There are two ways in which you could play American Pool, the English style way or the 9-ball style:

English Style: The aim of the game is to pot either the Solid set of balls or the Striped set of balls.

To begin with, the first player would break the balls, and if a ball falls into a pocket while break, the breaker would have take another shot corresponding to the colour of the ball that was pocketed. The opponent will go for the opposite set of balls that you pot.

Players have to clear all there coloured balls, and finally finishing on the Black ball. The first player to pocket all their colour balls and the black at the end wins the game.

9-Ball style: This only consists of 10 balls on the table, the white ball and the balls that are numbered 1-9.

The breaker would have to break like normal, the aim of the game is to pocket balls that go in ascending number order, so start at 1 after 1 has been potted players would go for ball 2, then 3 and so on, the player that pockets the numbered 9 ball wins the game. If a player hits the next number of the ascending ordered ball and it hits the 9 ball and goes in, then that player would win, because the 9 ball was pocketed, if a player hits the 9 ball directly in with other numbered balls on the table, then that player would lose the match.