Last week I showed you how to run the object ball down the rail when both balls are frozen against it. This week I’m going to show you how to run the ball down the rail when your balls are much closer to the pocket AND you need to get your cue ball down to the other end of the table to get shape. There are two different ways to accomplish this. You can do it by aiming low or you can do it by aiming high.

Lets start with aiming low. To get shape on a ball at the opposite end of the table, you’ll want to aim low. But you’re not simply hitting the ball directly low, because that won’t get the ball to the other side of the table. What you want to do is aim low, but aim for the crack between the cue ball and the object ball. This aiming technique, when combined with some inside English, will help to not only sink your object ball it will also get good shape on the ball.

The other way to get good shape on the ball is to aim high. As before, it’s not enough to hit directly high or else you’ll scratch. Instead, use high right English and stay perfectly parallel. Do not cut in either direction. The right hand English is going to force it to deflect left which will make it compress into the rail. This will help you make the shot and get good shape on the ball. You can hit the cue ball as hard or soft as you want, the only difference that will make is how far the ball travels down the table after you make your ball.

Today I’m going to show you an easy way to shoot short kick-shots. Kick-Shots are usually somewhat close to the pocket and often difficult to see from the other end of the table. As with everything, there is an easy trick to repeatably getting these types of shots. I call it “The Two Finger Rule”.

The Two Finger Rule is essentially a way of creating a visual reference for your eye to follow so that you can shoot the cue ball in exactly the right place to make your ball. In the example below, I’ll show you how it’s impossible to see the 14 ball because the 7 ball is in the way.

Using the Two Finger Rule, you’ll want to take your thumb and index finger and place your index finger and place it exactly where you’re going to make contact on the ball. Take your thumb and move it until it just touches the rail. Now your thumb and index finger should be forming a nice little gap of about 1 – 2 inches.

Making sure not to move your fingers, take your hand and move it laterally to the rail until your index finger that was originally touching the ball is now touching the rail. Your thumb should now be touching somewhere in the middle of the rail.Press your thumb down where it is and straighten your index finger out. You should kind of look like you’re pointing an imaginary gun, only upside down. By doing this, you’ll create a reference point that you can aim at from the other end of the table.

Lift up your hand, but keep your eyes fixated on the point that your thumb was on. Do not remove your eyes from that shot! Once you get back to your cue ball, line up your shot on that spot on the rail you set and shoot straight through the rail at that point. You’ll make it nearly every time.

There are plenty of games where you’ll have a shot where you’re close to the pocket, straight in, the balls are off the rail and you need to get the cue ball to the other end of the table. Although it looks like a real unlikely situation, this is another shot that’s not as hard as it may seem. The trick lies in The Two Finger Rule.

If you have not yet seen my explanation of The Two Finger Rule, take a moment to check out my earlier explanation here on the Billiards Direct Blog. Now that you’ve got the idea for what the Two Finger Rule is, let’s go over how we can use it to make the shot I mentioned earlier.

Take your two fingers to the ball you want to make and create a reference point on the rail to aim at. Now, go back to your cue ball and aim straight through to that point. Ordinarily, this would be all you’d need to do to make your ball but in this situation we also need to get shape at the end of the table. We’ll need to introduce a new element to our shot: Draw.

Draw is an easy way to help get your cue ball to the other end of the table. However, by adding draw to your shot, the cue ball will lift off the rail sooner. To compensate for this you just want to aim just a little bit further up past where your Two Finger Rule mark was. Move that imaginary mark slightly closer to the object ball. The amount you aim will be a little bit different for everybody because everybody has a different draw. You can also experiemnt using less/more draw to see how far you can make it down the table.

If you want to use high, just move your Two Finger Rule spot a little closer (towards your cue ball). The same techniques apply as before. It’s all a matter of your shooting style and what you’re comfortable with.

Today we’ll be discussing cue tips and the many various brands available to today’s pool player. Although there are lot of different brands to choose from, we’re focusing on just six of them.

