

When only the black remains, the frame ends on the first pot or foul.¹³ It does not continue.

There is one exception. If the scores are level after that black, the black is re-spotted, the cue ball is played from in-hand, and the players draw lots for who plays first. From then on, the frame ends on the next pot or foul — sudden death.

Conceding is restricted. A player may not concede a frame unless penalty points are required.¹⁴ The phrase everybody uses — “unless snookers are required” — is the superseded 2014 wording. The distinction matters: conceding freely would delete snooker’s most distinctive phase of play, the long grind where the player behind plays for fouls.

12. What the referee says

The calls are prescribed, and the timing is part of them.¹⁵

S5 — the referee
Event	Call	When
Foul	“Foul.”	Immediately — but the value only at the end of the stroke, because a further foul in the same stroke could raise it
Score during a break	“[Name], 67.”	After each scoring stroke
Frame score	“[Striker] 38, [Opponent] 45.”	Striker’s name first
Miss	“Foul and a miss.”	One unbroken statement. A pause implies the referee was checking the scores
Free ball	Appended to the score call	End of stroke
Touching ball	“Touching ball”, indicating which	Immediately

The referee is forbidden from stating the difference between the scores, and from offering any opinion that could affect play. That is why the sanctioned answer to “will the pink go back on its spot?” is “Pot the pink and then I’ll tell you.” A helpful referee is breaking the rules.

In a club frame with no referee, the opposing player is the referee, which is where the older, blunter register comes from — “Foul, four away.”

13. Glossary

In-off: Potting the cue ball. Always a foul in snooker. The term comes from English billiards, where it scores.
Break: Pots in successive strokes in one turn. Also, separately, the opening stroke of a frame — the break-off.
Century: A break of 100 or more. A maximum is 147.
Plant: A combination where the cue ball strikes the first ball, which pots the second.
Set: Two object balls already touching, aimed straight through.
Double: Potting a ball off one or more cushions.
Cannon: The cue ball contacting two object balls. Not a synonym for either of the two above, though casual writing muddles all three.
Kick: A bad contact between cue ball and object ball, usually blamed on chalk or dust.
Fluke: A pot achieved by accident.
Clearance: Potting every remaining ball on in a single visit.
Baulk / the D: The area behind the baulk line, and the semicircle within it from which the cue ball is played when in-hand.
Jaws: The angled cushion ends framing a pocket.
Nap: The directional pile of the cloth, which very slightly biases a slow ball.

14. What changed under review

The corrections are the reason this page exists. Five that matter most to anyone reading the rules elsewhere:

The rule numbers moved. Section 3 has had four distinct numberings. In the current book Rule 11 is the list of fouls and Rule 10 is the procedure that follows one; a reader who checks a contents page, sees “10 Fouls” and implements from there gets the wrong rule.
Conceding turns on penalty points, not snookers. The snooker wording is superseded.
The miss rule’s tie clause was deleted in 2019 and is still widely quoted.
Points available is not quite 8R + 27 once a free ball is in play, and the error is silent because the number it returns looks perfectly plausible.
“American snooker” is not a governing body’s ruleset. A widely mirrored account of it — flat seven-point fouls among other differences — traces back to a single archived page of house rules from one student pool room. A flat seven-point foul would destroy snooker’s entire safety economy. None of it applies to the British game.

One thing we went looking for and did not find. A second governing body to check the text against. The International Billiards and Snooker Federation publishes no independent English rule text — its rules page carries amendment notes from 2014 and a link onward that is dead, and the other bodies all run the WPBSA book.¹⁶ “Both governing bodies agree” would have been an easy sentence to write and it would have been false.

References

Rule numbers are from the September 2024 edition unless stated. Where the adversarial review corrected a first-pass reading, the corrected version is what appears above.

World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Official Rules of the Games of Snooker and English Billiards. Revised September 2024. Primary, and the sole authority for this page. Retrieved from wpbsa.com/rules/.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 3, Rules 10 and 11. The ordering swapped at the August 2019 restructure. Four distinct numberings of Section 3 were identified by extracting the text of the respective PDFs.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 3, Rule 1(a).
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 2, Rules 1–3 and Rule 8. Frame, game, match; and the definition of a break.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 3, Rule 3(g) and 3(h)(ii). The two-condition transition out of the reds phase.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 2, Rules 15 and 16. The infringement / foul / penalty distinction, and that penalties are added to the opponent rather than deducted.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 3, Rule 11, with Rule 10(g). R10(g) is the clause that makes the value a maximum rather than a sum.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 3, Rule 8.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 2, Rule 17. The “both extreme edges” test, unchanged back through 2010.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 3, Rule 7, with Section 2 Rule 18 (“spot occupied”).
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 4, Rule 2(f) and Rule 4(a)(ii). The rulebook’s own valuation of the balls on the table, used for a conceded or forfeited frame, and the basis of the broadcast figure.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 3, Rule 14. Confirmed against the May 2022 and November 2019 editions; the score-based exception present in the 2011–2019 text is absent from the current.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 3, Rule 4.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 4, Rule 2.
WPBSA, op. cit., Snooker Section 5, and Section 3 Rule 21(b) (the opposing player acts as referee where there is none).
International Billiards and Snooker Federation, rules page. Sought as an independent cross-check and found not to be one.

Elsewhere

How we made the snooker real — the table geometry, the ball physics and how this research was done.
The Baulk Line — the club in Oakhaven where it all gets used.

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