Pool glossary
Rotation
Two meanings: the order of play, and a rule that you hit the lowest ball first.
What it means
In a multi-player game, the rotation is the running order — who shoots after whom, and how it wraps round. In two-player games, "rotation rules" means something else entirely: the cue ball must contact the lowest-numbered ball on the table first, as in nine-ball and ten-ball.
Where the word comes from
Both senses come from the same root and are routinely confused. Context settles it: a rotation of people, or rotation as a shot requirement.
How it sounds at a table
"What's the rotation?" "Scrambled at the start — it's on the screen."
What it means in a three-strikes night
The rotation is the structure of the entire game. It is set once, by a shuffle, and then never changes except that eliminated players are skipped and the order closes up over them. Scrambling it properly matters more than people assume: shooting first means breaking into a tight rack, which is measurably harder than shooting fourth into an open one.
The mistake people make
Shuffling with the comparator trick — sorting a list by a random number — which is not uniform and quietly favours some positions. Use a proper Fisher-Yates shuffle, or a hat.
Terms that come up alongside it
Written out rather than linked only, because looking up one term usually means you are standing at a table and do not want four more taps.
- On deck
- The player whose turn is next. The person who shoots after whoever is at the table.
- Running order
- The sequence players shoot in, fixed at the start of the night. The list of who shoots when, in order, wrapping from the last player back to the first.
- Three strikes
- The format: one shot a turn, three misses and you are out. A multi-player elimination format in which players take one shot each in a fixed rotation, lose a life for failing to pocket, and are eliminated at three.
Where it comes up
Rotation matters most in three-strikes pool, where a single turn is one shot and the cost of getting something wrong is a life rather than a visit to the table. If you are learning the game, the guide to running a night puts most of this vocabulary in context, and the format pages show which games the term applies to and which it does not.