Diveball: Your Next Favorite Game

Today, only dozens of people in the world know how to play this game. In 5 years, it will be massively popular (on the order of 100k or 1M+ players). I’m going to popularize it. I’m publishing this post in part to spread it wide and in part to plant my flag before it becomes huge.

How to play is linked here. (I’ll update that document as I iterate on the particularities of the rules. The basic structure, however, is solid.) I’ve also pasted the current version of the rules below:

Diveball

Materials:

• 1 pool table
• 1 cue ball (that’s the white one)
• 1 7 ball

Setup: 

• Each of the 4 players stands at a corner. 
  • Players are on a team with the person directly across from them (i.e. the player with whom they share a long side). 

Definitions: 

• The 7 ball is “dead” if it stops moving. 
• The 7 ball is “scored” if it enters one of the corner pockets. 
• Each player has a “kitchen”, which is the one-forth of the table closest to them. The boundary of the kitchen (the “kitchen line”) is formed by connecting the second dots on the side of the table. (Players who share an end will share both a kitchen and a kitchen line.) 
• A team has “possession” when it is their turn to play. 
• A player performs a “shot” when they touch and/or release the cue ball such that it hits the 7 ball. 
• A player performs a “pass” when they transfer the cue ball to their partner (without the cue ball touching the 7 ball). 

Play: 

• A team wins a point in one of three ways: 
  1. Making the 7 ball dead during their opponents’ possession
  2. Scoring the 7 ball (note: scored only applies to a corner pocket). 
  3. Their opponents commit a foul. 

• “Possession” works like this: 
  1. The serving team begins with possession. 
  2. A team passes possession to their opponents by touching the cue ball and then the cue ball touching the 7 ball. 
• Serving works like this: 
  1. Set up for a serve by placing the 7 ball in the middle of the kitchen line opposite the server. 
  2. A legal serve is one where the cue ball hits the 7 ball, then the 7 ball hits the back wall before it stops, goes into a pocket, or hits a side wall. 
  3. A server has three attempts at a legal serve. 
     1. If they fail, the opposing team receives a point and the 
• Note: the 7 ball is not scored if it enters one of the side pockets. Instead, if this happens, no teams score any points and the player who hit it into the side pocket chooses the next server. (They may choose any of the 4 players.)  

Illegal actions (i.e. “fouls”): 

1. Touching the 7 ball. 
2. Touching the cue ball when it is not your possession. 
3. Touching the cue ball while it touches the 7 ball. 
4. “Playing from the side” – i.e. failing to have both feet behind the horizontal line that determines the end of the table when making a shot. 
5. “Playing in the air” – i.e. failing to have at least one foot on the ground when releasing the cue ball in a shot that prompts the cue ball to hit the 7 ball. 
6. The cue ball contacts the 7 ball while any part of the 7 ball is in the releasing player’s Kitchen. 
   • To avoid violating this kitchen rule, you should pass the cue ball to your partner when needed. 

A game works like this: 

• Randomize the first server. 
  • After each point, the partner of the player who last legally transferred possession serves the next point. 

A match works like this: 

• Play “best two out of three” games (i.e. the first team to win two games wins the match).

Clarifications: 

• If the cue ball goes in any pocket, the point continues. Whichever team has possession had better fish it out fast! 
• If the 7 ball jumps off the table, award no points and serve afresh. 
• The 7 ball is only scored in the corner pockets. If it’s hit into a side pocket, no points are scored and the player who hit it into that pocket chooses the next server. 
• The 7 ball is only deemed to have “stopped moving” when it is no longer rolling nor spinning AND the cue ball is stopped or touched by a possessing player or touches a wall. 
  • Therefore, the balls do not have to collide before the 7 stops moving; a team need only release the cue ball before the 7 ball stops moving, so long as the cue ball hits the 7 ball directly thereafter.