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What is the live scoreboard?

The live scoreboard tracks a One Pocket match rack by rack, in real time, between two connected players. You can both keep score as you play, each from your own phone, and you both see the same board update.

You can start one from an accepted challenge in the Challenges tab, from a connection's own profile, or from their pin on the map — the same button in all three places. Either way you need to already be connected, the same rule as everywhere else in 8nOut.

Setting one up takes a few quick taps: how many racks you're racing to, how the break works, and where you're playing if you want to note it. The last step is who breaks first — tap You, tap their name, or ask 8nOut to flip for you. There's no separate Start button: picking who breaks first is what starts the match, straight away.

While you're playing, Point adds a ball to whoever's turn it currently shows, and Opp. pt adds one to the other player. Foul takes one away from whoever's turn it is, and it can carry on below zero if they're already on none. It also passes the turn to the other player, so there's no need to tap Switch after a foul. If the turn is ever showing the wrong player, Switch corrects it — Point and Opp. pt immediately follow whichever name is highlighted after that. Undo takes back the last entry on the board, one at a time, up to the last 10: points, opponent points, fouls and switches, whichever of you tapped them, even back into a rack you've just closed. It stops at a race or Spot change you've both accepted, it can't take back Respotted, and a finished match can't be undone.

It's one shared board, not your half and their half. Either of you can tap for either player, at any point in the match, and either of you can undo the last entry, whoever made it. When the other player undoes something, your phone shows a short note for a few seconds saying they undid the last entry, so a score that goes down never surprises you. If you both tap at almost the same moment, 8nOut adds the first tap and not the second, so the same ball is never counted twice. The phone whose tap didn't go in says "The board just changed, so your tap wasn't added". Nobody did anything wrong: look at the board and tap again if it's still needed. These notes only ever appear on your two phones, never to anyone watching.

A match started from an older version of 8nOut works the old way. Only the player who started it can score, and the other player sees a line saying so, with Propose a change still there for them. Everything else on the board is the same. If you ever see "Update 8nOut to keep score in this match", update the app, or reload the page on the web, and you can score again.

Between the two players, one number keeps the state of the table visible at a glance — your racks won, how many balls are still on the table, and their racks won, read as "N (balls) M". Each of you also gets your own bigger, bolder Racks chip in your own column, so the score reads clearly from across the room.

You each see your own column on the left of your own phone, under your own name with a small person icon next to it. Your opponent's name is on the right, so on their phone the two sides are swapped. The player at the table gets a filled-in name plate, green or yellow in dark mode, and a frame around their column; the other name plate is just an outline. That lit name is the one Point scores for. On a phone held upright, the two names sit in a row across the top of the board. Turn it sideways and each name moves into its own column. With larger text sizes, the names stay in the row across the top, even sideways. Anyone watching sees the same lit name plate, but no person icon, because neither column is theirs.

Timeout pauses the match without ending it — for a real break in play, not something you need to remember to use. Tap it and the board shows paused for both of you; tap Resume when you're ready to carry on.

Nothing lives only on your phone. Every point is saved the moment it's tapped in, so backgrounding the app, or being interrupted mid-game, loses nothing — open 8nOut again and the board is exactly where you left it. If you close the scoreboard screen itself rather than just switching apps, the match keeps running: go back to the same challenge, connection or map pin and you'll see Rejoin the live scoreboard instead of Start.

Reach the race-to target — the number of racks needed to win — and the match ends itself, no tap required, whichever of your phones scored the winning rack. A pop-up shows the final score. If you both kept score, either of you can choose End or Start new match, copying over the same race-to, break rule, and venue so there's nothing to set up twice — only who breaks first is always asked fresh. If you both tap it, you still get one new match: the first tap counts. On an older match where only the player who started it kept score, that player gets Start new match and the other player gets End. You can still end a match early with Finish match if you need to stop before it's decided. Either of you can tap it, and it takes effect straight away. See Why did my live match end without me tapping Finish match? for the full detail, including how to correct a result before you start again.

Either way, the finished match sits in both your records, with the rack-by-rack detail behind it and a Recorded by line: whichever of you tapped Finish match, or scored the winning rack. That player can fix the result with Edit result; the other gets a button to message them if something looks wrong. If an invited scorer finished the match, no name is shown, and the player who started the match can correct it. By default that's still just the two of you: watching is off until a player switches it on themselves, and each of you controls whether you're identified to a watcher completely independently of the other's own setting — a connection to one of you never discloses the other. A watcher only ever sees a bare count of how many people are watching; that count is shown to a watcher, never to either of you. Turn your own toggle off and anyone currently watching you loses access straight away — and either way, watching always ends the instant your match stops being in progress. See How does live-match watching work? for the full detail.

There's also a way to let anyone watch, not just a connection — a public link and QR code for that match, switched on separately by both of you first. See How do I share my match with a link? for exactly how that works, including how long it lasts and how to stop it. A scorer invite is the other option on that page: someone without an account keeps score for you, and while it's active both your phones are view-only.

A scoreboard that's started but never played, or drifts stale, doesn't hang around forever — see the Privacy Policy for exactly how long.