Aiming is the area of pocket billiards that you will concentrate on most diligently while playing the games. Possessing an excellent set of basic mechanics is requisite to delivering the cue ball properly, but is useless unless the aim is solid. Luckily, aiming is actually one of the easiest bridges that a pool player must cross and will, in time, become so automatic that you are no longer overly concerned about it, you just perform. Much like a beginning guitarist struggles with each finger placement but soon the fingers just fall naturally onto the proper fretting.

There are two basic ideas we need you to grasp. One is the Ghost Ball, which we are about to cover in detail. The other is the contact point. All that we need you to understand about the contact point is how small it is and that therefore your aim must be precise enough to focus on that point. To understand this, just take two billiard balls and hold them up in front of a bright window and look at their contact point. You will find that it is tiny. Just keep this information in the back of your mind. What you must resolve and remember is that it does no good to aim at a point on the object ball that is the size of a dime when the contact point is the size of a pinhead. You can hit inside the dime aiming point and miss shots all day long.

What you should learn first is the granddaddy of all aiming systems called the Ghost Ball. This system has the pupil imagining a cue ball sitting next to the object ball in perfect alignment to pocket the shot. The task of aiming, then, is to replace the imaginary cue ball with the real thing by shooting the real cue ball into the space occupied by the ghost ball. Succeed at that and you make every shot, every time!

DIAGRAM A

Diagram A shows the basic premise of the ghost ball. The ghost cue ball is lined up so that a line drawn through the center of both it and the object ball runs right into the center of the pocket. No matter where the object ball and pocket are in relation to one another, if you can drive the cue ball into position where a line drawn through its’ center and then through the center of the object ball lines up with the pocket, then the shot can be made.

Just a brief aside here. Many beginning players have some trouble with the idea of ‘thin’ cuts. They quickly see how nearly straight-in shots are made, but become confused when they try to cut balls very thin. This is one major advantage of the ghost ball system. Let us show you.

DIAGRAM B

As you can see in Diagram B, here the shot can be made into the corner pocket. This is nearly a straight in shot and obvious to everyone. But the shot can also be made in the side pocket as shown in Diagram C. Yes, this is a much thinner cut, but it can still be made fairly easily once you see the position of the ghost ball and just replace the ghost with the real thing.

DIAGRAM C

This is big-time knowledge. The path to the most obvious pocket will often be blocked or will be a path that allows you no access to get good position for the next shot. So being able to unleash that thin cut shot can get you through a lot of hard times. So how thin is too thin? 91 degrees is too thin.

DIAGRAM D

Take a look at Diagram D: As you can see, in this exaggerated example, a ghost ball placed beyond the 90 degree angle point is useless because you can no longer drive the real cue ball into that position. The edge of the object ball simply prevents you from getting there. And that edge is the limit. You can hit the object ball on its’ very outer edge (the 90 degree point) and make shots all day long. But you cannot go even one degree further or the edge of the object ball will block you. Got it? If the shot angle is 90 degrees or less you can make the shot. More than that and you are looking at either a safety or a kick or a bank.

DIAGRAM E

As you can see in Diagram E, this actually gives you 180 degrees (half) of the object ball to consider. 90 degrees on each side of straight on. (All right, we know that somewhere out there is an unemployed physicist who is going to take us to task here because the actual available portion of any object ball is slightly less than 180 degrees because the end limits of that angle are reduced by the respective widths of the cue ball and the object ball. Yes, you are correct. Now you can go rest assured that the world is a better place for your presence in it and we can continue.) So the half of the ball that is facing you is all fair game for cue ball contact and making shots. Conversely, any aiming point on the dark side of the moon (the 180 degrees that is not facing you) is out of the equation.

So, let’s get back to that ghost ball. Now, here is where most instruction books get so confusing that they become worthless. We are determined to not go there and keep it simple, because in truth aiming is very clear-cut. Where many articles have gone astray is when they start describing edge-of-ball contacts for thin cuts.

