Popular billiards games like pool and snooker are traditionally for two players. While you can partner up and play doubles, alternating shots makes it difficult to maintain a strategy. Not to mention, when playing with an uneven number of players balancing the teams becomes a challenge.
The following billiards games best suit three-player groups; however, you can add more as needed. Just adjust the rules accordingly.
Cut-Throat
The objective in cut-throat, known also as battleships, is to keep your appointed balls out of the pockets. Each player must protect a range of balls (i.e. numbers one through five) and shoot to sink or block his or her opponent’s balls instead. The player who owns the last ball on the table wins. The standard rules for scratching and breaking apply.
Alternatively, you can play cut-throat in a more familiar manner and try to sink your range of balls first.
Three-Ball
For three-ball, one player racks up three balls into a triangle then counts how many shots it takes to get them into the pockets. The next player does the same. At the end, whoever took the least amount of shots to sink all balls wins the game.
There are many variations of the three-ball game, many include more than just three balls. You can experiment with the rack formation, venturing as far as to separate balls into different groupings. As well, you can play with a rule that requires players to shoot in sequence (i.e. lowest to highest).
Horse
Horse borrows ideas from the trick-shot basketball game. Essentially, one player performs an advanced shot and the other players attempt to do it too. When a player fails to execute the shot, he or she receives a letter. Once a player can spell “HORSE,” he or she loses.
