Re-Spotted Black in Snooker: How a Tied Frame Is Settled

Fifty-eight points each, the Masters final at the West Centre Hotel in London, January 1975. John Spencer and Ray Reardon had played seventeen frames over two sessions and the last of them had ended level. The referee took the black from the pocket, put it back on its spot and handed the decision to a draw of lots. Spencer won the frame, and the title, by potting that black from distance.

That is the whole of the re-spotted black in snooker. When only the black remains and the frame ends with the scores equal, the black goes back on its spot, the players draw lots, and the winner of the draw chooses who plays first. That player starts with the cue ball in hand in the D. The next pot or foul ends the frame: pot the black and you win by seven, commit any foul and your opponent wins by seven. The procedure is written into Section 3 of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association rules, the rules played on the World Snooker Tour and in every properly run league in England and the rest of the UK.

How the re-spotted black rule is written by the WPBSA

The rule sits in Section 3, Rule 4, under the heading "End of Frame, Game or Match", and it is short. When the black is the only object ball left, the first pot or foul ends the frame. There is one exception, and it needs two conditions to be met at once: the scores must then be equal, and aggregate scores must not be relevant to the result. If both apply, four things follow in order. The black is spotted. The players draw lots for the choice of who plays next. The next player plays from in hand. The first pot or infringement ends the frame.

Notice the word "infringement" in the last step rather than "foul". The WPBSA rulebook separates fouls, which end a player's turn, from penalties, which do not affect the order of play. On a re-spotted black that distinction disappears. Anything that costs points ends the frame.

The rulebook never uses the phrase "tie-break". It calls the procedure, in its own words, the one "commonly known as a re-spotted Black", and that is the only place the familiar name appears in the text. Commentators, referees and club players all use it.

The sequence, as it actually unfolds at the table:

1. 1Scores levelThe last black has been potted or fouled and both totals are the same, with no aggregate score in play.
2. 2Black re-spottedThe referee places the black on its own spot at the top of the table.
3. 3Lots drawnUsually a coin toss; the winner chooses who will play the next stroke.
4. 4First strokeThe chosen player places the cue ball anywhere in the D and plays in any direction.
5. 5ExchangePlay continues on the one ball, with safeties and doubles, for as many shots as it takes.
6. 6Frame endsThe first pot wins it; the first foul or penalty gives the opponent seven and the frame.

The order of events under WPBSA Section 3 Rule 4(b). Nothing in the procedure changes the scores until the final stroke.

What the referee does

The referee's part is mechanical. Re-spot the black, conduct the toss, confirm the choice, and from then on watch for exactly what would be watched in any other frame. A referee does not announce a re-spot as anything special; the call is usually a quiet "re-spotted black" to the players and the scorer. The scoreboard keeps both totals. The frame winner's score will finish seven ahead, which is why the result of a re-spot always shows as a seven-point margin on the frame scores, as the 63-56 in the 1998 Masters decider does.

One clause elsewhere in the rules covers the rare deadlock. If a stalemate develops during a re-spotted black, the referee re-spots only the black, and the same player who took the first stroke takes it again from in hand. The re-rack that would restart a normal frame is replaced by a restart of the tie-break itself.

How a frame arrives level on the last black

A tie needs one of two arithmetic accidents. Before the final black is played, the players must be exactly seven apart, and then one of two things must happen to the black.

The first route is the obvious one. The player seven behind pots the black. Seven points go on that player's total, the scores are equal, and because a pot of the last ball would normally end the frame, Rule 4 has to step in. The second route is more painful for the person responsible. The player seven ahead fouls on the black, perhaps by missing it, going in-off, or striking it while trying a safety that drifts into a pocket the wrong way. Penalty points of seven go to the opponent, the scores are level, and the same exception applies.

Everything else ends the frame outright. The table below sets out what the last black does from each starting gap.

Gap before the final black	What happens on the black	Result
Level scores	Either player pots it, or either player fouls	Frame over, decided by seven; no re-spot
Seven points	The trailing player pots it	Scores level; black re-spotted
Seven points	The leading player fouls	Scores level; black re-spotted
Seven points	The leading player pots it, or the trailing player fouls	Leader wins by fourteen
Six points or fewer	The trailing player pots it	Trailing player wins the frame
More than seven points	Nothing to play for	Frame can be claimed by, or awarded to, the leader

The last row matters more than it looks. Section 2 of the rules defines when a frame is complete, and one of its routes is a difference of more than seven points with the black alone on the table. The striker may claim the frame at that point, or it is awarded to the non-striker if the gap runs the other way. So nobody plays for snookers on the final black; a player eight behind with one ball left has already lost. The mathematics of that position belongs to the page on what snookers required means, where it is worked through stage by stage.