Starting at the lower end of the spectrum we have Elk Master. These are standard leather tips. The Elk Master is blue which is due to the fact that it is embedded with chalk. This is a benefit because you won’t have to chalk it as often as a regular tip.

Triangle. This is a standard piece of leather and performs quite well for general play.

Le Professional (Le Pro’s): This is another standard piece of leather that has been shaped and pressed into cue tip form. They’re dubbed “The French Style Cue Tip”, so can feel extra fancy using them.

All the aforementioned cues are very similar albeit with different textures. The Elk Master is the softest, with the Le Pro being of average softness and Triangle being the least soft.

Next we have the laminated tips, like Everest. When looking at this tip, you can clearly see the lamination and that it is composed of many different layers. There’s also a red line toward the bottom to let you know when it’s time to change your tip out.

Next up are Moori tips, which are a very high quality tip. These are laminated as well. The whole point of laminated tips are to prevent mushrooming over extended play. The uniform stays much better and, in the case of the Moori tips, their patented glue stays much better as well.

Finally, we have what I believe are the best tips of the group, which are Kamui Black tips. They come in a variety of hardness, this one in particular is a Soft. The Kamui tips are also coated in a special chemical to maintain their integrity, which makes them last longer and need less frequent changing. They also give more with your left and right english which gives you less deflection on your shots.

There are a lot of techniques that pool players need to know to become proficient at their sport. One of the most important things to learn is something called Running English, which is essentially English going towards the ball, hitting the rail slightly before coming into contact with the ball.

A great way to practice shots like this is to start an object ball relatively close to the pocket and work your way up, moving a little bit farther away with each successful shot. To begin, with the ball on your left side, you’ll want to use left English. Take your shot and hit the rail just before the ball. This way when the ball hits the rail, it will spin into the ball and transfer energy into it, which will send the object ball into the pocket. Keep practicing by working your way up the table, each time getting a little further away from the pocket.

Although Left English is useful for making a lot of shots it won’t work every time. To be a truly versatile player, you’ll want to learn how to shoot with Right English or Center Ball. Practice using Right English after you’ve mastered Left English and you’ll be unstoppable. The key is knowing how to spin the cue ball into the object ball. If you can do this, you’ll be able to pull off some shots that most players consider to be impossible.

At Billiards and Darts Direct, we sell a lot of pool tables. When a customer asks me what the difference is between felt grades, I usually show them a swatch chart that lets them feel the difference for themselves. However, this being the internet (and feel-o-vision not yet being invented) I am taking a different approach at explaining the difference between standard and professional grade felt.

First up, we have standard grade felt. This is characterized by having much more nap (fuzzyness) and may ball up when brushed. Because of that extra texture, balls will not roll as fast or as accurately when shot on standard grade felt. This is a major reason why professional pool players prefer to shoot on professional grade felt.

The professional grade felt is much smoother and doesn’t have the nap that a standard grade does. It also has a grain which makes the surface uniform across the playingfield. When balls roll across it, they travel much more smoothly and accurately. With professional grade felt, everything is much more precise.

The question remains in the new pool table buyer’s mind; “do I need professional grade felt?” The simple answer is, yes. The upgrade to professional felt is a minor cost difference (usually only about $100 more than standard felt) and it can have a major impact on the accuracy of your game. As usual, feel free to come on down to Billiards and Darts Direct and feel the difference for yourself.

Today we’re highlighting a product that can benefit many players who are just starting out: The 3rd Eye Stroke Trainer by Joe Tucker. Essentially, the product is a small plastic device that slides over the end of your cue stick and helps you to straighten out your stroke. Don’t be deceived by it’s simplicity, the 3rd Eye Stroke Trainer really does what it promises.

It does this by virtue of two small prongs that jut out on either side. The spacing between the two prongs is slightly larger than the cue ball. This means that unless you hit the ball perfectly straight on, the 3rd Eye Trainer will come into contact with the cue ball, alerting you that you’re not shooting straight.

