Cowboy pool

Cowboy pool (or simply Cowboy) is a hybrid pool game combining elements of English billiards through an intermediary game, with more standard pocket billiards characteristics. The game employs only four balls, the cue ball and three numbered balls, the 1, 3 and 5. It is played to 101 points, with points being awarded for a host of different shot types.

The parent game of cowboy pool, English billiards, is itself a of three predecessor billiards games – the winning game, the losing game and the carambole game (an early form of straight rail) – and dates to approximately 1800 in England. There are a number of pocket billiard games directly descended from English billiards, including bull dog, scratch pool, thirty-one pool and thirty-eight. Thirty-eight is the intermediary game from which cowboy is directly derived. This precursor game was first reported on in The New York Times on January 21, 1885: 'there is a new billiards game called "thirty-eight." It appears to have met with special favor among the many devotees of pool.'

Cowboy is very similar to thirty-eight, with the major difference being that thirty-eight requires the use of two cue balls and is played to just 38 points, thus its name. It is unknown how thirty-eight transitioned to the modified ruleset mandated by cowboy pool, nor the derivation of its name. What is known is that its first mention is in a 1908 rule book, published about the same time the well-known game eight-ball (under a prior name) was first gaining popularity. Although popular enough that its rules remain listed in authoritative rule books alongside just a handful of other games, apart from a small sanctioned tournament held in 1914, cowboy pool is strictly an amateur game.

There are numerous local variations. Conventional Cowboy pool uses only four balls, the cue ball and three numbered balls, the 1, 3, and 5. The balls have a set opening placement: The 1 ball is placed on the head spot; the 3 ball on the foot spot; and the 5 ball on the center spot. As in the game of snooker, pocketed balls are immediately respotted to their starting position. Beginning with cue ball in-hand from the kitchen – the area behind a pool table's head string – the incoming player must contact the 3 ball first. If the player fails to do so, the opponent may either force the player to repeat the break shot, or elect to break him or herself.

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