Eight-ball (often spelled 8-ball or eightball, and sometimes called solids and stripes, spots and stripes in the UK or, more rarely, bigs and littles or highs and lows) is a pool (pocket billiards) game popular in much of the world, and the subject of international professional and amateur competition. Played on a pool table with six pockets, the game is so universally known in some countries that beginners are often unaware of other pool games and believe the word “pool” itself refers to eight-ball. The game has numerous variations, including Alabama eight-ball, crazy eight, last pocket, misery, Missouri, 1 and 15 in the sides, rotation eight ball, soft eight, and others. Standard eight-ball is the second most competitive professional pool game, after nine-ball and for the last several decades ahead of straight pool.
Eight-ball is played with 16 balls: a cue ball, and 15 object balls consisting of seven striped balls, seven solid-colored balls (called spots in the UK) and the black 8 ball. After the balls are scattered with a break shot, the players are assigned either the group of solid balls or the stripes once a ball from a particular group is legally pocketed. The ultimate object of the game is to legally pocket the eight ball in a called pocket, which can only be done after all of the balls from a player’s assigned group have been cleared from the table.
The first international tournament in this format was contested in July 2008, with Ricky Walden defeating Stuart Bingham in the final. A six-red tournament was held during the 2009 World Snooker Championship as a sideshow, involving one-frame knockout matches. In the final veteran Tony Knowles defeated 13-year-old Ross Muir 52–18. Tickets were initially free; however, future events would have been pay-to-enter. The first world championship was held in Ireland from 15 to 18 December 2009. Mark Davis beat Mark Williams 6–3 in the final, becoming the first world champion of the six-red snooker format.
