Snooker Query

[Graudian]

In one of the earlier matches in this years's World Championship
the referee placed the blackball on the pink spot even though the
black spot was available.

One of the players pointed out the error & the Referee shamefacedly
corrected his gaffe.
I got to wondering what would have happened if play had continued?

[DTCwordfan]

once the decision had been made, it would stay there....

[agchristie]

An ishihara card test may have followed post-match?

[jim360]

Depends on the timing of events:

a) If the referee noticed before the player had played his next shot, and was attempting to correct the mistake or was just about to, but the player played his next shot anyway, then it is a foul, penalty equal to the value of the colour in question or 4 points.

b) If the player plays his next shot and only then is the error noticed, then there's no penalty and the ball is assumed to be in the correct place from then on.

c) the exception to this is in the case where a colour is placed on a spot when it shouldn't have been at the end of clearing the six colours. In that case, once the error is noticed the ball is removed at the earliest opportunity (again, if the referee notices before a shot then a foul occurs, and if he notices after a shot then there is no foul).

[ToraToraTora]

you are wrong about b) jim, if a player plays on with the balls on the wrong spots then it's a foul even though it is the referees error.

[PeelerPal]

tora is correct

[jim360]

I checked the rules carefully, TTT.

From Section 3.7 of the official WPBSA rules:

"(a) A player shall not be held responsible for any mistake by the referee in failing to spot correctly any ball;
...
(c) If a stroke is made with a ball or balls not correctly spotted, they will be
considered to be correctly spotted for subsequent strokes. Any colour
incorrectly missing from the table will be spotted:
(i) without penalty when discovered if missing due to previous
oversight;
(ii) subject to penalty if the striker played before the referee was able to
effect the spotting. "

So no, I'm not wrong.

[ToraToraTora]

fair enough jim, I'm probably referring to an older rule book, see my separate post on "angled" for example. I'm a bit old school and played a lot in the past when I think playing with the balls missing or incorrectly spotted was a foul. There have been major revisions over the years especially for the miss rule for example so I guess it has changed.

[jim360]

Yes I had noticed your post referring to "angled", and wondering what the heck that meant. The latest version of the snooker rules is only a couple of years old or so. I think this, actually, was one of the key changes.