How to Improve Pool Playing

If you want to improve your skills to play better pool you have to take the single most important advice the pros give you to heart - practice, practice, practice. This how to expands on that billiards advice with tips on how to practice and a few more. Let's get started.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A pool table
• A pool cue
• Patience
• Lots of quarter (or a free table)

1. The first essential rule to improving your practice: Don't practice the game, practice the shots. Sure playing pool is a lot more fun than practicing shots, but it's not the best way to learn to play pool well. Set up each type of shot - starting with easy straight shots and repeat it until it becomes effortless.

2. Next, move up to more difficult shots. Cuts are good second shot practice. Place the billiard ball and the cue ball at an angle and practice cutting the ball into the pocket. An easy way to get an idea of where exactly to hit the ball for a cut is to line your cue stick up with the target ball as if you're going to shoot it straight into the hole. Make a mental mark on the target ball and move back to the cue ball. Hit the cue ball center on to the mental mark. Easy!

3. Next, try your hand at making banks shots. Bank shots are ones where you hit the ball against the curb opposite of the pocket at the correct angle to make it return to the hole. Practice on each type of bank - the long table banks and the short banks. Practice on each pocket. The corner pockets are easier to bank, but don't forget to practice your side pocket banks, too. After you have developed a skill and feel for the single banks shot move to double banks and even triple. They can be done with practice. You can use your cue stick to measure angles and make mental marks and the bank to see where you need to hit.

4. Frozen shots - these are the shots where the ball you want to sink is laying tight against the curb. These shots seem impossible to some people, but they're really very simple. All you need to do is angle the cue ball so that it hits the curb and the target ball at the same time. This will run the ball along the curb straight to the pocket. At least it will with practice!

5. After you've practiced hitting the basic shots hundreds of times and feel like you have them under control, it's time to practice setting up your next shot. Professional pool players are like chess masters - they know their next move (and the next and the next) before they take the first shot. You can practice setting yourself up by placing two or three billiard balls at random on the table. Decide what your first shot will be and what your second will be. Think about how to hit the ball to get the cue in position for your second shot. You can do this by adjusting how hard or soft you hit the first ball and by using the advanced technique of shooting with "English." I'll cover how to put English on a billiard ball in my next article.

6. The final step before moving into a game with a competitor is to practice making the break. The break is the opening shot of the pool game where the balls are located in their triangluar position on the back third of the table. A good, strong shot is essential here. Hit the cue ball squarely in the center and follow through with the cue stick, pushing it well beyond where you would stop in a regular shot. Put some body in it! Some players line the cue ball up straight into the rack. Others bring it to either the right or left side of the table. Practice making breaks from each position until you know which gives you the greatest break out of the balls. You can also experiment on where to hit the racked balls for the best effect. Some players hit straight on the lead ball, some hit just between the lead and the next ball behind it.

Tips & Warnings

• It's tempting to try to jump right into playing pool games - and betting a little money on your game - but this can be the most frustrating experience for a beginner. You need to have the basics under your belt before you can win consistently. (And maybe then make a little cash!)
• Chalk your stick! Some people forget this or think they look pompous by chalking the stick after every shot. There's a reason the pros do this - they can't afford to miss an easy shot by having the tip of the stick skip off the cue ball from lack of chalk.
• Powder your stabilizing hand in the crease between your thumb and first finger. Left hand if you're right handed, right hand if you're left handed. You don't need to do this after every shot unless you're sweating hard. And if you've practiced all of these shots, you won't be breaking a sweat at all.
• Many home pool tables aren't the same dimension as a standard pool table. Snooker tables are longer than standard ones. Practice on the kind of table you'll be playing on the most.