In an earlier video post, I discussed a technique for shooting the ball down the rail. A few YouTube subscribers like @MrSubhash1418 had some questions about the exact method for doing this technique, so I’m following that video up with this one.

A lot of the confusion likely comes from the amount of deflection your cue has. You need to test your cue to see how much it’s going to curve off. For example, if I put the cue ball dead on, edge-to-edge and I aim for that, I’m going to miss it. You can see that if give it the English and I aim perfectly dead-on, it deflects and misses the ball completely.

I have to compensate for that deflection. Unfortunately, everybody’s cue deflects differently so I can’t tell you how much to compensate by. For me, I’m aiming more into the object ball because I know my cue will deflect by that certain amount. I’m spinning it with inside English, towards the ball. You absolutely need to know how much your particular cue deflects or else the earlier technique will be completely guess-work instead of an actual proven strategy for success.

Here’s an easy technique for shooting the cue ball off the rail. It starts with the way you hold your cue. Many people hold their cue with their whole hand, their middle finger, their front two fingers, etc. The easiest style for just a clean, simple shot is to hold the cue with your back two fingers.

This technique will give you very little error. When you follow-through the cue is perfectly straight. However, you can’t get a lot of force behind shots like this, so it’s not ideal for most other shots and that’s why you don’t want to use this technique for general playing.

So, holding your cue with your back two fingers, go ahead and line up your shot and take it. Shoot normally and you’ll more than likely make your ball.

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!

We’ve all been in the situation in a game where the your balls are frozen up against the rail. Wait, that doesn’t sound too good out of context. Let me start again. Occasionally, when playing a game of pool your object ball and cue ball may end up being pressed up all the way to the rail. When a ball comes to rest against part of the rail, that’s called being frozen. When one or more balls become frozen against the rail, you have a bit of a tricky shot on your hands. Luckily for you, I’ve got a great technique for making shots when balls are frozen against the rail.

When your balls are frozen against the rail, your first instinct will probably be to try to shoot the balls “straight out”. This will usually cause your balls to come off the rail because your shot was not perfectly accurate. What you should do instead is hit the ball with inside English. Again, make sure you use English that is inside, relative to the rail.

In the above video, I’m using left-hand English because the ball is on the the left rail (relative to my position). I’m also sure to aim directly straight and keep my cue perfectly parallel. This keeps the pressure going forward and doesn’t allow the ball to come into the rail. This keeps the balls trajectory much straighter. The reason it stays on the rail so well is because of the English you put on the ball.

Check back next week and we’ll go over how to shoot the balls off the rail while also getting good shape with your cue ball after pocketing the object ball.

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.

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.