I’m going to show you a few basic safeties that happen a lot in a game. In the first situation, we have a few balls close to the short rail, and a few balls scattered around the table. There are two choices in this scenario. I can shoot my ball in and break the 11 ball out. The other way to do this is to play defensively and shoot your ball in nice and easily. Strike the balls softly and you can force the cue up against another ball which will force your opponent to double hit the ball.

Taking the opposite point of view, if your opponent puts you in a situation where you have no shot, it may be better to simply fowl the ball as opposed to trying a kick-shot to make the other ball. In this situation, the balls are frozen so I’m going to double hit it. I don’t need to waste time trying to jack up. Now my opponent has ball in hand and he can’t do anything with it.

Another basic safety is when your opponent’s ball is in pocket and you have no shot. What I want to do in this situation is bank my ball toward his ball which will block it completely and hook him. He’ll have to kick at his ball and he won’t have clean shot. Now he has no shot and it took very little force on my end.