Latest posts
Know This Shot!
Everyone I know has been in this situation. Here you have overcooked your previous shot and now you lay funny on the five. If you call being on the wrong side of the ball funny. Coulda been an easy out, but you lost control of whitey and now you gotta go round the world riding […]
The Two-Ball Key
9-Ball today is a breakers game. If you can make a ball on the break and have a shot to start the game, you should win. Not that you will run out all the time, no one does. But getting the first good shot means you have the opportunity to control the table. When and […]
Ride the Rails!
Sometimes you need to ride the rails in order to get to there. In the diagram below you need to get to the other end of the table for position on the three ball. Being straight-in on the two and blocked from the draw option by interfering balls means you must go rail-first to get […]
The Two-Way Bank
Sometimes the easiest shot is not your best shot. In the shot shown below, the three ball is a fairly easy (although long) nearly straight-in shot into the corner. But the four ball is back down here on the head rail and the seven and eight prevent you from being able to draw back downtable […]
Adjusting the Tangent Line
Shortly after first picking up a cuestick you learned about tangent lines. The reliable law that colliding spheres will always separate along a line perpendicular to the axis of their centers (the middle line in our diagram) has long been a staple of the game. In our diagram the 8-ball and 9-ball are frozen. Everyone […]
Corner Em!
In many Nine Ball situations you will have a choice of playing position for either the side pocket or the corner pocket. It is usually to your advantage to play for the corner because it is harder to get out of line there. Here is what I mean. In the diagram to the right you […]