Pool (game)

“ Black Pool.—In this game, which lasts for half-an-hour, there are no lives, the player whose ball is pocketed paying the stake to the pocketer. Each player receives a coloured ball and plays in order as in “Following Pool,” the white ball being spotted; there is, in addition, however, a black ball, which is spotted on the centre-spot. ”

“ The pool is then divided into three equal parts, and a part given to the winner of each trick; therefore, any player that should have taken three tricks would be entitled to the whole pool. Those who are unfortunate enough to take no trick at all are looed, and their share is deposited by the dealer towards the next pool.
When only two players stand, the last before the dealer is bound to play either his own hand or dumby, and the game is re-commenced.
Sometimes no trump is turned up; the elder hand then plays his highest card, the next follows suit, if he can, and so on. ”

“ For each winning hazard the striker receives from each player a small stake, and for each losing hazard he pays a like sum, till the game is concluded, by pocketing the white or the last coloured ball.
Pool, a game which may be played by two or more persons, consists entirely of winning hazards. Each player subscribes a certain stake to form the pool, and at starting has three chances or lives. He is then provided with a coloured or numbered ball, and the game commences thus:—The white ball is placed on the spot and the red is played at it from the baulk semicircle. ”

“ Instead of giving counters, payment for the same may at once be made from the stock in the pool.
The knobs are then to be returned, and the bag given to the next player in rotation, who is to shake the same, and draw, etc., as before stated. [112]
Whenever the pool is exhausted, the players must contribute again, according to the number of cards taken; and when it is resolved to finish the game, they agree among themselves to have only a fixed number of drawings more. ”

“ If the die is missed, nothing is scored, and in some places the player who misses pays one to a pool. If the die is hit, the player whose ball hit it scores the number on the side of the die which remains uppermost.
Under some rules each player puts a stake into a pool, and he who attains the highest score in a certain number of throws wins the pool. If, however, any [61] player should succeed in turning the die so that the number 8 remains uppermost, he takes the pool at once, and a new game is then commenced. ”

“ If the person sitting next to the fore-hand has neither one of the cards demanded (one of the same value as the first played, in another suit) , he pays one to the pool, as must all in turn who fail to produce the right cards. The player of the third may have the fourth in his hand, in which case all the others pay. The holder of the most tricks wins the game and takes the pool. ”

“ Not but that cork pool and skittle pool may not be made highly scientific, but when ladies take a cue, such games are generally regarded as a pleasant recreation pour passer le temps, or as an excuse for a mild bet.
SELLING POOL This is an eminently simple game, in which any number can take part. There are no lives, no pool, and no end, till the players are tired. Any one who chooses to leave can do so by giving notice, and taking his ball off the table when his turn comes round next. A small stake is agreed upon, and it is lawful to play on any ball, but no ball can be taken up. ”

“ A pool is first formed by every player giving a certain number of counters, and the cards are dealt round one by one, face downwards.
On looking at their cards, the player to the left of the dealer begins by asking any one in the company to give him a certain card, which he needs, perhaps, to complete a family or to help to do so, because the object of each player in this game is to secure for himself as many tricks as possible. ”

“ SINGLE POOL Many of the more ordinary strokes required at this game have already been discussed; but, as single pool is a most scientific and interesting game per se, it deserves a few lines to itself. As the striker is always playing on his player, the problem of safety is quite different. ”

“ There is nothing very strange in this piscatory economy, after all. That bald-headed man, who lost his balance, and slid down a shelving rock nearly twenty feet into the pool, and went out on the other side, with a solitary fish dangling at his hook, and a most unearthly yell, is playing the same game in a business pool. There are more in it than can possibly succeed. ”

“ If he holes the red ball, he wins three; and if by the same stroke he holes his own from the red, he wins three more.
POOL.
There are several ways of playing pool. There is the ordinary game, with as many balls as there are players, or with two balls only, the players playing in turns, and playing with alternate balls; playing with the nearest ball; playing at the last player; or the player playing at whichever ball he chooses. The most popular game is that in which the player plays at the last player. ”

“ A Jack-pot having been opened, the winner takes the accumulated pool, and the succeeding game reverts to the ordinary conditions, i.e. may be opened by any player in his turn and without reference to his hand. If a player open a Jack-pot, and all the other players pass, he must, before he can claim the pool, show, by laying his cards face upwards on the table, that he really does possess the minimum hand necessary to open the game with. ”

“ The Halfway Pool meant much inevitable labour, with its two swift rapids and its swirling, eddies, as sedulously to be avoided as so many steel bear-traps. Then there were a dozen others, and the three miles of riffles, and all the rest of it. At our present rate it would take us a week to make the Falls. Below the Halfway Pool we looked for Dick. He was not to be seen. This made us cross. At the Halfway Pool we intended to unload for portage, and also to ferry over Dick and the setter in the lightened canoe. The tardiness of Dick delayed the game. ”

“ If the next player should chance to have another six, he plays it and says "Snap," and the one who is snapped must pay in his turn, but the fine is increased to two counters. Should the fourth player have the fourth six, he plays it, and says, "Snorum," and the third player must now pay; his fine is three counters to the pool. No person may play out of his turn, and every one must "snip" when it is in his power. When any one has paid the whole of his five counters to the pool he retires from the game; the pool becomes the property of the one whose counters last the longest. ”

“ Only one star is allowed in a pool; and when there are only two players left in, no star can be purchased. The price of each life must be paid by the player losing it, immediately after the stroke is made; and the stake or pool is finally won by the player who remains longest in the game. ”

