I remember somebody broke the head ball cleanly in two pieces breaking at an old pool hall a few years back, and as a joke later on in the day, carefully reracked the balls putting the broken ball back together at the front of the rack. The next person not having a clue broke the balls and watched in amazement as the head ball broke in two pieces again. He really thought he had a killer break until he found out the head ball was already broken and it was all a joke. Pretty funny stuff. I have seen old pool balls break and crack, but to see that guys reaction, priceless...

So this actually happened? I have had people ask me about this from time to time but it was always in theory. I've refereed thousands of matches and in total probably tens of thousands of games and never had this happen.

First off I can tell you that no rule exists what to do if a ball breaks in half. I suppose you could argue that since you are intentionally breaking as hard as you can that by exploding the ball apart you have intentionally modified the equipment (but then we'd just laugh at you and re-tell your story for many years to come).

I think the right thing to do here is re-rack. It seems like a situaion that is not correctable. I put it in the same range as a light fixture falling or bulb being broken out. There's no way to know what the true results should have been.

This does remind me of a funny line I once heard. A player moved a ball with his elbow on a shot. I went to resolve the issue. The player says isn't this covered under the "act of god rule". The other player said "man this guy really thinks a lot of himself." We all had a good laugh about that one.