In short. A table with seven red balls, seven yellow balls, one black and one white, none of them numbered, is English pool — also called blackball or eightball pool. It is the game found in British and French pubs, played on a small six-pocket table. The American game you see in films is a different one: fifteen numbered balls, seven solids and seven stripes.
How to recognise it in three seconds
You do not need to know the rules to tell the two games apart. Look at the balls:
- Two flat colours and no numbers — red and yellow — plus a black and a white. That is English pool.
- Numbers on every ball, seven of them solid and seven with a stripe, plus a black 8. That is American 8-ball.
- Only three balls and no pockets at all. That is French billiards, or carom — a different family altogether.
The table gives you a second clue. An English pool table is small — six or seven feet — with tight, rounded pockets, and it usually sits in the corner of a pub with a coin slot on the side. An American table runs from seven to nine feet with wider, straighter pockets.
Why red and yellow instead of stripes and solids
The colours are not decoration. They change what you have to do before every shot.
With stripes and solids, you read the ball: at a distance, under pub lighting, a stripe seen edge-on looks very much like a solid, and you check the number to be sure. With red and yellow there is nothing to read. You see your colour from the other end of the table, instantly, and so does your opponent.
That has a consequence in the rules themselves. Because no ball needs identifying, English pool does not ask you to call your pocket: any ball of your colour that drops counts, including one you did not mean to pot. American 8-ball, built around numbered balls, calls every pot. One design choice, two different games.
The same logic explains the black. It carries no number either — there is no 8 painted on it. Players still call it "the eight" out of habit, borrowed from the American game.
What the game is called, depending on where you are
Part of what makes this hard to search for is that the game has no single name. All of these mean the same thing:
| Where | What it is called |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | English pool, eightball pool, blackball |
| France | Billard anglais |
| Spain | Billar inglés |
| Germany | English Pool |
| Italy | Biliardo inglese |
| Portugal, Brazil | Bilhar inglês |
Blackball is the name used when the game is played competitively, and it is the one you will meet in rule books. In everyday French it is simply billard anglais — nobody at the bar says blackball.
Red and yellow, stripes and solids, or three balls?
Three different games get called "billiards" or "pool" depending on the country. This is what separates them:
| English pool | American 8-ball | French billiards | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Balls | 7 red, 7 yellow, black, white | 7 solids, 7 stripes, black 8, white | 3 balls only |
| Numbered | No | Yes, 1 to 15 | No |
| Pockets | 6, tight | 6, wider | None |
| Table | 6 ft or 7 ft | 7 ft to 9 ft | 2.8 m, no pockets |
| How you score | Pot your colour, then the black | Pot your group, then the 8 | Cannons — hit both other balls |
| Where you find it | British and French pubs | American bars, worldwide | France, Belgium, Netherlands |
The white and black ball, and what they do
Two balls on the table belong to nobody.
The white is the cue ball — the only one you are allowed to strike. Potting it is a foul, called a scratch or an in-off, and it hands the table to your opponent.
The black is the last ball of the frame and the one that ends it, either way. Clear your seven reds or seven yellows, pot the black, and you win. Pot the black before your colour is finished and you lose on the spot — including on the break, and including if you pot the white on the same shot.
That is the short version. The full rules — how your colour is decided, what counts as a foul, and what a foul actually gives your opponent — are in the rules of English pool.
Frequently asked questions
What is the pool game with red and yellow balls called?
English pool, also known as blackball or eightball pool. In French it is called billard anglais. It uses seven reds, seven yellows, a black and a white, none of them numbered.
Why does English pool use red and yellow instead of stripes and solids?
Because two flat colours are readable instantly, from any distance and in poor light, while a stripe seen at an angle can be mistaken for a solid. Nothing needs identifying, which is also why English pool does not ask you to call your pocket.
Is red and yellow pool the same as American 8-ball?
No. They share a black ball and the idea of clearing a group first, but they differ on almost everything else: the balls, the table size, whether you call your pocket, and above all how a foul is punished — two shots in English pool, ball in hand in the American game.
Which ball do you have to pot first?
None, at the start. The table is open until someone pots a ball: the first colour legally potted after the break belongs to that player for the rest of the frame, and the other colour goes to the opponent.
Is there a number on the black ball?
No. In English pool none of the balls carry numbers, the black included. Players often call it "the eight" anyway, borrowing the name from American 8-ball.
Try a frame of English pool
Reds, yellows and a black, in your browser. Against the bot or against a friend with a room code. Free, no account.