I'm a big foosball player. I play for a few hours at a time at least once or twice a week, and sometimes a lot more. The rules I play with vary depending on the bar I'm at. However, since I spend most of my time at one bar, there is one set of rules I typically play with.

Now, I'm in the process of organizing a tournament at the bar. I'm trying to figure out what rules to go with. The official foosball rules, or a variation based one what I play with.

Here are the basic rules I play with.

No spinning the rods.
No slamming, jarrying, or jerking the table.
No goals with the 5-bar.
Losers ball.
Passage style (though no-passage is alright sometimes).
If the ball falls into the net legaly, no matter who touched it, the goal counts.

That's about it. Really basic rules, but also the most important when playing.

So what do you think of those rules? What rules do you use?

~D

pretty much how i was taught to play. damn, now i wanna play. hehe

sounds good, whats the 5-bar though?

the bar with five people on it...?

The 5-bar rule applies to the bar with 5 guys, yeah. Also known as the center rods or the mids. No scoring with those because that sucks. Less skill involved.

I always hated playing with guys that insist on spinning every damn rod every damn time just to slam the ball as hard as they can with no attempt at skill shot. Like when I play air hockey with my 13 nephew and all he does is hit the puck as hard as he can randomly around the table.

What are your sacks like in that game?

/edit whups. Ignore me. I thought it said "Football rules" as the topic. I was wondering what on earth you all were talking about.

I thought poking the other guy with the rods was part of the game.

that was my first guess, but doesnt really make sense why you cant score with that bar.. one of the rules says as long as the ball legally goes into the goal, it counts, then seems like that should count

Spinning rules. I hate the no-spin rule.

foosbal? we call it babyfoot

but ya, we play no spinning, no scoring by the 5man. If the ball is stuck in the middle (where either players cant reach it) we push it to one side. if it flies off the table, we drop it in the corner closest to where it flew out from

um, they are all ok except the scoring with the 5 bar. if you can't stop a guy from the 5-bar, you shouldn't be playing anyways, cuz you suck.
and we don't do losers ball, there's a little hole in the side so the ball rolls down the middle, it's a 50-50 chance of who gets it.

The thing with the official rules is that it does not specify whether or not socring the 5-bar is legal. It just says 'a legal goal' which concievably means anything. *shrug*

As for no scoring with the 5s... - it's just like spinning or wacking erracticaly at the ball. There is no skill involved in scoring with the 5, and the majority of people I play with with consider it a cheap goal. But that's only in passage. In no-passage, the 5s become harder to score with, because you have to handle the ball differently. Scoring with the 5s in no-passage is fine.


As for stopping the 5 - haha. Yes, the 5 is easily stopped. But when it gets by its just really really cheap. The good players use only their 3s, and they have skill. The shots I see with the 5 are WHACK and in (or not). With the 3s, the ball is manuvered. There is strategy. Do I drag or do a 1-2? Do I do a 1-3 or should I snake? Should I Archie or just cut it in. You don't get that variety or challenge with the 5s.

~D

f goals from the 5 yo haha

Hehe, i'm an engineering student and we love our foosball. Got a table in the student lounge and we're all pretty 1337 at it.

Well basically the rules we place with are the same except we allow 5 bar goals, because those take skill if you can stick handle it right, and foos is when only 1 bar touches it before it goes in the net. Foos doesn't count as a goal. A 5 bar takes a lot of skill to snipe, and stickhandle, and push and pull to get it in. Usually if you just whack hard he'll probably stop it, unless you can aim like you do when you get good and snipe the corner.

What's this passage style? You mean like stalling, stickhandling, controlled and skilled or more of a hacking style where you whack the ball fast and crazy but still controlled *not totally random*. Cuz i play both styles. Matters who i'm playing against and how the game is going.

the hole is for wusses, we through it on the middle line, let it bounce off the wall then the ball is in play

Obviously, if you are any good you have to have control. In terms of the two styles...

Passage, you could say, is the slower, more finess driven style. You can pass from player to player trying to create the best situation for you to manuver the ball into the net.

No-passage doesn't allow passing between the guys if you want to score. For goals to count, they must touch a wall and be handled by only one guy before going into the net. So, in that respect, the game moves in a much different way. You don't get the same opportunity to handle the ball. If you're good at it, you're tough to beat. But I've always found when I'm playing passage style versus a no-passage person, I seem to have the upper hand.

As for the foos... that's the point of the game! Foos are like the utlimate goals in that it's throwing in right back in their face. Except, again with the 5s, goals can only be scored by a foos from the 3s.

~D

lol


hey i like the hole

phear the hole

lol.. when i first read your post I thought you said football rules and I was looking at what you said like wtf? hahah