The scorelines that typically produce a tie

Ties are not as rare as people think, because the colours produce seven-point gaps naturally. A player trailing by 29 with the yellow on can clear 27 and finish two short. A player trailing by 27 with the yellow on can clear the colours and tie. That second case, a deficit equal to exactly the points left, is the single most common source of re-spotted blacks: the trailing player needs every ball, gets every ball, and the scores meet at the end.

The other common source is the foul on the black itself. A leader seven ahead who plays a loose safety and sees the cue ball run into a pocket has handed over seven points and a fresh start on one ball. It is the worst foul in snooker, because it converts a frame that could only be lost by a pot into a contest that is level again.

Drawing lots and the choice of who plays first

The rules say only that the players "draw lots for choice of playing next". In practice the lot is a coin toss, conducted by the referee in the same way as before the first frame of a match. The caller who wins does not automatically play. They choose.

That choice is the most misunderstood part of the procedure. Club players often assume the winner of the toss goes first, as at the start of a match, and some will grab the cue ball before the decision has been made. The winner may equally tell the opponent to play.

At professional level, the winner of the toss almost always puts the opponent in. The reason is the position. The black sits on its spot, twelve and three-quarter inches out from the top cushion, in open space with nothing around it. The cue ball has to come from the D. A pot from there is a long ball at an angle into a top corner, possible but not percentage snooker on a frame-deciding shot. A safety is the sensible stroke, and a safety from the D against a black on its spot has a well-known answer that the second player can then respond to.

Why playing second is usually better

The first player has to commit. Whatever the safety, the cue ball ends up somewhere, the black ends up somewhere, and the second player looks at that position before deciding. If the first safety is slightly heavy, or the black finishes a few inches off the top cushion rather than tight to it, the second player can attempt the pot or play a better safety in return. The first shot carries all of the risk and almost none of the reward.

There are exceptions. A strong long potter who believes the black is on from the D may want the first stroke for the simple reason that it is a pot nobody else gets to attempt. And in a four-handed game, the rules add a refinement: if a re-spot is needed, the side that plays the first stroke chooses which of its two players will take it, after which the order of play continues as in the frame. A pairs side with one good long potter can use that clause to put the right player at the table.

Decision point	Who makes it	What the rules say
Whether a re-spot is needed	Referee	Only the black remains and the scores are equal, with no aggregate in play
The draw of lots	Referee conducts, players call	Winner gets the choice of who plays next
Who strikes first	Winner of the lots	Either player may be nominated
Which partner strikes first in pairs	The side playing first	Side's choice; normal order afterwards
Where the cue ball goes	The player striking first	Anywhere on or within the lines of the D

The opening shot from the D against a spotted black

The cue ball is in hand. Under Section 3, Rule 5 of the WPBSA rules, playing from in hand means the cue ball has to be struck from a position on or within the lines of the D, though it may then be played in any direction. The full detail of that rule, including what counts as placing the ball improperly, is in our guide to the snooker ball in hand rule. Getting it wrong on a re-spot is fatal: playing improperly from in hand is a foul, and on a re-spotted black a foul is the end.

Most professionals play the same stroke. The cue ball is placed towards one side of the D, and the black is clipped thinly so that it moves only a short distance towards the top cushion while the cue ball travels up the table, off the top cushion and back down into baulk. The aim is two things: a black lying tight to the top cushion and a cue ball as close as possible to the baulk cushion. From there, the incoming player faces a full-length shot at a ball with almost no pocket available.

A poor version of that shot is easy to spot. Too thick a contact pushes the black away from the cushion into the open, and the next player has a choice of pots. Too thin, or played with too much pace, and the cue ball stops short of baulk or comes back off the side cushion into the middle of the table. A cue ball halfway down the table with the black near a top pocket is the position professionals dread on a re-spot.

Alternatives to the thin safety

Some players use a fuller contact to send the black up and down the table, hoping it ends near the baulk cushion. It is a riskier stroke because a black travelling the length of the table passes two middle pockets and can stop anywhere. Others play to leave the black against a side cushion, where a double becomes the opponent's main threat. And a few, with the pot on, simply take it on: a long black into a top corner from the D is a stroke every professional has practised.

There is no penalty for being cautious. As long as the black is hit, nothing is lost by the first stroke failing to do much, apart from the initiative.

Doubles, the cocked-hat double and covering the pockets

Once the opening exchange begins, the re-spotted black stops being a single shot and becomes a small game of its own. One object ball, one cue ball, six pockets. Every safety has to answer one question: what pot will the opponent have from where both balls finish?

