Among the best things, you will discover about billiards is that there is always so much to learn about improving your pool game as beginner players. And even if you are among the advanced players, you will always need an adjustment or two time and again to help shoot harder.
In the game of billiards, you may be the best in your group for stroking a target ball accurately in a straight shot but, the truth is that your game can go in another direction if you do not play the cue ball with caution.
In this article, we will be discussing billiards shooting tips to improve your pool game. As an amateur some months ago when it came down to pool games, I used to make huge strides by placing my focus on some fundamental tips.
Best believe that with some practice, your game will improve in a short period.
Shooting Tips For Billiard Games
No matter how good you are in the pool game, you will need to keep practicing and making use of all the tips and fundamental things you can lay your hands on. Every player, either a beginner or expert, needs some billiards shooting tips and suggestions for improving their skill. The incredible billiards shooting tips to improve your pool game are itemized below:
1. Always begin your game with some clean break
There is no game that does not begin with a break. This means that if you have an improvement in your mind, it will be only normal that you start from the beginning.
The importance of a clean break is that it will be the determining factor as to if you will be stuck once you begin or if you will be lucky with a good hit flow. As you break, try making use of more force than the force you would use if it was a regular shot.
Note that, this force must be driven with your hips and upper arm while simultaneously remaining in perfect alignment so that you do not end up losing your precision and shot.
2. Your posture must be perfected
When I needed to gain accuracy and strength in my shots, I had to learn to remain in a good posture. The truth about this is that we all have various body types that are not similar to one another.
Not everyone has the same leg and arm length, height, or even shoulder width as the next person. When it comes to perfecting your posture, I normally advice that you place your head low to line up the cue stick with a cue ball.
When doing this, I do leave some distance between my legs so that I can comfortably bend my knees.
As you focus on your posture, ensure that you are balanced as all sport that involves playing with a ball demands some level of it. And, cue games are not exempted. In other news, your pool stance or shooting stance needs to be powerful and natural enough to be capable of resisting a shove on your shooting side.
3. Avoid dropping your elbow
As you stroke into your cue ball, ensure you do not drop the elbow when doing this as it is capable of disrupting the clean shot you were about to make.
4. Your grip will need to be relaxed
One of the few tips to have in mind is that you are to avoid getting all tensed up when making a stroke. Your grip has to be relaxed while the stroke is going on if you need to improve your pool game and make a good shot.
5. Practice makes perfect even when done alone
Similar to a basketball player or most athletes of different sports out there, you will need to carry out some practices on your own to be a much better player. If you want to be good at the pool table, you need to put in the work.
For this to work out, you need to work on some fundamentals and important factors such as making diverse bank shots, placing English on your cue ball, and being able to drill a hit shot. All of these improvements will reflect when next you play pool on the pool table.
While you may see your friends playing pool and want to join in the fun to boost your skill, best believe that this will harm your growth and not enable it. Plus, shooting object balls as you like without any aim behind them will slow down your growth as a pool player.
Instead of diving all in, it is best to begin practicing with actual game setups. As you practice, you will get to boost your skills. One way I got to learn to play well was by selecting drills that concentrated on areas where I had problems. Some have problems keeping a closed bridge while some battle the open bridge.
6. A stroke is simply a stroke
The stroke is simply what it is; a rhythmic yet subtle motion that has a beginning, center, and end. As you keep playing, do not rush the strokes and neither should you choke it off.
7. Your control should be the top priority not speed
Most people believe that when playing pool, hitting your cue balls hard will get you a good shot and even force the object ball to go down a corner pocket. While I find it natural, I always understand that authentic control emanates from the soft yet controlled strokes as you make your hit.
Always have it on your mind that this tip is significant when you are shooting tight or even angled shots. This is because sending the object ball to move swiftly around your pool table will most likely knock the other balls of your opponent into the pockets.
Or, in some cases, they help to align them better for an easy shot. As you practice strokes, your mind gets involved with the motion and it will help in keeping your shots from falling behind.
One shooting advice I adhere to is that, I try my best in aiming my cue four to six inches past my object ball. This helps me in getting a full range of motion and it helps make sure that I have chalked my cue before every strike will hit.
Note that, the chalk will assist the grip that is found between the cue ball and the pool cue, this is important if you want your next shot to be a good one.
8. Understanding the blazer pool table
As a beginner, a drill you will benefit from is the only center drill. The center drill aims to enforce continuous center hits. A good skill one can possess in any other billiard games is hitting the center.
However, you can only get this done with consistent practice. Most players prefer making their cue ball hit the table wall at the opposite end. This is advisable as the real center strike will send your cue ball rolling back to the tip of your pool cue.
I must let you in on the fact that the hitting center is a tasking feat to attain but when you make use of the center drills as a pool player, the process becomes less intimidating. This is a cue tip that will make you a better pool player than most players.
9. Failure can be a lesson in disguise
While losing your match or hitting the cue balls wrong time and again can be frustrating, bear in mind that enabling these wrong moves on the cue ball can teach you the best ways to make it right and will help you improve.
This means that if you have a specific shot that is affecting your game, you need to put in more practice till you hit it right. As you struggle to make a good hit, be calm and concentrate. Most times you are a threat to your game.
Have it in mind that your pool game is not a game of luck, chance, or pure skill. You can liken it to chess as playing billiard involves making strategic moves and using an action plan that you make and keep adjusting.
If you think you will get lucky, you are in for a rude awakening. When you have a cautious strategy in place, your mind and body will be focused on the end objective.
