Like association croquet, the object of the game is to be the first to pass each of their balls through all six hoops in both directions and to strike the central peg, for a total of 26 points. Hoops are contested in a fixed order, with a point awarded to the owner of the first ball to pass through the hoop in the correct direction. Every time you pot a ball into your pocket, you earn a point. That’s it. Of course, to get there can take a long time. Getting chalk dust on the felt is unavoidable, but you can avoid using chalk that’s in contrast with your felt to keep it from getting dirty too fast. In American six-wicket, this is termed "deadness", and a separate board is required to keep track of the deadness for all four balls. American six-wicket uses the same six-wicket layout as both association croquet and golf croquet, and is also played by two individuals or teams, each owning two balls. It is governed by the United States Croquet Association. A further difference is the more restrictive boundary-line rules of American croquet.

Official rules were first published in 1894 by the Spalding Athletic Library, what is billiards as adopted by the National American Croquet Association. The most prestigious international team competition in association croquet is the MacRobertson International Croquet Shield. Teams are promoted and relegated between the lower tiers, but there is no relegation to or promotion from the MacRobertson Shield. At the Golf Croquet World Team Championships, eight nations contest the Openshaw Shield. In England and Wales, there are around 170 clubs affiliated with the Croquet Association. The world's top 10 association croquet players as of October 2023 were Robert Fletcher (Australia), Robert Fulford (England), Paddy Chapman (New Zealand), Jamie Burch (England), Reg Bamford (South Africa), Matthew Essick (USA), Mark Avery (England), Simon Hockey (Australia), Harry Fisher (England), and Jose Riva (Spain). Australia in second place, and New Zealand in third place, with the United States in fourth position. It is contested every three to four years between Australia, England (formerly Great Britain), the United States, and New Zealand. It quickly spread to other Anglophone countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States. The sport has particularly strong followings in the UK, US, New Zealand, Australia, and Egypt; many other countries also play.

Basic Play Each turn is called a ‘break’ and consists of a series of strikes of the cue ball that come to an end when a player makes a non-scoring strike or a foul stroke. The limitation of roqueting each ball once between hoop points is, unlike in association croquet, carried over from turn to turn until the ball scores the next hoop. Its genesis is mostly in association croquet, but it differs in a number of important ways that reflect the home-grown traditions of American "backyard" croquet. Roque, an American variation on croquet, was an event at the 1904 Summer Olympics. British Pool is a little different from the standard American version of the game. The American-rules version of croquet is the dominant version of the game in the United States and is also widely played in Canada. In this version of croquet, there are nine wickets, two stakes, and up to six balls. In a lock with six pin stacks with a uniform chance of a pin setting at either shear line, the probability of a picked lock actually opening is only 1/64. Picking techniques for these locks involve the use of special torque tools designed to put torque on only one of the two concentric plugs.

Egypt in top position, and with Spain at number six. Getting to play the billiards table quite often one thing is for sure and that is that a person becomes self-confident and that is because of the fact that he can take a shot from any position, he does not have to move around the table but take a position that would suit him and hit the perfect shot. Balls must be played in order (for the primary ball colours, this is blue, red, black, and yellow), and this order of play is maintained throughout the game. Unlike association croquet, balls are always played in the same sequence (blue, red, black, yellow). The current Women's Association Croquet World Champion (2023) is Debbie Lines of England. While the name pall-mall and various games bearing this name also appeared elsewhere (France and Italy), the description above suggests that the croquet-like games in particular were popular in England by the early 17th century. The first explanation is that the ancestral game was introduced to Britain from France during the 1660-1685 reign of Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland and was played under the name of paille-maille (among other spellings, today usually pall-mall), derived ultimately from Latin words for 'ball and mallet' (the latter also found in the name of the earlier French game, jeu de mail).