The answer often involves a double. With the black lying near a side cushion and the cue ball well away from it, a straight pot may be impossible, but a double into a middle pocket can be on. The most famous of these is the cocked-hat double, a three-cushion shot that sends the black around the end of the table and back towards a middle pocket in the shape that gives it its name. It is played at pace, with little control of the cue ball afterwards, so a player attempting it on a re-spot is accepting that a miss will probably leave a chance.

Covering the pockets is the opposite discipline. A player playing safe with the black near a corner pocket will try to leave the cue ball on the line between the black and that pocket, so that the black cannot be potted without first passing the cue ball. Professionals talk about "covering the corner" or "covering the middle". On a table with only two balls, a well-placed cue ball can make three or four pockets unreachable at once.

When to go for it

Every re-spot reaches a moment where one player decides the pot is on. The judgement is made on two things: how likely the pot is, and what is left if it misses. A seven-in-ten chance that leaves the black over a pocket on a miss is usually the worse option, because a four-in-ten chance that leaves the black safe costs nothing when it fails. That is why re-spots sometimes run to a dozen or more strokes: both players are refusing to take the shot that loses the frame on a miss.

The exchange has no shot limit, except in formats with a shot clock, and no fixed number of attempts. It ends when somebody pots the black or somebody commits an infringement. Between those two events, play is exactly as it would be at any point in a normal frame, with the same ball on, the same scoring and the same fouls.

How a re-spotted black ends: the pot, the foul and the in-off

Two outcomes, and only two. The first pot ends the frame, and so does the first infringement.

A pot gives the striker seven and the frame. A foul gives the opponent seven and the frame. Because the black is the ball on, the penalty for any foul on a re-spotted black is seven points: the rules value most fouls at the value of the ball on or the ball concerned, with a minimum of four, and with only the black on the table both of those values are seven. The seven-point margin on the frame score is the signature of a re-spot.

The case that catches people out is the in-off after potting the black. A player pots it, the cue ball follows it in, or runs off the jaws into another pocket. The black is not scored, because the cue ball being pocketed on the same stroke is a foul. The opponent receives seven, and the frame is over. Snooker does not reward the pot and then penalise the foul; the foul replaces the pot. It is the cruellest way to lose a re-spot, and it happens at every level.

Other routine fouls end it just as quickly: failing to hit the black at all, a push stroke, a jump shot, touching a ball with a sleeve or the cue, forcing the black off the table, playing improperly from in hand. A player who reaches for the rest and drags it across the black has lost the frame the moment the ball moves.

Event on the re-spotted black	Points	Frame
Black potted cleanly	Striker scores 7	Striker wins
Black potted, cue ball also pocketed	Opponent receives 7	Opponent wins
Black missed entirely	Opponent receives 7	Opponent wins
Push stroke, jump shot or touching a ball	Opponent receives 7	Opponent wins
Black hit, nothing potted, no foul	None	Play continues

What does not end it

Hitting the black and leaving both balls on the table, which is the whole point of a safety exchange. A ball resting over a pocket that does not fall. A shot that touches a cushion. None of these changes the score, and the next player simply takes the next stroke.

Whether the miss rule and the free ball apply on a re-spot

Neither does anything useful once a re-spotted black has started, and the reason is the same for both. The frame ends on the first infringement.

The miss rule exists to let a player who has been fouled ask the offender to play again from the original position, sometimes with the replacement of the balls. That remedy assumes there is a next stroke to be played. On a re-spotted black there is not. A failure to hit the black is a foul, the opponent receives seven, and the frame finishes at that moment. The referee may well call it as a foul and a miss, but the call has nothing left to act on. The detail of how the call normally works, including the warning after repeated misses, is set out in our guide to the snooker miss rule.

The free ball fails for a similar reason. A free ball is an option available to a player left snookered after an opponent's foul, and on a re-spotted black no player is ever left to play after a foul. There is also no ball other than the black for the cue ball to be snookered behind. With two balls on the table, the cue ball cannot be snookered at all, because nothing can obstruct the path to the only object ball. The rules state, in their definition of "snookered", that the cue ball cannot be snookered by a cushion, so a black tight under a cushion does not count either.

Play again does not exist on a re-spot

The non-offender's normal options after a foul, which include asking the offender to play again from where the balls have come to rest, all depend on the frame continuing. Once the first infringement has been committed on a re-spotted black, the rules have already ended the frame. A player who has just won a re-spot through an opponent's foul does not get to choose anything further. They have won.