10. You can practice using pocket reducers
If you want to join the world of the best pool players, a good advice you will need is to practice more as we have stated above. However, the question that fills the minds of most people that play pool is how to practice with some more precision on their pool table.
Well, there is a device known as the pocket reducer. It is used in reducing the pocket size as it makes you more precise in a bid to pocket every object balls.
Immediately you are good at potting the object ball with these pocket reducers, best believe you will begin to notice a large difference in your game precision when you bring them out and play with these regulation pockets. This will help during your pre shot routine.
11. Introducing the ghost ball method
If you never heard about the ghost ball method, understand that it is merely an amazing method used in determining where exactly your cue ball will need to strike the object ball in a bid to pocket the balls during the pool game.
Using this method is almost as if you are picking up the cue ball and placing it next to your object ball to ensure the shot is very easy. But, you are getting it done with a cue ball in your imagination.
In simpler terms, you are merely visualizing the ghost cue ball touching your object ball wherein it then makes a straight line shot to the pocket you are aiming at. Wherever you post the ghost cue ball will tell you where you will be sending the real cue ball to make your shots.
12. Training of the weak arm
If you are among those capable of shooting with their two arms, it will give you a huge advantage during most shots. However, some shots become awkward to attempt when using your dominant hand or dominant upper arm.
But, if you keep practicing with that weak shooting arm during your pre shot routine, you will be capable of switching hands whenever you want. In no time, you can make most shots using your non dominant or non shooting arm.
These can be shots you never could make using the dominant arm. For those who may find it hard to start shooting pool with their non dominant arm, it is possible to train it as you play. To do this, you will have to use that arm in your daily life.
This entails drinking and eating using that non dominant arm as well as cooking and brushing your teeth. When you begin feeling quite comfortable using this non shooting arm to do this, you can move to the pool table.
It will take some time to get used to it but the practice will end up being worth it.
13. Watch expert matches with professional pool players
A good place to comfortably watch these professional matches with players shooting pool is on YouTube. Aloysius Yapp who is the one of the best player you can watch his video also. Do you know Shanelle Loraine ? She is the most beautiful, super hot and cool player right now. When she is playing, her body is dancing and looks sexy. You don’t watch her body only observe her every shoot deeply .You can easily understand that her all-shoot is incredible and accurate. Watch here her video to learn more
While it can never occupy the space of playing the pool game, watching professionals do their thing with the balls will teach you so much about technique and decisions to make while shooting your cue ball.
As you watch, try imagining what you could do in a specific situation before you take any shot with your pool stick. Engage in comparing what the professional pool players did with the balls and what you would do in that situation.
Think about what makes their hit and shot different and why you feel they made their decision. It is important to watch these matches as you can learn everything from them ranging from cue ball placement, pool stance, tight grip, holding cue lightly, and power.
All of these will help you in developing your pool skills and making a good next shot with the ball.
14. Embark on playing against players better than you
A chess quote I follow judiciously states that you can only get smarter in the game by playing against a smarter opponent. The same can be said about the pool game. Here, you get better when you play an opponent better than you.
Understand that, without pushing to the edge of your limits, you will never be forced to get better. In other news, try seeking out and playing opponents better than you in that forward swing and shot line.
While you have a higher chance of losing, you must realize that losing some games is good enough to help you get better.
While you can draw shots, one of the primary secrets to having longer runs is by leaving a position for yourself to take an angled shot instead of those straight-in shots. The angle shots will give you more alternatives for positioning your cue ball. This is a cue tip to have in mind.
Basic Shots To Improve Your Pool Game
As a game of millimeters, while playing pool, the slightest twitch can be all the difference needed to evaluate a loss or a win. Pool Game is a game that is crafted on a pre shot routine or foundation shots.
This means that there are some shots you should know to boost your game. Aside from billiards shooting tips to improve your pool game, the vital shots that serve as important factors are:
• Jab Stroke
Its variation on common draw shots will force the cue ball to go backward after it makes an impact on the target ball. Rather than use those long-level strokes through your cue ball, it is ideal to make some moves with your bridge hand.
Though this move is difficult to learn, once your bridge hand gets nearer to your cue ball, hit it with a swift punching motion and drive your tip straight down to the cloth as swiftly as it can be feasible.
To do this, you must have the shooting hand relaxed and ensure the pool stick is at the same level as the table else you will make the cue ball jump.
• Force follow stroke
I know the majority of new players are capable of following their target ball while on a top spin. But, their cue behavior after the impact is quite unpredictable.
To execute this force follow stroke, you are to pull your cue tip backward to be almost inside the palm of the plant hand you use. Then, the plant hand should be closer than normal to your cue ball.
When this is done, you are to punch outward with top English and the cue ball will be forced hard enough into your object ball though it will follow slowly in a straight line after this impact.
• The Rail Shot
As for the rail shot, once your target ball gets butted up close to the rail, you are to use the rail as the guide and instantly send the target down to the table in the corner pocket.
When you send it to the corner pocket, understand that the rail shot is practically a move that will excite the crowd. The rail shot is easier to carry out than what is being described here.
You are to aim your cue ball with the pool cues just a little above the dead center so that it collides with both the rail and the target ball at the same time.
Conclusion
On a general note, we have been able to provide you with all you need when playing pool. These billiards shooting tips to improve your pool game will have you winning more games when you play rather than counting losses. Ensure you follow through cautiously.