What Is Heyball? Chinese 8-Ball Explained
Heyball is one of the fastest-growing games in cue sports, and British players are winning it. England's Gareth Potts and Kelly Fisher took the WPA Heyball World Championship titles in 2025 and defended both in 2026. Yet most UK players have still never played it.
If you play English pool, American pool or snooker, you already know half the game. Heyball uses American balls on a table built like a snooker table, with rules close to eight ball. That mix is exactly why it is so hard. This guide explains what heyball is, how it differs from the games you know, and what equipment you need to try it.
Where the name comes from
Heyball and Chinese 8-ball are the same game. In China it is known as "black eight", and hei is the Chinese word for black. Heyball is the anglicised name that organisers and Joy, the table maker behind the biggest events, now use internationally.
The game grew up in China through the 1980s and 1990s, when snooker was the country's main cue sport and eight ball was catching on. Players ended up with a hybrid: pool balls and pool rules on snooker-style tables.
Heyball, English pool and American pool compared
| Heyball | English pool | American pool | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Balls | Numbered solids and stripes | Unnumbered reds and yellows | Numbered solids and stripes |
| Ball size | 57.2mm | 51mm or 52mm | 57.2mm |
| Table | 9ft | Usually 7ft in UK leagues | 9ft at tournament level |
| Pockets | Rounded, snooker-style | Rounded | Straight-cut jaws |
| Cloth | Napped, like snooker | Napped | Unnapped, fast |
The short version: American balls, snooker-style table and pockets. The official playing surface is 2540mm by 1260mm, the same area as an American 9ft table.
Why heyball is so hard
The difficulty comes from the combination. A 57.2mm ball is the big American size, and a rounded pocket is far less forgiving than the straight-cut jaws of an American table. Balls that would rattle in on an American table stay out on a heyball table.
Napped cloth adds a second problem. As in snooker, the nap affects how slower balls roll, so pace control matters more than on the fast cloth of an American table. Many snooker players find the game more natural than pool players do for this reason. Many pool players find the ball size and the eight ball rules more natural. Nobody gets it all for free.
The rules in brief
Heyball rules are set by the organiser of each event, and the International Heyball Pool Association (IHPA), part of the World Pool Association, runs the world championship. The details below follow the widely used Rules of Chinese Pool (revised 2017, updated 2019). Tournament versions can differ, so check the rules for any event you enter.
Groups. Fifteen numbered balls. One player takes the solids (1 to 7), the other takes the stripes (9 to 15). Clear your group, then pot the 8 to win the frame.
The rack. The front ball goes on the foot spot, the 8 goes in the centre of the triangle, and the two back corners take one solid and one stripe.
The break. The break must be powerful. The rules count how many times balls cross the head string, with a pot counting towards the total. Men need four crossings, and women and players under 14 need three. A break that drives fewer than four balls to a cushion counts as a deliberate soft break and loses the frame.
Potting the 8 on the break. This is not a foul. The breaker chooses whether to re-spot the 8 and carry on, or break again.
Fouls. The opponent gets the cue ball in hand anywhere on the table.
Calling shots. Not required under these rules, including on the 8. Flukes count.
Top events play long matches. The opening stage of the 2026 Joy Cup Masters Grand Finals was played as races to 13 frames.
The big events and the British success story
Two events stand out.
The Joy Cup World Heyball Masters Grand Finals in Qinhuangdao, China, is among the richest events in cue sports. In 2026 the winner's prize was 5,000,000 yuan, roughly $724,000 at the time.
The WPA Heyball World Championship is where British players have done best. Gareth Potts won the men's title in 2025 and retained it in Pune, India, in 2026, beating Wales's Jordan Shepherd 7-4 in the final. Kelly Fisher won the women's title in both years, taking the 2026 final against Thailand's Waratthanun Sukritthanes in a shootout. Further back, Darren Appleton won the 2015 Chinese 8-ball world title, beating Mark Selby in the final.