The same is true of the earlier foul, the one that may have created the re-spot. If the leader fouls the last black to level the scores, the non-offender would normally have options: play from where the balls lie, or ask the offender to play again. With the black gone, the frame is level and the black is re-spotted instead. The rules treat that foul as ending the normal frame, and the re-spot procedure replaces the usual menu of choices.

Aggregate matches: a re-spot only when the totals are level

Most snooker is played on frames. Win more frames than the opponent and win the match, regardless of how many points either player scored along the way. In those matches, a tied frame needs a re-spot to produce a winner of that frame.

Some formats count points rather than frames. A league match scored on total points across a set number of frames, a team event in which each player's points go into a team total, or a handicap competition settled on aggregate all use the points themselves as the result. In those formats a tied individual frame does not matter. One player has 60, the other has 60, and both totals go into the aggregate. Rule 4 recognises this: the second of its two conditions is that aggregate scores are not relevant, so where they are, no re-spot takes place.

The exception within the exception is in Rule 4(c). When aggregate scores decide a game or a match, and the aggregate totals are equal at the end of the last frame, the players in that last frame follow the re-spotted black procedure. So in an aggregate match, a re-spot can happen once: at the very end, if the overall totals finish level, and never in the middle of the match.

What this means at club and league level

League organisers in England write their own rules on top of the WPBSA ones, and aggregate formats are common in county and district leagues. A typical arrangement scores each frame individually for frames won and then uses total points as a tie-break between teams. In that case a tied frame inside the match still needs a re-spot to decide who won the frame, because frames are the main currency. Whether the rule applies depends on whether points are the result or only a tie-breaker, and a league handbook should say which.

There is also a concession wrinkle. When aggregate scores decide the match and a frame is conceded, the WPBSA rules award the opponent the value of every ball left on the table, with reds counting as eight each. A player trailing in an aggregate match cannot concede a frame to save time without handing those points over, which is one reason concessions are rarer in aggregate formats.

The 1998 Masters final: Williams and Hendry on a re-spotted black

Twenty-three years after Spencer and Reardon, the Masters produced a second final settled on a re-spot, and it is still the one most people mean when the subject comes up.

The 1998 final at the Wembley Conference Centre in London was played over nineteen frames on 8 February. Stephen Hendry, already a six-time world champion by then, led Mark Williams 9-6 and needed one frame. Williams won the next three to level at 9-9. In the decider, Williams was 56-34 behind, with the brown, blue, pink and black still on the table. Those four colours are worth 22 points, and 34 plus 22 is 56. When Hendry missed the brown, Williams cleared every ball that was left, and the frame was tied.

• 56Hendry's score before Williams cleared
• 34Williams's score before the clearance
• 22Points left on brown to black
• 63Williams's final score after the re-spot

Figures from the published frame scores. Williams trailed by exactly the value of the colours left, which is the classic route to a re-spot.

On the re-spot, the two players took seven shots on the black between them. Hendry then missed a straight black across the nap into a middle pocket, and Williams potted it into the top right to win 10-9. It was his first Masters title and his first win in any of the three Triple Crown events. No Masters final in the twenty-eight stagings from 1999 to 2026 has needed a re-spot, which is part of why the history of the Masters snooker tournament keeps returning to this one.

Following the frame tally

The final was a classic of momentum. Hendry won the opening frame, led through most of the afternoon and opened up a gap in the evening session. The chart below follows the frame score across the nineteen frames.

• Williams
• Hendry

Frames won by each player after every frame, from the published frame-by-frame scores. The nineteenth frame was settled on a re-spotted black.

Show the numbers

Running frame score, 1998 Masters final

Item	Williams	Hendry
1	0	1
2	1	1
3	1	2
4	1	3
5	2	3
6	2	4
7	2	5
8	3	5
9	4	5
10	5	5
11	5	6
12	6	6
13	6	7
14	6	8
15	6	9
16	7	9
17	8	9
18	9	9
19	10	9

The miss that decided it was not a difficult ball by professional standards. Straight, across the nap, into a middle pocket. That is part of why the frame is remembered: the pressure of a single-ball contest makes routine pots look enormous.

Final-black finish versus re-spotted black

Commentators blur these two, and so do supporters. They are different things.

A final-black finish is a frame that comes down to the last ball with the scores close enough that whoever pots it, or whoever does not foul, wins. Most famously, the 1985 World Championship final ended that way: Dennis Taylor potted the last black against Steve Davis to win 18-17 at the Crucible in Sheffield, after midnight, with a UK television audience of about eighteen and a half million still watching. But that black was not re-spotted. Davis led 62-59 in that frame with the black alone on the table, so whoever potted it took the title; the scores were never level, and Rule 4 never came into play. The story of that frame is in our account of the 1985 World Snooker final.

