Incorrectly Spotted Balls

[Nifty50]

Current rules state that a player will not be penalised if he/she plays a shot when the balls have been incorrectly spotted. Was this always the case?

[DeanH]

by my copies
1995 to date "A player shall not be held responsible for any mistake by the referee in failing to spot correctly any ball."
nothing in 1991
1921 - 1978 "The striker must see that every ball required to be re-spotted is properly placed before he plays his stroke. …"

I really need to bridge the gap I have from 78-91

[I do have some photos of a 1987 framed set but not digitised them ... yet]

edit - 1987 - nothing
1983 - nothing

[Nifty50]

That’s fine for me Dean. Thanks very much.

[Frankthered]

by my copies
1995 to date "A player shall not be held responsible for any mistake by the referee in failing to spot correctly any ball."
nothing in 1991
1921 - 1978 "The striker must see that every ball required to be re-spotted is properly placed before he plays his stroke. …"

I really need to bridge the gap I have from 78-91

[I do have some photos of a 1987 framed set but not digitised them ... yet]

edit - 1987 - nothing
1983 - nothing

Ooh, that's interesting. When I was a youngster, the family went to Pontins at Prestatyn for the snooker (yes, we stayed there) and it would have been 1978.

My dad and I both loved snooker so we spent the whole week watching the pros play their round-robin tournament, to the point where my dad overdosed on it and it put him off watching snooker for evermore!

Anyway, we were watching Rex Williams play somebody (can't remember who it was, might have been Graham Miles), the ref had set the balls up and Rex was about to break off and my dad noticed the brown was missing and pointed it out to Rex and the ref. Rex thanked my dad for speaking up because it would have been a foul if he had played the shot with the brown missing.

So that lines up with the 1978 rule above!

[DeanH]

Ooh, that's interesting. When I was a youngster, the family went to Pontins at Prestatyn for the snooker (yes, we stayed there) and it would have been 1978.

My dad and I both loved snooker so we spent the whole week watching the pros play their round-robin tournament, to the point where my dad overdosed on it and it put him off watching snooker for evermore!

Anyway, we were watching Rex Williams play somebody (can't remember who it was, might have been Graham Miles), the ref had set the balls up and Rex was about to break off and my dad noticed the brown was missing and pointed it out to Rex and the ref. Rex thanked my dad for speaking up because it would have been a foul if he had played the shot with the brown missing.

So that lines up with the 1978 rule above!

cool story

yep the Player responsible rule was removed sometime between 1978 and 1983; and then the "no fault if by Ref" appeared between 1987 - 1995.

[Nifty50]

Nice story Frank. Deep down in my memory I remember playing under the old rule. Usual scenario was someone forgot to re-spot a colour after it was spotted.
The reason I was asking was that I had a discussion (read argument) with an old pro. He didn’t seem to know of the “new” rule.
Some of the older guys haven’t kept up to date with the rule changes.

[DeanH]

I like the way that people hate the NEW Miss rule, the "Miss Rule" has been around since late 1800s in billiards and came over to the snooker rules back then

The new "Foul and a Miss" is the new version of it, but when people say that there never used to be a Miss rule, wrong

[oliverhen]

No, the rule regarding incorrectly spotted balls has evolved. Previously, players could be penalized for playing a shot with incorrectly spotted balls. However, the current rule is more lenient, allowing players to continue without penalty until the error is corrected. It's a positive change for fairness and sportsmanship.