I’d like to share with you a rule that I have that I like to say. That rule is: “You can’t do Low Slow”. It’s not a standard rule by any means, rather it’s just something I like to say as a general guideline. As with any rule, you’ll likely find an occassion where “low and slow” does indeed work. For the most part though, this rule will hold true for most players.

When you’re using Low on the cue ball, you always have to do it firm. You’ll notice that higher skill level players don’t have an issue with this, but beginners usually do have a problem. They have a shot setup like in the video above and they use low to hit it but they don’t hit low quite hard enough and, as a result, they scratch.

As you can see, when you don’t hit hard enough, your cue ball started to spin backwards but by the time it got to the object ball, it had already started to spin forward. That’s why you can’t use Low Slow.

The other reason why you can’t use Low Slow is if your stoke is not dead-straight, the cue ball will veer off and the shot will not be effective. So that’s another reason why “You Can’t Use Low Slow”.

Today we’re going to learn how to do Kill Shots. The Kill Shot is for when you’re shooting close to the rail and you want to keep your shape down close to it.

You can see in the video that when I shoot the ball softly with no English, the cue ball takes off after making contact with the object ball. That’s not to say that the resulting shot is “unmakeable” but it’s certainly harder when the cue ball gets that far away.

The way to do it better is to use low English and to use the English with cue ball going away from my object ball. In this particular shot, I’d be using Right English so that the cue ball goes away from my next ball to-be-sunk. The low English should be hit with the right speed so that it dies by the time it hits the rail.

As you can see, shooting with this low, right English, the cue ball dies shortly after making contact with the object ball. This gives me much a better position to shoot my next shot from. That low English makes the ball spin backwards which will stop the cue ball.

Here’s another combo shot. For this particular example, the balls are frozen but are not quite lined up in the pocket. Since these balls are frozen together and they’re not lined up exactly with the pocket we want to get them into, we’ll need to use throw to make our ball. Throw is a frequently used pool technique. If you’re looking for a refresher course on how to use Throw, here’s a previously demonstrated write-up from the Billiards and Darts Direct Blog.

As you can see, the 4 ball is not lined up directly with the pocket. If we shot it straight thru, it would bounce off the corner of the pocket and we’d miss the shot. So we need to throw the 4 ball. Normally, if the 6 ball wasn’t here, we’d use right-hand English. But, since the 6 is there, we’ll have to use left-hand English. The reason we use the opposite English is that when the 6 hits the 4, it will transfer it’s English to the ball, except it will be the opposite English that it transfers.

So, when shooting frozen combo shots, use the opposite English on your first ball than you would normally and you’ll make your shot just fine. As to how much English to use, you’ll have to determine that on a case-by-case basis but I’d say to put a little more English into it than if it were just one ball since you’ll be losing some of that in the transition. So, in this case, overcompensation is a good thing.

Lets learn how to do Three-Rail Kick Shots. Just like Two-Rail Kick Shots, this is a very useful technique to learn for general gameplay. You’ll find that the basic principles of kick-shots apply to just about everything else in the game, so this is a great technique to learn.

Everybody is a little different on how they approach their three-rail kick shots. You’ll want to use running English for your kick-shots. This means that once the cue ball hits the rail, it’ll take off faster.

You next need to find a spot somewhere in the room that’s approximately 20 feet out from where you are. This is where you want to aim your ball using running English. Once you have your spot picked out, and you’ve taken a few successful shots to verify that it’s the correct spot to be aiming at, you can then position the cue ball anywhere on the table and still use that spot to make your shot.

Being precise with your English is an important thing to master as a pool player. Luckily, I’ve got a very easy to understand technique that will work wonders on improving your precision when using English.

First, you want to imagine that your cue ball is the same size as half of the pool table. There are 15 different spots to hit on this imaginary large cue ball. Why 15 spots? Because there are 15 different intersections between the diamonds on half of the pool table.

Imagine there are 15 different spots to hit, you want to think of the center of the ball as being like the center of the table. There are 5 spots in the center that can be hit. If you want to move the ball one diamond to the right, you go over one diamond/spot to the right on the ball. If you want to go over two diamonds, just go over two diamonds/spots on the ball.

