---
title: "Cowboy Pool Rules: The Complete Guide"
url: https://pool4.org/cowboy-pool-rules-the-complete-guide
published: 2026-10-28T05:19:25Z
updated: 2026-10-28T05:21:15Z
summary: "Cowboy pool is scored like nothing else: pockets and caroms to 90, caroms only to 100, then you win by sinking the cue ball off the 1 on purpose."
author: "POOL4 Editorial"
categories: ["Tips & Techniques"]
tags: ["billiard games", "carom billiards", "cowboy pool", "history", "rules"]
lang: en
---

# Cowboy Pool Rules: The Complete Guide

*Four balls, three scoring phases, and a finish you win by pocketing the cue ball on purpose — the official rules of pool’s strangest hybrid.*

*The only pool game you win by scratching on purpose — after ninety points of pockets and caroms, the last point is a cue ball deliberately sunk off the 1. The complete official rules of cowboy pool.*

Cowboy pool — usually just "cowboy" — is pool's strangest hybrid: half pocket billiards, half carom game, played with just four balls and scored to exactly 101 points. It takes any number of players, needs no rack, and ends with a shot that would lose you the game anywhere else. This guide follows the Cowboy Pool section of the BCA's official rule book, plus the game's actual history.

## What do you need to play?

A standard pocket table and **four balls**: the cue ball and the object balls numbered **1, 3 and 5**. No triangle — the balls sit on fixed spots: the **1 ball on the head spot**, the **3 ball on the foot spot**, the **5 ball on the center spot**.

Cowboy seats **any number of players** — it works heads-up like [9-ball](/rules/9-ball) or as a ring game like [cutthroat](/cutthroat-pool-rules-the-complete-guide) or [kelly pool](/kelly-pool-rules-the-complete-guide). Turn order is simply agreed before the game.

## How does a game open?

There is no break shot. The starting player takes **cue ball in hand behind the head string** and must make the cue ball **contact the 3 ball first**. Fail that, and the incoming player chooses: force you to replay the opening shot, or take it themselves.

## How do you score the first 90 points?

Three ways to score on a single legal stroke — and every one you accomplish counts:

- **Pocket an object ball** — score its face value: the 1 is worth 1, the 3 worth 3, the 5 worth 5.
- **Carom the cue ball off any two object balls** — 1 point.
- **Carom the cue ball off all three object balls** — 2 points.

A single stroke can therefore score in several ways at once: carom off all three balls *and* pocket all three and you take **11 points** — the maximum on one shot.

Two rules shape every stroke:

- The cue ball must **contact an object ball**, and afterwards the cue ball or an object ball must **reach a cushion**. Miss both and it is a [foul](/pool-fouls-explained-every-foul-from-scratch-to-push-shot).
- Pocketed object balls **come straight back** — as in [snooker](/snooker-rules-the-complete-guide), each is re-spotted on its opening position after the stroke. If a ball's spot is occupied, it stays off the table until the spot comes free.

Score legally and you keep shooting; your inning ends the first time a stroke produces no score — or a foul.

:::note
The 90th point must be scored **exactly**. Sitting on 89, a shot that scores 2 points instead of the 1 you need is a foul — not an overshoot you get to keep. Plan the approach like a checkout in darts.
:::

## What changes for points 91 through 100?

Once you land on exactly 90, pockets stop paying. The next ten points **must all come from caroms** — 1 point for a two-ball carom, 2 for a three-ball carom — and **pocketing an object ball on these strokes is a foul**.

The rulebook even covers a corner case: if the 1 ball is held off the table because its spot is blocked while a player sits on exactly 100, all three object balls go back to their start positions and that player shoots with cue ball in hand behind the head string.

## How do you score point 101?

The final point is a **losing hazard** — an intentional scratch. With 100 on the board you must call a pocket, carom the cue ball **off the 1 ball** and into that pocket **without the cue ball touching any other object ball**. Carom off the 3 or the 5 into a pocket and it is a foul, not a win.

