The responsibilities of the referee include announcing the points scored during a break, determining when a foul has been committed and awarding penalty points and free balls accordingly, replacing colours onto their designated spots after being potted, restoring the balls to their previous positions after the "miss" rule has been invoked (see Scoring below), and cleaning the cue ball or any object ball upon request by the striker. The black ball is returned to its designated spot and the cue ball is played in-hand, meaning that it may be placed anywhere on or within the lines of the "D" to start the tiebreak. The player to take the first strike in the tiebreak is chosen at random, and the game continues until one of the players either wins the frame by potting the black ball or loses the frame by committing a foul. Each player has a snooker cue (or simply a "cue"), not less than 3 ft (91.4 cm) in length, which is used to strike the cue ball.

If, after a foul, it is not possible to cleanly strike both sides of the object ball directly, the referee may call a free ball, allowing the next player to nominate any other ball in place of the object ball they might normally have played. If the referee has also called a "miss"-meaning that the offending player is deemed not to have made their best possible attempt to hit the object ball-the next player has the option of having the balls replaced to their original positions and forcing their opponent to replay the intended shot. Failure to make contact with a red ball constitutes a foul, which results in penalty points being awarded to the opponent. All points scored in the break before the foul occurred are awarded to the striker, but no points are scored for any ball pocketed during the foul shot. At the start of each player's turn, the objective is to first pot a red ball, unless all reds are off the table or the player has been awarded a free ball, which allows them to nominate another object ball in place of a red. If successful, the value of the potted colour is added to the player's score, and the colour is returned to its designated spot on the table.

When a foul is committed, the offending player's turn ends and the referee announces the penalty. If dissatisfied with the position left after a foul, the next player may nominate the opponent who committed the foul to continue playing from where the balls have come to rest. At the end of each shot, the cue ball remains in the position where it has come to rest, unless it has entered a pocket (from where it is returned to the "D"), ready for the next shot. The tip of the cue must only make contact with the cue ball and is never used for striking any of the reds or colours directly. Snookers are shots designed to make it difficult for the opponent to play a legal shot on their next turn, such as leaving another ball between the cue ball and the object ball. 39 Another duty of the referee is to recognise and declare a stalemate when neither player is able to make any progress in the frame. If both players agree, the balls are returned to their starting positions (known as a "re-rack") and the frame is restarted, with the same player taking the break-off shot as in the abandoned frame.

The cue ball is placed inside the "D" ready for the break-off shot. At the start of a frame, the object balls are positioned on the table as shown in illustration A. Starting with the cue ball in the "D", the first player executes a break-off shot by striking the cue ball with the tip of their cue, aiming to hit any of the red balls in the triangular pack. The latter is a common foul committed when a player fails to escape from a "snooker", where the previous player has left the cue ball positioned such that no legal ball can be struck directly in a straight line without being wholly or partially obstructed by an illegal ball. At the start of the game, the red balls are racked into a tightly packed equilateral triangle, and the six colours are positioned at designated spots on the table. According to Mr. Clay, the alteration took place under the following circumstances: "Some sixty or seventy years back (1804-1814), Lord Peterborough having one night lost a large sum of money, the friends with whom he was playing proposed to give the loser a chance, at a quicker game, of recovering his loss.

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