The WPA also points out that heyball is the only discipline in which men and women compete at the highest professional level.
The cue: closer to snooker than pool
A heyball cue looks like a snooker cue. It has a slim, tapered wooden shaft, usually ash or maple, a spliced butt and a brass joint, and it is often three-quarter jointed. The difference is at the business end. A 57.2mm ball needs a bigger tip than a 52.5mm snooker ball, so heyball cues carry a larger tip and a slightly thicker taper, and they tend to be heavier.
Our own heyball cues are built this way. They come with a hand-spliced ebony butt, a choice of ash or maple shaft, a titanium ferrule and a fitted Elkmaster cue tip. The tip is sized between 10.5mm and 11.5mm, against the 9mm to 10mm typical of a snooker cue.
Can you use a snooker cue? For a first game, yes. Plenty of snooker players try heyball with their own cue before deciding whether to take it further. The smaller tip is the reason dedicated cues exist, and most players who stick with the game move to one.
Ferrules. Our heyball cues use a titanium ferrule rather than brass, to reduce deflection when you use side. If your current cue has a brass ferrule, a titanium ferrule can be fitted by a cue repairer.
Reach. A 9ft table is a lot longer than a 7ft English pool table. Our heyball cues have a brass extension joint in the butt, and our cue extensions screw in for long shots.
Balls for practice
Heyball uses standard 57.2mm American pool balls. The official specification is 57.15mm, within half a tenth of a millimetre, and 156g to 170g. Any quality American set suits practice at home or at a club. Our American pool balls include Aramith sets and the DynaSpheres 572 range, all at 57.2mm.
Remember that an English pool triangle will not take American-sized balls. You need a full-size American triangle to rack them.
A glove is worth trying
Plenty of heyball and pool players wear a glove on the bridge hand. On a big table with unforgiving pockets, a smooth, consistent bridge matters, and a glove stops the cue catching on a dry or sweaty hand. Our billiard gloves come in left and right-handed versions.
In short
Heyball is eight ball played with American balls on a snooker-style table. The rules will feel familiar and the pockets will not. If you play snooker, your cue action carries straight across. If you play pool, you already know how the game flows. Either way, it is the most interesting thing happening in cue sports right now, and British players are leading the way.
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Every frame starts with the rack. Get it right and the break spreads properly, the game plays as it should and nobody argues. Get it wrong and you either get a dead break that barely moves the pack, or a disagreement two shots in about whether the black was in the right place.
The confusing part is that "pool" means different things depending on which table you are standing at. English pool, American pool, nine ball and snooker all rack differently, and the rule for one will mislead you on another. This guide covers all four, starting with the one most UK players need.
A good triangle matters more than people expect. A loose or worn one leaves gaps between the balls, and gaps are the most common reason a break goes nowhere. Our pool and snooker table triangles are the same Sheffield-made racks used at English pool tournaments.
English pool: reds and yellows
This is the game on pub tables, in leagues and in most UK clubs. It uses fifteen unnumbered balls: seven reds, seven yellows and one black. There are no solids and no stripes.
The black goes in the middle of the pack, sitting on the black spot. It sits in the centre of the third row of the triangle, and the triangle is positioned so that ball lands on the spot. It never goes at the front. This single point causes more racking arguments than everything else combined, usually because someone has picked the game up from American pool.
The black spot is at the opposite end of the table from the baulk line. It sits where two imaginary diagonal lines would cross, each drawn from a middle pocket to the top corner pocket on the opposite side of the table.
The rack pattern
The reds and yellows are not placed at random. The World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) Blackball rules set a fixed pattern, row by row from the front ball back:
The reds and yellows can be swapped over, as long as the shape of the pattern stays the same. Notice that the two back corners are always different colours, and that neither colour is bunched on one side. That is the whole point of a set pattern: nobody gets an easier spread off the break because of how the balls were racked.
