Durability of finish, complexities of "multiple stage" modern finishes, and other factors including environmental regulation led manufacturers to choose newer technologies. The regulation size of the table's playing surface is 9 by 4.5 ft (2.7 by 1.4 m), though exact dimensions may vary slightly by manufacturer. Rack may also be used as a verb to describe the act of setting billiard balls in their starting positions (e.g. "to rack the balls"), or as a noun to describe a set of balls that are in their starting positions (e.g. "a rack of balls", more often called a pack or a pyramid in British English). However, all balls other than the 1 and 9 may be randomly placed. In nine-ball, the basic principles are the same as detailed in the eight-ball section above, but only balls 1 through 9 are used; the 1 ball is always placed at the rack's apex (because in nine-ball every legal shot, including the break, must strike the lowest numbered ball first) over the table's foot spot, and the 9 ball is placed in the center of the rack.

At that time, the fourteen pocketed balls are racked with no apex ball, and the rack is so placed so that if the apex ball were in the rack, its center would rest directly over the table's foot spot. Identify which ball will act as your striking ball and which will be pocketed as a result. In both one-pocket and bank pool all fifteen object balls are racked entirely at random, with the center of the apex ball placed directly over the foot spot. For this reason, template racks are almost never used for games where it is common to slow-break (i.e. not create a large spread of balls) since it is significantly more likely that the rack will interfere with slow-rolling balls. The most common shape of a rack is that of an equilateral triangle. Further up the table is the pink ball, which sits midway between the blue spot and the top cushion, followed by the red balls (one each), placed in a tightly-packed triangle behind the pink.

A modern variation, called a template rack, is made from a thin material (usually 0.14 mm or less) that contains precision cut-outs to hold the balls in place. In the initial rack in straight pool, fifteen balls are racked in a triangular rack, with the center of the apex ball placed over the foot spot. After the initial rack, the balls are played until only the cue ball and one object ball remain on the table's surface. The two corner balls must be a stripe and a solid. The objective of the game is to pot the 9-ball legally.A legal shot occurs when you hit the cue ball into the lowest numbered object ball and driving either of the two into the rails. If there is no room this side of the spot, it will be placed as close to the spot as possible in a straight line towards the bottom cushion, without touching another ball. If there is no available spot, it is placed as close to its own spot as possible in a direct line between that spot and the top (black end) cushion, without touching another ball.

It is played using a cue stick, one white ball (the cue ball), fifteen red balls and six colours: a yellow (worth two points), green (three points), brown (four points), blue (five points), pink (six points) and black ball (seven points). Finally, the black ball is placed on a spot 12.75 inches from the top cushion on a full-size table. If the starting position spot for a coloured ball is covered by another ball, the ball is placed on the highest available spot. The first ball must be placed at the apex position (front of the rack and so the center of that ball is directly over the table's foot spot). A number of rules have developed which detail what must be done when one or both of the cue ball and fifteenth object ball are either in the rack area at the time an intragame rack is necessary, or are in such close proximity to the intragame racking area, that the physical rack cannot be used without moving the one or the other. Because the game is played to a number of points normally far in excess of the fifteen points total available in the initial rack (in tournament play, one-hundred fifty points), multiple intragame racks are necessary.

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