Now, if you want to subtract the English, you want to use high. When you go high, it always subtracts half of one diamond. So, if I want to go to half of a diamond, I’ll start at the center of the ball and then go over one and up one. Conversely, low English adds a half. If I want to go over one and a half diamonds, I’ll go over one from the center and I want to add a half so I’ll go down one.

These same rules apply on the long side of the table as well, but you’re traveling twice the distance so things are halved. If i want to go over two diamonds (with the ball being on the spot), I would go over one diamond. One diamond on the long side equals two on the short end.

This technique seems complicated but it’s really just hard to explain. Once you begin using this technique, you’ll begin to understand how truly easy (and powerful) it is. If you need help and you’re in the San Diego area, be sure to stop into Billiards and Darts Direct because we offer personal training to help you learn things just like this.

Here’s a great technique for how to properly draw the ball when you’re jacked up on the rail. There will be plenty of times when your cue will be up against the rail (jacked up) and you wont be able to get below the ball to draw it and you can’t get the shot using high English because you have traffic. So, what do you do? Focus on your cue ball.

Although it is contradictory to what you may have been taught over the years, this is one instance where you’ll want to bring your attention to your cue ball while preparing your shot. Before you can focus on your cue ball though, you need to change your grip a bit.

Ordinarily, when shooting pool you want to have a very loose wrist. For this particular shot, you want to have the opposite. You want to lock out your wrist. Don’t let it move freely. This will help you to get the angles correct when lining up your shot.

Now go back to your shot. Line it up like you normally do. When it’s time to actually hit the cue ball, shift your focus to the cue ball. I’m going to hit it low and my wrist is locked. That’s how you do it. Have fun!

Lets admit it; a lot of people have no clue where the cue ball is going to end up after they strike their object ball. What follows will be a technique for how to properly shoot at a 90 degree angle. Take a look at the video below for specifications on each shooting situation I mention.

First, you need to know where your point of contact is. The point of contact is where you’d have to hit the cue ball on the object ball to make it in the pocket. Once you know where your point of contact is, you can begin to work out this 90 degree technique.

Take note of that point of contact. Now you want to line your cue up along that point of contact leading into the pocket. Take your cue and move it 90 degrees (to the left, in this case). Put a piece of chalk right there to provide a visual marker for yourself. When you’re just hitting center ball, the ball will bounce off the rail at 90 degree angles.

Once you have that technique down, let’s try using some English. In this situation, I’ll do the same as before and set a piece of chalk as a marker. But I don’t want to hit that chalk. I want to hit further up on the rail, so I’ll have to put low English on it. The ball will travel at 90 degrees for a moment and then pull away. The same principles apply with high English.

We’ve covered Throw before on the Billiards Direct Blog. I’m now going to get a little more in-depth and explain how to use throw when the balls are locked up together (also called “frozen”). In the video below, you can see where they’re aimed and they’re not aimed toward the pocket at all.

Instead of simply noting that the balls are not aimed at a convenient pocket, look instead to see what diamond they’re aimed closest to. In the example below, the balls are aimed right at the first diamond. What I will do is aim for the opposite diamond on the adjacent rail. I’m going to then hit the ball with outside English. With my right-hand English, I’ll aim for that opposite diamond and strike the cue ball as normally. This will help me to make my shot.

Today we’re going to discuss how to throw the object ball. Essentially, throw is a way of making a shot even if you don’t have a clear path to your ball. To properly throw the ball, you’ll need to have command over using English. In the video below, you can see that the ball we want to make is obstructed by another ball and we can’t see a clear path to it.

To make this shot using throw, you’ll want to use outside English. In this situation, we want the object ball to go to the right, so we use left hand English. When you use left-hand English, you’re trying to get the spin the ball as much as possible without a lot of force going forward.

The spin grabs the ball and throws it. It’s essentially throwing it to the right, which helps you make your ball while leaving the obstructing ball untouched. This is a great technique that should help you quite a bit the next time you come across a shot that’s impossible to see.