It looks like you do learn something new every day. Today I found out that Blackball is the UK name for 8ball. As far as I can tell it's excatly the same game and there are many sites which have the rules for blackball as just the same as the rules for

There are dozens of blackball sites online with blackball.co.uk appearing to be one of the more popular sites. They have local sites for each area in the UK and also have their own WPA (World Pool Association) site. I am trying to source the history to the name blackball at the moment but it is proving reasonably hard to find. Once I have found the official rules of blackball as well as the history of where the name of the game came from I'll be able to peice together how it fits in with the rules of 8 ball.