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Is the continuation after this foul ocurred correct?

Postby elnino

This situation arose some 10 minutes into the game.

Player A potted a RED and found himself facing a tricky situation.

The cue -call nestled in the pack of reds. He was snookered on all colours; and, was badly hampered.

He nominated the Black ball. Whilst addressing the cue-ball he touched a red ball. The Referee called a foul and awarded a 4 point penalty.

Player B asked the offender to play again.

Player A simply glanced off a red and came to rest on the top cushion. And the game progressed.

Not withstanding that the referee awarded a wrong penalty was the continuation of the game as played by Player A correct?

Re: Is the continuation after this foul ocurred correct?

Postby elnino

DAN-CAT let us assume that his intentions were genuine. But in preparing to execute the stroke from a badly hampered position he carelessly touched a red ball.

Taking this into account how should game have continued after the foul was called?

Re: Is the continuation after this foul ocurred correct?

Postby acesinc

elnino wrote:DAN-CAT let us assume that his intentions were genuine. But in preparing to execute the stroke from a badly hampered position he carelessly touched a red ball.

Taking this into account how should game have continued after the foul was called?


Hi El Nino. In an earlier post, you stated that these types of queries from you are a result of watching matches in local league play. So first of all, understand that local leagues may play the game according to local variations of the proper Rules of Snooker. I absolutely agree with you that ignorance of the proper rules is regularly quite astounding but also be aware that on occasion, ignorance may not be the reason for the apparent anomaly in application of the Rules; it may instead be a local variation.

Specifically, regarding the "foul and a miss" rule, many leagues may use a variation of the professional version of the rule, or may in fact dispense with it altogether for their local league play. Some time ago, there was what I consider to be a rather interesting thread regarding exactly this in the "Local League" section.

So I will continue assuming that your situation occurred in a professional match, rather than at the local league level.

The game of Snooker has been around for a long time and the Rules have evolved somewhat over that period and they may continue to evolve as new and unique situations occur. The "foul and a miss" rule is a relatively recent development (then again, when you reach my age, air conditioning is a relatively recent development) and when FAAM was first introduced in the mid-1990's, there was certainly some controversy and the application of the FAAM has undergone some changes as a result.

Your hypothetical situation that you in fact witnessed at local league level had an actual, professional counterpart that occurred about a decade ago between Ronnie O'Sullivan and John Higgins and this occurrence resulted in a change of how the FAAM is applied currently. Initially, FAAM could only be called when a stroke was actually played. Therefore, if a ball foul occurred while preparing for a stroke but without actually touching the cue ball, it would be called as a simple foul with the usual options, NOT a FAAM. It became clear that this loophole could easily be used to extricate oneself from a difficult FAAM situation.

Here is YouTube video of the exact situation that caused a change in the FAAM rule (if you want to skip the preliminaries, go to about 5:20):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX8OJQqicFw

So, after this event, the rule was changed so that the Referee could call FAAM even if an actual stroke had not occurred. (Linguistically, it is not a "miss" per se since one would need to stroke the cue ball in order to "miss" the object ball, but the point is that, in such a situation, the referee would treat the foul exactly as if it were a foul and a miss, even replacing the ball that was bumped by the striker's hand if it were moved.)

Here is another video of Jan Verhaas explaining what had occurred. Curiously, he mentions Section 5 of the Rules of Snooker (which we had discussed in a previous thread) at about 2:30:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT6JFuT9PWk



And now, back to your local league....

It appears that your local league does not play by the FAAM rule at all. As you implied, when the striker nominated Black then carelessly touched Red, a SEVEN point foul should have been called. At that time, without FAAM being enforced, I believe what you witnessed is that the table was then turned over to the next striker and he had the usual options of playing the stroke himself (playing at Red) or handing the stroke back to the fouling player (now also playing at Red). Obviously, he chose the second option. I surmise from these events that there was no third option of the FAAM of putting the fouling player back into the stroke that he had previously played. Hence, the original fouling player did not commit a second foul at all when he glanced off the Red as he was actually simply playing the shot at hand; it was not "a second attempt" at the Black at all.

There is one more possibility, albeit a very small one. If your local league does play by the FAAM rule, then the non-fouling player also had the third option granted by FAAM, that being to have the fouling player replay the previous stroke (though the fouling player does have the right to change his nomination, could change to a different colour) and he simply did not choose that option for his own reasons, having his opponent play at the Red instead.

Re: Is the continuation after this foul ocurred correct?

Postby elnino

When the UK Snooker Championship 2009 - Miss rule controversy rule occurred it exposed a loophole in the snooker rules regarding committing of a foul before a stoke was played.

It is clear from the Jan Verhass's interview that Ronnie's action of touching a ball couldn't be called a miss because a stroke had not been played. He suggested that he could have made a different ruling in the interest of fair play.

The situation could have easily occurred immediately after a red was potted so the rule regarding FAAM is of no relevance.

In the interest of fair play rule governing a foul occurring before a stroke was executed was included in:-

Section 3 Rule 11(i):

If a striker, when snookered or hampered in any way, fouls any ball
including the cueball while preparing to play a stroke, if requested by his
Section 3 - Snooker
opponent to play again, the opponent shall have the choice as to whether the ball on shall be the same as it was prior to the infringement, namely:
(i) Any Red, where Red was the ball on;
(ii) The colour on where all the Reds were off the table; or either
(iii) A colour of the striker‟s choice, where the ball on was a colour after a Red had been potted; or
(iv) The option of playing the next Red or Yellow when there are no Reds remaining.
Any ball(s) moved shall be replaced to their original position(s) by the referee if requested by the non-offender.


Therefore in the scenario posted the player should have incurred a 7 point penalty; and, when asked to play again should have played for a colour of his choice.