How to Break in Snooker

The game of snooker is played on a large billiard table, usually 10 feet by 5 feet, and is most popular in England. A slower-paced billiard game based on points, snooker is the best billiard game to improve your aim and safety play. In addition to the table being over-sized, the pockets are tiny, so your aim must be true. Points are awarded for both offensive and defensive play, so safeties are not only necessary, they are encouraged.The snooker break is in essence a safety itself. Let's look now at how to shoot a safe snooker break shot.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Snooker table
• Snooker balls
• Billiard cue

1. Every billiard table rolls differently—type and age of felt, levelness, even humidity on a given day all factor in to the way the balls roll on a table. Before starting a practice session or match, check the speed of the table by lagging the cue ball up and down. Try to hit the cue ball just hard enough to bounce off the foot bumper and come to rest as close to the head bumper as possible. Remember how it feels to hit the ball at that speed and base other timing shots on this muscle memory.

2. It does not matter which side of the rack is broken, so chose the side that makes you comfortable, practice and stay on that side every time when breaking a new game. The breaking player has the cue ball in hand, and places the cue ball anywhere in the half circle and behind the head string. Place the cue ball so the back corner red ball can easily be hit.

3. Aim for the back corner red ball and hit it as directly as possible without hitting the ball in front of it.

4. Hit the cue ball only hard enough to thin the corner red ball, go to the bottom rail and come back up table. This is why it is good to have some idea of the table speed. Second best, leave one tough shot with no breakout possibilities.

5. Best results leave no shot on any red balls. This is all the opponent is allowed to hit legally, so if the break shot is done successfully points may be gained from a bad hit by the opponent. The second best result leaves one tough shot with no breakout opportunity and no safety opportunity.

Tips & Warnings

• This safety break is for both experienced and inexperienced snooker players. An inexperienced player may think this will lead to an incredibly long snooker game, but will soon learn that it may be easier to beat an opponent by playing smarter.
• Breaking out all of the balls at once may be a painful experience against a good player.