Adjacent sphericals

[Ian Davies]

Hi all,

Had a situation in a district game the other day which caused a lot of contention and the other player to throw his teddy out of the pram and forfeit the frame.

The situation as follows:

I had to play a negative safety, and rolled from around the black to nestle into the cluster of reds. Had a quick look as I left the table and it looked darn close to a touching-ball.

The frames ref had a look and declared "not touching". The opponent had a look grunted in disbelief and asked the ref for another look. Again the ref declared "not touching".

The oppo then called over his team mates and all 4 of them had a look. By that time our skip gently reminded the player that according to league rules, the referee has sole control and his ruling is final.

By the time the ref got back to the table, the ball had rocket onto the red making a touching-ball situation.

All this was really early on in the game, and wouldn't have caused a problem whether touching or otherwise, as an easy shot was either glancing off a red to cushion or going direct to cushion.

The situation that caused the frame forfeit was his foul that left a 1/4 ball freeball behind the blue for playing the yellow. He REALLY didn't like this and stormed out calling the ref a cheat and threw a couple of balls to the floor.

Anyway the question.

We were talking about this up the club last week, and one of the members remembered a situation on a televised match (I thought he said this years Grand Prix but I'm not sure). The ball wasn't touching, but when he went back for a look it was. The ref said "well it wasn't when I first looked at it!" and moved the cueball slightly away.

Does the referee have discretion to do it?
Surely any movement of balls whilst neither player it actually on the stroke can't be reversed !

Cheers

ID

[zombieman]

Section 3, Rule 8 (g):

If a stationary object ball, not touching the cue-ball when examined by the referee, is later seen to be in contact with the cue-ball before a stroke has been made, the balls shall be repositioned by the referee to his satisfaction.

[dantuck_7]

Hi all,

We were talking about this up the club last week, and one of the members remembered a situation on a televised match (I thought he said this years Grand Prix but I'm not sure). The ball wasn't touching, but when he went back for a look it was. The ref said "well it wasn't when I first looked at it!" and moved the cueball slightly away.

Does the referee have discretion to do it?
Surely any movement of balls whilst neither player it actually on the stroke can't be reversed !

Yes it did happen in one the Grand Prix matches this week I think it was O'Sullivan v someone.

I'm not sure on the rule myself but I think the ref at the time would know the rulebook inside-out.

[Ian Davies]

I also spotted something I hadn't seen before on TV in a Higgns v ?? game, when both players agreed to change the cueball.

Surely both balls should be consistent?

Had to go out so missed the commentators explanation of that one.

[APK]

There is a tolerance in the manufacture of balls and if the cue ball is slightly smaller than the object balls you will see a lot of heavy contacts. This is because the cue ball is pushed into the baize by the object ball on contact. This results in unexpected behaviour on the shot.
The rules do state that "a ball or set of balls may be changed by agreement of both players or on a decision of the referee"

[The Statman]

Yes that's absolutely right; slight indentations in the table can cause a ball to 'nestle' into a kind of divot, which might in turn cause the cue-ball and another ball to become touching when they came to rest not touching (or the other way round).

The way you describe the incident, with four people all prancing round the table to examine the balls, I would have thought that could be ample vibration to cause the two balls to move slightly. If any one of those people had rested the palm of his hand on the table when examining the situation, that would almost definitely have been enough.

Try bridging in preparation for a shot, making a firm grip of the table with the bridge hand – any manoeuvre in this hand can easily cause balls to rock (even some feet away, particularly on a bad spot).

If the referee was certain that the balls were NOT touching when he examined them, he should, when they were later found to be touching, have parted them to his satisfaction.

PS there is no such call as "Not Touching". If the balls were not touching he should have said nothing. (When I am refereeing, to distinguish between saying nothing and the player thinking he just hasn't heard me, I always make eye contact with the player and shake my head slightly – I would also always make eye contact with the player when calling "Touching Ball".)