Drunken Cowboy

I discovered this game while trying to find videos and info on Cowboy Pool (see earlier post) when I stumbled upon a video on a game dubbed "Drunken Cowboy".

The game outlined in the video seemed like a hybrid game between Bottle Pool (see earlier post) and Cowboy Pool combining the equipment and scoring of both games.

Materials & Setup

To play Drunken Cowboy you need the following 

• A standard Pool table
• 4 standard Pool balls: the white cue-ball, the red yellow 1-ball, a red 3-ball, and an orange 5-ball.
  
• A plastic or leather (or any non-brittle material) shake bottle

The 1-ball is placed in the head spot, the 3-ball in the foot-spot, the 5-ball in the middle, and the bottle is placed neck-down between the 1 and 5 balls. On this diagram the bottle is represented with a magenta circle.

Setup on a real Pool table

The Game

The object of the game is to reach 101 points just like in Cowboy Pool, except the game additionally also adds the bottle as a way of scoring for another way of scoring 5 points. 

Differences from Cowboy Pool

There are a few major ways this game differs from Cowboy Pool (other than the bottle of course).

1. Your cue-ball must always hit a cushion in each shot. This is to prevent a player from simply camping in front of the 5-ball and getting easy 5 points in every shot.
2. The 101st point must be a losing hazard off the 1-ball on a called pocket.
   

Structure

 As with most other billiards games, the game is played in innings, where your turn keeps going as long as you make valid scoring shots.

Once you miss or foul, the turn is over and the turn passes to the other player.

The Break

To break, the starting player shoots the cue-ball from the kitchen (the area behind the 1-ball) trying to hit the 3 ball.

Scoring

There are three ways to score in Drunken Cowboy

• Pocket any one of the object balls for the printed value in points.
• Hit two object balls with the cue-ball for one point.
• Hit three object balls with the cue-ball for two points.
  
• Hit the bottle with the cue-ball after hitting an object ball for five points.

Like in Cowboy Pool, any pocketed object balls are returned to their spot on the table.

Like in Bottle Pool, the bottle is lifted back up wherever it ended up. If you are unable to lift it, the bottle is spotted back to its original position.

Unlike Cowboy Pool, any ball must hit a cushion for the shot to be valid. This as mentioned in the Differences section is simply to prevent good players from continuously pocketing the same ball over and over by simply shooting with a bit of back-spin and having the cue-ball sit perfectly for the next shot. 

Unlike Eight-Ball Pool, simply pocketing a  ball doesn't count as hitting a cushion, thus pocketing without hitting a cushion would count as a foul.

Phases

As mentioned, the object is to get to 101 points (the video says 100, but you still need the losing hazard at the end to close the game, so it's technically 101). Just like in Cowboy Pool, the way you get there is in three phases, each of which is bounded by a specific number of points.

Phase 1: 0-90 points, where all methods of scoring are legal. The 90th point must be reached exactly. Failing to do so is a foul, garnering no points for that shot.

Phase 2: 91-100 points, where only carom shots are legal (carom shots being hitting two or more balls with the cue-ball), again the 100th point must be hit exactly. Note that hitting the bottle at this stage doesn't give points!

Phase 3: the 101st point, where you must do a losing hazard (called an in-off in Snooker), a special shot from English Billiards, where you pocket the cue-ball after hitting one of the object balls.

Fouls and Penalties

Any foul immediately ends that player's turn and forfeits any and all points scored by that player in that inning.

Fouls include

• Not hitting a cushion in every shot
• Not hitting anything at all
  
• Hitting the bottle directly
• Hitting the bottle with an object ball
• "Scratching", that is pocketing the cue-ball
• Hitting the bottle with the cue
• Pocketing the bottle or knocking it off the table
  

Additionally, should a player make three consecutive fouls, they immediately lose the game.

Bottle Pool

 

Bottle Pool is a Pool variant played with three balls and a leather or plastic bottle.

The game is played similar to Cowboy Pool in that points are scored for pocketing the balls and also caroming the cue-ball off of the object balls.

Bottle Pool adds the bottle as a new scoring objective, which is scored whenever it is truck with the cue-ball with a carom shot.

To my mind, it feels a bit like a mix between Cowboy Pool and Skomar.

Materials & Setup

To play Bottle Pool you need

• A Pool Table
• 3 balls: the cue-ball, the yellow 1-ball, and the blue 2-ball.
• A plastic or leather (or any non-brittle material) shake bottle

To set up the game, place the bottle neck down on the centre spot (here represented with a magenta circle), the 1-ball against the foot-end cushion in front of the left diamond, and the 2-ball against the foot-end cushion in front of the right diamond.

Here's an image courtesy of Wikipedia to show the setup in perspective:

The Game

The aim of the game is to hit 31 points exactly.

Overshooting 31 sets your score to however many points you overshot by.
Think of it like a clock face, overshooting 12 gets you right back around.

Structure

The game, like most varieties of billiards, is played in innings. That is to say, the active player stays active as long as they make a legal scoring shot.

The Break

The cue-ball starts in the kitchen, the area behind the middle diamond at the head-end of the table. The aim is then to hit any of the two object balls

Scoring

• Pocket the 1-ball for 1 point
• Pocket the 2-ball for 2 points
• Hit both object balls with the cue ball for 1 point
• Carom the cue-ball off one or both object balls and into the bottle for 5 points
• Manage the flip the bottle upright after doing a carom shot for an automatic win

The most points you can earn in a single shot is 9 by hitting both object balls with the cue-ball, pocketing them both, and hitting the bottle.

After reaching 31 points exactly, the player must announce this out loud before the next player takes their shot or else the score is reset to 0.

After the bottle is knocked over, it is put upright as close to where it landed as possible. If it is not possible to turn the bottle upright, or if the bottle was knocked off the table, it is instead returned to the centre spot. If that spot is occupied, it instead goes to the head spot. If the head spot and centre spots are both occupied, it instead goes to the foot spot. If all three spots are occupied, the bottle remains off the table until a spot clears.

Similar to Snooker, English Billiards, and Danish Pin Billiards, any object ball potted is re-spotted to its original starting location.
In Bottle Pool however, the 1-ball is always re-spotted before the 2-ball. This matters in case any of the spots are blocked.

Fouls

Upon making a foul, the active player's inning immediately ends and they lose any and all points gained in that inning plus one.

All the things you'd expect to be a foul in standard pocket billiards is a foul here in addition to the following:

• The cue ball fails to touch an object ball.
• The cue ball touches the bottle before contacting an object ball.
• The bottle is knocked over by an object ball.
• An object ball is pocketed on the same stroke as an illegal shot.

However, it is not a foul to knock over the bottle with an object ball if an object ball was pocketed in the same shot. In that case the inning simply ends.