Amateur rule question

[mythman69]

At our club we don't replace the balls after a foul (foul and a miss?). The player can only make them hit it again or take the shot themselves or call a free ball (if available). So what is the correct ruling when a player deliberately hits a foul shot? We had a situation where the player was snookered behind the blue (red was the ball on) and argued that it was touching ball (it wasn't) and then in anger hit the cue ball directly into the blue. Regardless of touching blue ball or not, he was snookered and needed to hit the top cushion to rebound onto the red. But he didn't and just belted the blue. It was a 5 point foul but is that all?

Should he lose the frame/match because of this?

Thanks!

[CueInAction]

5 point foul. In match circumstances this could be seen as ungentlemanly conduct on behalf of the striker and the decision would be made on the discretion of the referee, most likely a warning if it was an isolated incident,

Personally I think this sort of attitude has no place in the game, but the worrying thing is it is something I've seen similar incidents many times (mainly in league games). Saying that though, whenever I've had a guy lose his head in a match I've always took great pleasure in going overboard with safety...they quite often blow up and launch into the balls opening up the table for you

[mythman69]

It was the B-grade final (deciding frame).

He lost the plot and went on to lose the match.

[The Statman]

Unfortunately if you agree not to use the Miss rule at all, that is the price you potentially pay. It's a foul of 5 points but if the balls cannot be replaced, there's no further action you can take, apart from - as mentioned above - ungentlemanly conduct. And that, at such a minor level, is likely to create more problems than it solves.

My advice would be for your League to at least adopt the Miss Rule for non-snookered situations. This would do nothing to solve the exact scenario in this frame but it would put a bit of a pointer out in the right direction.

[tommygunner1309]

Statman is correct in that if a qualified referee is not available then the foul and a miss rule may be disregarded for the whole match.

However, if you have a qualified referee in uniform officiating the match then a deliberate miss like that would be a foul and a miss.

Funny enough, I referee'd a semi-final match this evening with almost that exact situation. The white was on the black cushion almost full ball behind the blue and an inch away. The player tried to play off the top cushion, hit the blue on the rebound and the cue ball did not even reach the centre pocket area (the final red was on the baulk cushion) to which I called a foul and a miss because the white had not been hit with sufficient power to reach the object ball. On his second attempt, he missed the red by about 4 inches. In the Pro game I would have called a foul and a miss, however, I deemed that the second attempt was a valid effort and taking the ability of the players into account, and the difficulty of the snooker, I only called a foul.

As far as I am concerned, the foul and a miss is an integral rule of snooker. I would always use the rule whatever standard of player is at the table, if they made absolutely no attempt whatsoever to try to hit the object ball.

[bally969]

foul and a miss would be called and the said player would be warned for ungentalmanly coduct. if he chose to carry on in this way the frame would be awarded to his opponent