This is another one of those pool basics that is so easy that it is easy to forget how important it is to make sure that victory is possible before joining the battle. To look at it in very simple fashion, a nine ball game is made up of three 3-ball runs and two transitions. Can you make the 1,2, and 3-ball? Can you transition from the three to the four? Then can you go on to make the 4,5,and 6 and transition to the final three balls and make that little run as well? Great! Go for it!

Usually, though, some problems will be discovered that may make for other than the classic easy out. Here is where you must make a game plan and decide how to approach your shot-making. Your plan should be reasonable and should include the realization that more nine ball games played at the amateur level are lost by the person making the most mistakes than are won by those making great runs. So you want to give your opponent the opportunity to make mistakes while avoiding those situations yourself. If you can’t run out, run to a point where you can safe your opponent into a situation where he must kick at the ball and give you ball in hand. With ball in hand you have a better chance of breaking up trouble on the table and continuing your run or perhaps continuing the safeties to win on the three-foul rule.

Plan to keep your opponent on the defensive. If you give him the chance to make a good offensive charge and win, then you are as much to blame for the win as he is to credit. Your opponent, unless he breaks and runs, can only take advantage of the situations with which you provide him.

Be psychologically aggressive. Certainly, you should remain sociable. But inside you need to want to see your opponent suffer. You want him frustrated from never getting a shot, and angry from losing game after game. Never be willing to give away a game just because it is a race to five and one game doesn’t mean that much. One game does mean that much because it gives your opponent the confidence required for winning the next game, and the next.

Play to win with every shot. There is no such thing as an unimportant shot in the game of Nine Ball. Any error can cost you the game. Nine Ball is a game where one of the players can control the table and win game after game. He just shoots until he needs to play safe and gives his opponent all the rope he needs. As a result, his confidence builds and he wins each set a little easier than the one before.

If you find yourself losing, determine to get your opponent out of phase and get control of that table. If he leaves you a kick shot that you cannot convert, don’t take it. You were going give him ball in hand with that shot anyway, so make an intentional foul and mess the table up a little more before you turn it over. Create another cluster, or move the nine ball to a difficult spot. Now he may have ball in hand, but he may not run out, so you could be coming back to the table for another shot at the win.

Throw him off his rhythm. If he is a quick player, slow the game down. Do whatever is required, short of sharking, to get that first shot that provides you with a chance to make another. We all know that this is a very mental game where confidence, concentration, and positive imagery are all crucial to the shot. It should come as no surprise that an effort to obtain a mental advantage is made by all players. That is why you try to win the first game in a set, to have the mental advantage of being up on your opponent. That is one reason losers keep losing, as each loss compounds the nervous mind and the twitch sets in. The mark of the guy who can come back from way down is that he is either the type who laughs off losses, doesn’t ‘shake’, and remains confident and assured that setbacks are only temporary; or is the type that can just concentrate and block out all distractions while he shoots.

Most players, however, will shark themselves. You don’t need to do it. They will lose a couple, sink down on the stool and sulk their way into a nice, deep loss. They are now thinking of all the ways they have found to lose. They are re-hashing each scratch. They are expecting this terrible trend to continue, and it will. If you provide pool with a self-fulfilling prophecy it will leap into reality. This should all be part of your plan. There really is a lot more to winning a set than just making the next ball.

Please enjoy winning. Let winning trigger that O-spot in your brain that makes you laugh and tingle all over. Let winning be so pleasurable that it becomes addictive. This will train your mind to do all those things that provide it with the victory rush.

Winning and losing are habits. Develop winning habits and the game becomes an experience to enjoy for a lifetime. Almost anyone with the desire and drive to do so can become proficient at this game. We are only talking about moving a couple of balls a short distance on a level surface in a well-lit room to achieve a successful shot. The basic skills required to accomplish this can be taught in a few minutes and refined in a relatively short span. Determine now that you are a winner and go act like it on the table. Decide what you are going to do to win and go do it, winner.