After just a few minutes with the device, you’ll likely notice your strokes becoming straighter. After a few weeks with this device, you’ll probably even start to see an improvement on your stroke in regular play (without the device on your cue, of course). There aren’t many devices out there that can generate results so quickly, and it’s even easier to use now because they all come with an instructional DVD.

For such a simple and inexpensive device, this thing always delivers quality results. If you have a friend who’s just getting into pool and they need some help with their stroke (sighting errors, alignment issues, etc), this little baby is a great gift idea for them. If you’re thinking about getting one for yourself, come on down to Billiards and Darts Direct and I’ll be happy to set it up for you to try before you buy.

The common phrase “Practice makes perfect” is a bit misleading. It seems to imply that as long as you keep doing something, you’ll eventually become the best at it. This is flat out wrong. If you continually do something wrong, you won’t improve, you’ll just figure out the quickest and most efficient way to do it incorrectly.

To improve in any aspect of life, you must practice using the proper techniques. Learning the right way to do something and then emulating that is the only true way to attain perfection. So, really a better phrase would be “Perfect practice makes perfect“. That is what I hope to impart on you today with my Pool Technique video.

We’re going to learn about how to properly follow the cue ball. Learning this technique will help you to become much more accurate and that will make it easier to sink balls.

The first thing to do is make sure your stick is level. You don’t want to angle your stick too high and transfer your energy into the table. You also don’t want to go over the top of the cue and transfer your energy over the ball. You want to hit the cue straight on, so that you transfer all your energy directly into the cue.The best practice is to create a reliable pre-shot routine and remember to do it each time you line up a shot.

Begin by leveling out your cue as I mentioned before. Then you want to aim just above the cue ball and then bring it down a tip-length. This will ensure that you are going to be hitting the cue ball straight on and it will transfer nearly all of your energy into the ball. It seems like a simple and obvious thing, but I’ve seen professional players who sometimes forget this relatively easy to grasp technique. Learn this technique and make it part of your daily routine and I guarantee your accuracy will begin to improve dramatically.

When you’re looking to buy a new pool cue, there are many things you might be considering: the weight, the wrap, the kind of tip. Of course, all these considerations are important but there is one crucial factor that is often overlooked by pool cue buyers. That one overlooked factor is, “how does it sound” ?

More than anything, you can tell if you’re using a quality pool cue by the sound it makes when coming into contact with a ball. Cheaper cues will make a loud click when hitting balls and that’s vibration. You don’t want to feel vibration because that will interfere with your ability to gauge how much pressure you are exerting. Cues like this are generally found in the $50 to $100 range, although some manufacturers are closing the gap and starting to make very high quality cues for just about $100.

When you upgrade to a nicer cue, you will notice a distinct difference in it’s sound. They will have a quieter, softer sound when striking balls. That is a sign that it has less vibration and that is what we are ultimately looking for, the least amount of vibration. Some higher quality brands are McDermott, Viking and Pechauer. These are all exceptionally well made and they will give you the feedback that you need to improve your shots. Finally, at the upper end of the spectrum are your cues like Predator. Predator cues are world-renowned for the their low vibration and overall quality.

If you are serious about taking your game to the next level, you should definitely consider upgrading your cue. It’s one of the few upgrades you can make that will start improving your game the first time you start using it. Of course, if you have questions, you are welcome to ask me using the comment box. If you’re in the San Diego Area, you can also come on down to Billiards and Darts Direct and I can show you around and we can find the cue that works best for you personally.

Today is the day of my first blog post. I’ve been experimenting on Facebook and Twitter for the past month or so and it’s been fun connecting with so many other pool players. Many of my new friends live in San Diego but even more are from other parts of the country and around the world. I decided that now would be a good time to start a blog. This will be a place for me to offer my knowledge as an APA Ranked Pool Player.

My favorite part of running Billiards and Darts Direct has been talking to others about playing pool. With this blog, I’ll be able to reach a much wider audience and hopefully inspire some new pool players to take the game up. My first real post will be next week. For now, here is a brief commercial that I shot with my iPhone.