“ Each player is given a small ball from the bottle and this he keeps secret until he is able to announce that his points, added to the number on his small ball, amount to exactly 31. If he “bursts” he must begin again. Points are made only by knocking down pins, which are numbered 1 to 5. Should a player knock down with one stroke all four outside pins, leaving the 5-pin-standing, it is a “natural” and he wins the game.
Besides these common varieties of pool there are many others which are played in different parts of America, many of them local in character. ”

“ Since the introduction of pool-selling at Base Ball matches, pools amounting to over $30,000 have been known to be sold on a single match, and it has been in the power of parties knowing the aggregate amount of money invested, and who also knew which club the larger amount was invested on, to so manipulate things as to make the contest terminate just as the special 'ring' of the day desired it should. ”

“ Any man who turned up three blanks paid the whole of the pool. One nicked surface took a third, two nicked surfaces two-thirds, three nicked surfaces the whole. Somebody cleared the whole, and the game started afresh. Paul threw down a halfpenny and joined in. As last comer he was last to play. The first throw cleared the pool. It was renewed, and the next throw took fourpence. Twopence remained. Three blanks doubled it—fourpence. Three blanks doubled it again—eightpence. Again three blanks doubled it—sixteenpence. A throw of one by common consent took sixpence. ”

“ In all the former battles for the life of our national sport the men who stood for the preservation of Base Ball in its integrity had won. Every form of abuse had been so completely eradicated that public confidence had been regained, the press of the country was united in its declaration that the game was clean; that gambling had been kicked out; that pool-selling had been kicked out; that drunkenness had been kicked out; and now I was determined that so far as I had the power to help the upright managers of the League, Freedman and Freedmanism should be kicked out. ”

“ In its place, however, an evil of far greater magnitude has sprung up, and the past season's experience stands forth as affording unmistakable evidence of the fact that the greatest evil the system of professional ball playing ever encountered or is likely to encounter is that arising from the pool-selling business inaugurated in 1871. ”

“ You have set me among those who are defeated.
I know it is not for me to win, nor to leave the game.
I shall plunge into the pool although but to sink to the bottom.
I shall play the game of my undoing.
I shall stake all I have and when I lose my last penny I shall stake myself, and then I think I shall have won through my utter defeat. ”

“ Unfortunately for the professionals, this pool-selling innovation has proved more damaging in its results than any one dreamed of, the evils before existing in the betting-mart being trifling in comparison. ”

“ In fact, there was considerable of a good many things done there that Saturday and Sunday—tennis and golf and horseback-riding and billiards and pool and going in swimming in a private lake on the premises and playing a card game which they calls it auction-bridge, and eating and drinking and smoking. Everybody is so busy all day changing clothes for the next event they ain't got very much time for the thing that's on at the time being. ”

“ The line flickered in the water and then was still. He would have a lot of time for this kind of life, he thought, if his theory were correct. He watched a flight of leaves dapple the pool with the insignia of autumn. He was not sure he wanted to spend a lifetime fishing.
Suddenly the pool exploded into motion, the water frothed and flashed white and the line in his hand sang like a piano wire. Automatically, he jerked his line and began to reel in, at the same time his mind was telling him no line of its weight could long hold what he had hooked. ”

“ I like to stand upon the bank and watch the green water rise and dimple to the top of the pool, and to hear it bickering away in its rusty channel. But the beauty of the place is not a simple beauty; there is something strange and almost fierce about the red-stained water-course; something uncanny and terrifying about the filmy orange clouds that stir and sway in the pool; and there sleeps, too, round the edges of the basin a bright and viscous scum, with a certain ugly radiance, shot with colours that are almost too sharp and fervid for nature. ”

“ The sun here and there pierces through the arching foliage, and the greens of the foliage glisten brighter still. The whole atmosphere of the spot is one of reticence and reserve. Yet quiet though it be and restful though it be, there is no sense of stagnation. The pool, though deep and still, is vividly alive. Its waters are continually being renewed. And the forest, though not a leaf moves, is, we know, straining with all the energy of life for food and light, for air and moisture. So by this jewel of a pool in its verdant setting we have a sense of an activity which is gentle and refined. ”

“ The opening of a pool is more or less stereotyped, all the players endeavouring to lay themselves under the top cushion out of harm’s way, the player being always in hand till white’s turn comes round; thus the last player—brown, let us say, in a five-pool—has to steer himself round the other balls that are clustered at the head of the table, and find his way down to baulk, as white is nearly sure to be high up ”

“ Through the cloudy pillar which keeps back the Egyptian host, you see the waving of a long rod. A silver-gray fly with a barbed tail darts out across the pool, swings around with the current, well under water, and slowly works past the big rock in the centre, just at the head of the rapid. Almost past it, but not quite: for suddenly the fly disappears; the line begins to run out; the reel sings sharp and shrill; a salmon is hooked.
But how well is he hooked? That is the question. This is no easy pool to play a fish in. ”

“ And perhaps even, if you chance to be of the same profession, you fall to talking shop. Not even the magic of plunging streams and deep, rock-shaded pools is quite sufficient, for the moment, to dispel the urban atmosphere that still clings about you. Your unused muscles remind you of the reason for their flabbiness. Your eye, too long engaged upon other sights, is not yet quick enough to mark the swift rise among those ripples at the tail of the pool. ”

“ We cast quick glances at the sphere. It had moved from the opening of the pit, now lighted brilliantly red, and was whirling at the top of the column in the center of the pool! Gradually the high-pitched scream became a steady hum. The sphere was spinning faster and faster under the whirling pressure of the column. The ball was changing slowly into cylindrical shape, with a sharp-pointed nose and concave butt which gradually thinned out. I stared with unbelief. Surely my brain was playing pranks. I shot a glance at Sands. The old fellow seemed like a statue, immobile as a rock. ”