A re-spotted black is what happens after a final-black finish fails to produce a winner. The frame has, in effect, already ended once, level. The black then comes back.

The rule that separates them

The deciding sentence in the rules is the first part of Rule 4: when only the black remains, "the first pot or foul ends the frame". It ends the frame on any pot or foul. The scores are compared after that stroke. If they differ, the higher score wins, whatever they were before. If they are equal, the re-spot begins.

A practical consequence: on a final-black finish with the scores level before the black, there is no re-spot at all. The first player to pot the black wins, the first player to foul loses. The two players are already in a sudden-death contest, without the black ever being lifted off the table. A frame that arrives at the black with the scores tied is often described as "a re-spot" by mistake, but the procedure only begins when the black has been potted or fouled to leave the totals equal.

The Spencer-Reardon final in 1975 is a useful reference here. Spencer led 58-51 with only the black left, declined it to a middle pocket, and Reardon potted it to make the frame 58-58. Only at that point was the black re-spotted, with Reardon taking the first stroke and Spencer potting it from long range. A tied total before the black would have meant something different: a straight shootout on the ball as it lay, with no draw of lots and no cue ball in hand.

How the Shoot Out and club leagues settle a tie instead

The Snooker Shoot Out, the single-frame event played to a ten-minute clock, does not use a re-spotted black at all. Its matches end when the clock runs out rather than when the balls do, so the scores can finish level with the black still sitting on the table, and a procedure of its own settles it.

That procedure is a sudden-death blue ball shootout. The blue is placed on its spot, the cue ball is struck from on or within the lines of the D, and the players take alternate attempts. The player who won the lag at the start of the match chooses who goes first. The shootout continues until one player has potted the blue more times than the other from the same number of attempts. The blue has to be potted directly; contact with any cushion other than the curved jaws of the pocket being attempted makes the stroke non-scoring. The format, the shot clock and the rest of the event's rules are covered in our guide to the Snooker Shoot Out rules.

The blue-ball method suits the Shoot Out because a re-spot has no time limit written into it. Two players content to trade safeties can keep one black on the table for as long as they are willing to, and a format sold on its speed cannot carry that.

Club and league practice

Most English leagues simply follow the WPBSA rule, and a tied frame goes to a re-spot. Where they depart from it, the usual reasons are time and points:

• A league with a strict finishing time can impose a limit on the re-spot itself, or bring in a shot clock once the black is back on its spot.
• Leagues that score on aggregate points do not re-spot tied frames, because a tie in a frame changes nothing.
• Pub and social leagues may simplify the procedure, letting the player who did not pot the last ball choose, or skipping the toss altogether.

The last of those is a local convention, not a rule. Under the WPBSA wording the choice always goes by lot. A team captain unsure which version applies should look at the league handbook before a match, not after a tied frame, because a re-spot argued over at the table helps nobody. Our England sports guides hub gathers the snooker rules pages together for anyone setting up a league or settling a dispute.

Stalemate and the four-handed re-spot

Two clauses in the WPBSA rulebook deal with what happens when the re-spot itself goes wrong. Both are worth knowing, because both are mistakes a club referee can make.

The stalemate rule, Section 3 Rule 17, allows a referee to offer a re-rack if a position of stalemate exists or is being approached. In a normal frame the referee nullifies the scores and resets the balls as for the start of the frame. On a re-spotted black, the rule says only the black will be spotted, with the same player making the opening stroke. Two players locked in a safety battle with the black on a cushion and neither willing to play at it can be given a fresh start on the black, but the scores remain level and the order of play does not change. It is the one way a re-spot can be "restarted", and it is the only reason two different first strokes might be played in the same re-spot.

A stalemate restart is rare at professional level, because professionals rarely refuse to play at a ball for long. In club snooker, where safety play is less precise, two cautious players can end up rolling the cue ball up to the black and back for several minutes. The referee's options are the same as in any frame: offer the restart, and if a player objects, allow play to continue for a stated period, usually three strokes each, before enforcing it.

Pairs and doubles snooker

In four-handed snooker, two players on each side play in a fixed order established at the start of the frame. The rules add one change for the re-spot: the side making the first stroke chooses which of its two players will make it, and the order of play then continues as it did in the frame. The draw of lots still decides which side has the choice of playing first.

This is the one place in the rulebook where the re-spot interacts with team play. A doubles pair with one strong safety player and one strong potter can use the choice tactically, putting the safety player at the table for a first stroke from the D, then relying on the order of play to bring the potter in when the black finally comes on.

Ties in pairs snooker are not more common than in singles, but they are more argued about, because four people have opinions on the toss.