Game Variations Part One - Volunteer Snooker
Getting tired of the standard fifteen reds and six colors? Finishing your snooker frames too quickly? Tired of plotting the same repetitive strategy? You could always switch to Volunteer Snooker.
Volunteer Snooker is a variation of snooker that was alive and popular in the late 1950's. Played with slightly varied rules than the normal game, it was more of a challenge and way more fun. Reasons for it being unable to overshadow the normal game in popularity are unclear. Today the game is dead.
But, fret not. Through the efforts of a great Cue Sports enthusiast, John Greene, who was able to procure for Cue Sports, the complete rules of this variation to snooker, Volunteer Snooker will find itself in permanent electronic archivedom, with its own niche of enthusiasts.
Below you will find rules and terminology used in this game.
Rules
Developed to enhance the players temperament by encouraging the player to get used to constantly playing under pressure.
Volunteer snooker is identical to ordinary snooker in number of balls and rules with the exception that:-
- after a player has potted his first red, he should of course play a colour ball. The next time he is up or the next ball he goes for can be a "volunteered" colour ball. That is, instead of playing a red ball, the player may "voluntarily" choose a coloured ball, for example, a green ball.
If the green is potted he wins three points, the green is re-spotted and he continues his break.
- if the "volunteered" ball in not potted e.g. blue ball, the minimum points value - 5 points (4 points for brown, green and yellow balls) are awarded to the opposite player and the break is over.
- there is a Free Shot rule for anyone who is that good. If the same coloured ball is volunteered from "off the spot" three times consecutively, then after that third pot that coloured ball is NOT re-spotted until after the next shot is played. A free ball is declared by the referee allowing & forcing the player to play any another ball, BUT should that other ball be a colour ball and not a red ball, it is referred to as a "free shot ball".
There is no penalty for not potting a free shot ball, thus the name "free shot". A "free shot ball" is different from a "free ball" - the free shot ball can be used to form a snooker.
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