So here it is in the simplest form. As you can see by the diagrams we have already shown it is extremely rare for the cue ball and the object ball to be lined up dead straight on into the pocket. Most of the time your shots will have some degree of angle involved. This just means that it is rare that you are aiming the center of the cue ball to strike the object ball. In fact, you almost never are.

Now, you actually already knew that. But when it goes down in print it tends to confuse rather than enlighten. So don’t spend too much time ingesting that last paragraph, just get on the table and concern yourself with replacing the ghost ball with the cue ball. If you are a center-ball freak, fine! Just shoot to replace the center of the ghost ball with the center of the cue ball and the edges will take care of themselves! In short, don’t over-complicate this thing. The physics of colliding spheres is not rocket science. Just relax and have a good time adjusting your aim and you will progress at a rapid rate. The art of aiming is developing a good ‘feel’ for when you are in-line, not from understanding the various intricate geometries of the game. You will develop this feel with table time. The best players in the world never think about how many degrees of an arc their aim encompasses. They just know (from countless hours of play) when they are lined up and when it is time to pull the trigger.

The thing to overcome early on is frustration. You are not going to start out by pocketing all of the balls that you line up upon. You are going to miss. The key is to laugh at these early misses and just keep playing and enjoying yourself. If you understand the premise of the ghost ball aiming system and just keep that in the back of your mind as you play, the balls will begin going in more and more often. You will refine your aim as a matter of course. Don’t worry about it. Enjoy yourself at the table and the balls will begin to disappear into the pockets.

One key that we want you to always remember about aiming: It is simple. Most balls that are missed by the accomplished players of the game are not a result of bad aiming, but a consequence of an improper stroke, stance or grip. It matters very little if you are aiming properly if the cue stick is wandering through the plane of the cue ball like an unruly drunk. The importance of developing your solid basics of stance, grip and stroke simply cannot be overstated. They will step up to slap you much more often than will your aim. When pros go into a slump it is not their aim that they question. First they check their stance (and how they get there, the address), and then they work on their stroke. What they want to know about their grip is whether or not they are tightening down on the grip without being aware. Sometimes nerves will do this to you in a big game and it can be the kiss of death because a tight wrist cannot deliver a smooth and true stroke.

One of the BCA Master Instructors, Randy Goettlicher of Dallas, has been quoted on the subject: “When advanced players come to us for help they almost always tell us that they have an aiming problem. They rarely do. Aiming is really too simple for them to have a problem with. Their problems almost always revolve instead around one of the three basics of stance, grip or stroke. Once we show them how to get back to the proper basic, the ‘aiming problem’ resolves itself

So, is that all there is to aiming? Just imagine that ghost ball lined up with the pocket and replace it with the cue ball? Yes. That’s it. Entire tomes have been penned to describe the aim of billiards, but it all just boils down to striking the object ball at the point opposite the pocket to send it tumbling into the hole. Oh, at some point in your game you will begin to get concerned with deflection (the deviation from the desired straight line of the cue ball caused by hitting it off-center with English). But you will find most of these concerns to contain more smoke than flame.

Sure, the cue ball will squirt to the right when you hit it on the left and vice-versa. But your marvelous brain will see this effect even without your having an in-depth understanding of it and will make the required adjustments in your aim without you being aware of the process. Just don’t worry about all of the complexities that you will hear people discussing about aim. Put the cue ball where the ghost ball sits and you will be making shots while they are arguing over stiff shafts, whippy shafts and the nap of the cloth. Life is tough enough without trying to understand the complexities of respiration. Just breathe, enjoy the fragrance of the flowers, and get on with your day.

However, before we send you merrily out onto the slate, there is one aspect of the game that you should begin injecting now. Visualization. From this point on we are going to be talking a lot about visualizing the shot prior to execution, and aim is part of that visualization. Before you ever bend to the table you should ‘see’ the shot take place successfully in your mind. Just imagine the cue ball leaving your tip and traveling perfectly on-line, striking the object ball precisely and then the two balls parting company with the object ball going in the pocket and the cue ball traveling to the point on the table you need to execute the next shot. Visualize. See everything happen before you pull the trigger.