It is played on a rectangular billiard table with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side.

The game is currently governed by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), with multiple regional tours.

Notable 9-Ball players in the game include Luther Lassiter, Buddy Hall, Efren Reyes, Earl Strickland and Shane Van Boening.

The sport has featured in popular culture, notably in the 1961 film The Hustler and its 1986 sequel The Color of Money.

While usually a singles sport, the game can be played in doubles, with players completing alternate shots.

When the table passes to another player, they must play from where the balls were last positioned, except if the prior inning ended in a foul.

This can happen earlier than the nine-ball being the sole remaining object ball on the table if it is pocketed via a combination or other indirect method.

[8] Additional rules in some tournaments exist, such as a number of balls having to reach the head string, and players can be chosen to break alternately or whoever won the preceding rack.

[9] Earl Strickland holds the record for break and runs, after he successfully ran 11 consecutive racks in a tournament in 1996.

[5][11] After the break, if no fouls were committed, the shooter has the option to continue the rack as usual, or to play a push out.

[13] The general rules of the game are fairly consistent and usually do not stray too far from the earliest format set by the Billiard Congress of America (BCA).

The WPA World Nine-ball Championship has events for men, women and junior players.

[25] While not a common game, it was featured on television broadcaster ESPN's Sudden Death Seven-ball which aired in the early 2000s.

Due to its more challenging nature, and the fact that there is no publicly known technique for reliably pocketing specific object balls on the break shot, there have been suggestions among the professional circuit that ten-ball should replace nine-ball as the pro game of choice,[13] especially since the rise of the nine-ball soft break, which is still legal in most international and non-European competition.

[29] In Endless Ocean: Blue World, Nineball Island, which serves as the player's home base, is won through a game of nine-ball.