I broke the rules of boules!

 That title only works if you say it out loud and pronounce boules correctly (and I'm not even sure about that).

I am a poet but I am not aware of this.

The Rules of Boules

Here's a brief explanation of the rules for anyone who hasn't heard of boules (probably most of my target demographic). Warning: badly drawn diagrams approaching.

Ingredients

I've forgotten the actual word. You will need:

• A number of players (you and friend(s)). We will call the number of people playing n.
• n x 2 balls. Each player needs two balls which should ideally be marked in some way (colour, stripes etc.).
• One smaller ball. This is the jack.
• A large (preferably flat-ish) playing area. This is sometimes called the green, mostly because it usually is.

The diagrams will use two players, with the jack being black, player 1's balls being red and player 2's balls being blue.

Object

Get your balls (or boules) closer to the jack than the other player.

Gameplay

Firstly, one player throws the jack onto the green:

Then Player 1 (Red) throws their ball onto the green to try to get as close to the jack as possible:

Then Player 2 (Blue) throws their ball to try to get even closer to the jack:

Here's where the game gets interesting. Now Red has three options:

1. Try to get their second ball even closer to the jack:

2. Knock the jack further away from the Blue:

3. Knock the Blue away from the jack:

Of course, in my experience, what usually happens is this:

4. 

And now Blue plays again. Blue is currently winning and now cannot lose*, so doesn't necessarily have to try. However, they should, because they now have the chance to win even more! In the current configuration, they can get 1 point, but if they get another ball closer than the closest Red ball, they can get 2 points instead.

*Blue can lose if they knock their ball further away from the jack, or by knocking the jack further away from the ball; however, this is unlikely.