Pool format
Cutthroat: rules and how to play
Each player owns a group of balls. You win by pocketing everyone else's and keeping at least one of your own on the table.
| Players | 3 or 5 |
|---|---|
| Length | 10–20 minutes a game |
| Equipment | Standard 15-ball rack |
| Difficulty | Beginner |
The object of the game
Be the last player with a ball left on the table. You are not clearing your own group — you are destroying everybody else's.
Setting up
- Three players take 1–5, 6–10 and 11–15. Five players take three balls each.
- Rack as normal and break.
- Groups are usually assigned after the break, by what goes down first, so the breaker cannot aim at a known target.
The rules
Shoot at anything that is not yours
Any ball outside your own group is fair game. Pocket one and you keep shooting. Miss, and the turn passes to the left.
Pocketing your own ball passes the turn
Knock one of your own in and it stays down — you have damaged yourself and your turn ends. This is the mistake everyone makes once.
A scratch gives balls back
Scratch, and every opponent who has had balls pocketed gets one spotted back up. This is the rule most houses get wrong or skip, and it is the one that keeps a player from being eliminated by bad luck.
Out of balls is out of the game
When your whole group is gone, you are out — though you take no further part rather than leaving, because a scratch could still put one of your balls back and bring you with it.
House variants
This is a folk game with no governing body, so the version below is the common one and these are the variants you will meet. The only real mistake is not saying which you are playing before the first break.
Assigned groups from the start
Everyone knows their group before the break. Simpler to explain, but the breaker can aim away from their own and it is measurably less fair.
No spotting on a scratch
Faster and harsher. A scratch just passes the turn. Works better with five players, where games already run long.
How a night of this actually runs
It takes 3 or 5 and runs about 10–20 minutes a game, which is the number that decides whether it suits your room more than any rule in it does. You need standard 15-ball rack, and it sits at a beginner level — so think about whether the weakest player in the room will still be enjoying it an hour in.
Compared with three strikes, the format this site is built around: that one takes any number of players, keeps everybody in the room for roughly two hours, and needs nothing but a rack and a way to count lives. Most of the games on this site are better as the game inside a night than as the shape of the night itself.
Is it any good in a bar?
Excellent for exactly three or exactly five people and useless for any other number, which is the whole problem on a busy night. Great as a filler while a table frees up; poor as the format for a tournament where you cannot control how many turn up.