Pool glossary
Scratch
Pocketing the cue ball, or knocking it off the table.
What it means
A scratch is the cue ball going down a pocket or leaving the table entirely. It is a foul in every game of pool there is, and what happens next depends entirely on which game you are playing.
Where the word comes from
From the nineteenth-century practice of scratching a mark off your score on the slate when you fouled. The penalty is older than the word.
How it sounds at a table
"Scratch." "That's ball in hand." "Not in here it isn't, behind the line."
What it means in a three-strikes night
This is the single most important rule to settle before a three-strikes night starts. The common version is that a scratch costs a second life on top of the missed shot, which makes the game much sharper. The other common version is that it just costs the one. Both are fine. Finding out which one your bar plays at 10pm, with a pot on the table and somebody on their last life, is not.
The mistake people make
Assuming a scratch cancels a ball you pocketed on the same stroke. In most houses it does not help you at all — you fouled, so the turn ends and the strike stands even though a ball went down.
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.
- Foul
- Any illegal stroke. A foul is a stroke that breaks a rule: scratching, failing to hit the correct ball first, no ball reaching a cushion after contact, touching a ball with anything but the cue tip, or shooting out of turn..
- Ball in hand
- Permission to place the cue ball anywhere on the table. After a foul, the incoming player picks the cue ball up and puts it wherever they like.
- Strike
- A missed turn. Three of them and you are out. In three-strikes pool, a strike is what you collect when your turn ends without a ball going in a pocket.
- Head string
- The line across the table you break from behind. An imaginary line across the width of the table through the second diamond from the head rail.
Where it comes up
Scratch 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.