Previously on the Billiards Direct Blog, we’ve discussed how to throw the ball when the balls were frozen together. Now I’m going to show you how to throw the ball when they’re not frozen. In the video below, you’ll see that there is actually a 1 mm gap between them. This means you need to take a completely different technique.

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When the balls are frozen together all you need to do is aim for the opposite diamond. However, when there’s a gap you run the risk of double-hitting your ball. So, instead of aiming to the opposite diamond, you now want to find the diamond that the balls are aimed at, and move one diamond up on the same side. Again, we want to use left-hand English in this example because we need to throw the ball to the right.

Make sure when you take your shot that you are jacked up at a 45 degree angle. If you shoot it with a level stroke, you’re going to double hit it and fowl the cue ball. Jacking your cue up avoids this issue.

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.