It is the only shot in pool where sinking the cue ball is not merely legal but required — the [call](/call-shots-slop-and-racking-rules) has to be explicit, and the cue ball's path may touch nothing but the 1 on the way in.

![A vintage marbled 1 ball — the ball the cue ball must carom off and into a called pocket for the winning point](media:be8c7f4f0a78637b)

## What happens on a foul?

Cowboy keeps no penalty points — the punishment is harsher:

- **Every point you scored during that inning is wiped out**, and the inning ends. A foul on shot five erases the work of the four before it.
- After an ordinary foul, the incoming player **accepts the cue ball in position**.
- After a [scratch](/pool-fouls-explained-every-foul-from-scratch-to-push-shot) or a cue ball jumped off the table, the incoming player has **cue ball in hand behind the head string**.
- Foul on **three consecutive turns** at the table and you **lose the game**.
- Object balls pocketed on illegal shots and object balls jumped off the table are simply **spotted** — the foul itself carries the cost.

## Where did cowboy come from?

Cowboy descends from [English billiards](/three-cushion-billiards-rules-the-complete-guide) through an ancestor called **thirty-eight**, first reported in the *Democrat and Chronicle* in 1885 — a similar four-ball game played with two cue balls. Cowboy itself surfaces in a 1908 rule book, right as [8-ball](/rules/8-ball) was taking hold; how the name stuck, nobody knows.

It never went pro — one small sanctioned tournament in 1914 is its whole competitive record — yet the BCA has kept it in *Billiards: The Official Rules and Records Book* ever since, alongside the tournament disciplines. Its other home is stranger: for generations cowboy has been the traditional table game at the MacDowell artists' colony in New Hampshire, where it survives as a working pastime rather than a museum piece.

:::note{type=tip}
More complete rule guides: [8-Ball](/rules/8-ball) · [9-Ball](/rules/9-ball) · [10-Ball](/rules/10-ball) · [14.1 Straight Pool](/14-1-straight-pool-rules-the-complete-guide) · [Bank Pool](/bank-pool-rules-the-complete-guide) · [One-Pocket](/one-pocket-rules-the-complete-guide) · [Rotation](/rotation-pool-rules-the-complete-guide) · [Cutthroat](/cutthroat-pool-rules-the-complete-guide) · [Kelly Pool](/kelly-pool-rules-the-complete-guide) · [Snooker](/snooker-rules-the-complete-guide) — or jump straight to the [Pool Rules Quick Reference](/pool-rules-quick-reference).
:::

## Common questions

:::faq
### How many people can play cowboy pool?
Any number. The official rules place no limit — it plays heads-up or as a ring game, with players simply rotating turns in an agreed order.

### Why do you win cowboy pool by scratching?
The 101st point must be a losing hazard: the cue ball caroms off the 1 ball into a called pocket. Pocketing the cue ball on that exact shot is the legal winning stroke, not a foul.

### What happens if I score more than 90 points?
It is a foul. The stroke that produces your 90th point must score exactly what you need — overshoot and you lose the inning's points and your turn.

### Do pocketed balls stay down?
No. Like snooker, every object ball pocketed on a legal stroke is re-spotted on its opening position after the shot. If its spot is occupied, it waits off the table until the spot clears.

### What is the most you can score on one shot?
Eleven points: pocket all three object balls (1 + 3 + 5 = 9) while caroming the cue ball off all three of them (2 more).

### Is cowboy pool still an official game?
Yes — it still appears in the BCA's official rules and records book, though it has always been an amateur pastime. Its only recorded sanctioned tournament dates to 1914.
:::

*This guide follows the Cowboy Pool section of the BCA's Billiards: The Official Rules and Records Book — the General Rules of Pocket Billiards apply except where contradicted — plus the game's documented history. Cover photo: "Cue ball and 1 ball near a pocket" by Niteowlneils, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.*