If your league plays International Rules, set by the International Eightball Pool Federation (the WEPF until it rebranded in 2024), use the diagram in its rulebook. The principle is the same: black on the spot and a fixed spread of colours.
Setting up, step by step
Placing the black on the same spot frame after frame wears the cloth there first. Our English pool rack, the Pro Racker, has an alignment slot designed to reduce that wear around the black spot.
Ball sizes for English pool
English pool object balls come in two sizes: 2 inches (51mm) and 2 and one sixteenth inches (52mm), which is close to snooker size. The cue ball is often slightly smaller, typically 1 and seven eighths inches (47.6mm) on a 2 inch set. That difference is deliberate. It lets coin-operated pub tables separate the cue ball from the object balls and return it after a pot.
Check which size your table and triangle are built for before buying. Most English pool triangles, including ours, are made for 2 inch sets. Our pool balls are listed by diameter for exactly this reason.
American pool: solids and stripes
American eight ball uses fifteen numbered balls at 2 and a quarter inches (57.2mm). Balls 1 to 7 are solids, 9 to 15 are stripes and the 8 is black.
Here the rule flips. The front ball of the triangle goes on the foot spot, not the 8.
Our American pool balls are the full 57.2mm size. They will not fit an English pool triangle, so the two are not interchangeable.
Nine ball
Nine ball uses a diamond-shaped rack rather than a triangle, and only the balls numbered 1 to 9.
Nine ball is played on American tables with American-sized balls. If you are watching professional pool on television and the players are potting in number order, this is the game.
Snooker
Snooker uses twenty two balls: fifteen reds, six colours and a cue ball, all at 52.5mm. The reds go in a triangle and each colour has its own marked spot.
The reds
Rack the fifteen reds in a triangle at the top end of the table, with the back row parallel to the top cushion. The front red should sit as close to the pink as possible without touching it. As with pool, the pack needs to be tight.
The colours and their spots
Standing at the baulk end and looking up the table, the three baulk colours run left to right: green, brown, yellow. The old way to remember it is "God Bless You".
The order you pot them in
While reds remain, each red is followed by a colour of your choice, and that colour goes back on its spot. Once the last red and its colour are gone, the colours are potted in value order and stay down: yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, black.
Full-size snooker balls are 52.5mm. On a smaller home table you may be using undersized balls, and the spot positions scale with the table rather than staying at the measurements above.
Five things that go wrong
A loose pack. The most common fault by far. If the balls are not touching, the energy from the break disappears into the gaps instead of spreading the pack. Push the balls together from the back before lifting the triangle.
Dragging the triangle off. Lift it straight up. Dragging it pulls the front balls out of position and loosens everything behind them.
Racking English pool like American pool. The black at the front instead of in the middle on the spot. It happens constantly.
Ignoring the pattern. Bunching all the reds on one side gives whoever ends up on reds a much easier table after the break.
A worn or warped triangle. Wooden triangles distort over time and cheap plastic ones develop play at the corners. If you cannot get a tight pack however you push the balls, the triangle is usually the problem rather than your technique.
Keeping the table fit to rack on
Chalk dust and grime build up around the spots faster than anywhere else on the table, because that is where the balls sit between frames. Cloth that has gone shiny or greasy under the pack stops the balls sitting tight and changes how the pack spreads.
Brushing the table along the nap after each session takes less than a minute. Our billiard table brushes are made for the job, and a brush costs far less than a re-cloth.
If you are practising alone rather than playing frames, snooker training balls with marked spots show exactly what the cue ball is doing, which a plain white will not.
In short
If you remember one thing, make it this: English pool puts the black on the spot in the middle of the pack, and American pool puts the front ball on the spot. Everything else comes down to the right pattern, a tight pack and a clean lift.
For anyone kitting out a table from scratch, our DynaSpheres cue sports balls include the official balls of the World Nineball Tour, and the snooker sets are graded by how closely the balls match each other in weight. That consistency shows most clearly in exactly the moment this guide is about: how a tight pack behaves when you hit it.
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