Racking the Balls for 9 Ball Pool

Video Transcript

"In this next clip I'm gonna show you exactly how to rack the balls for nine ball. I'm racking the balls. It's universal, and this is in everything. The one ball always goes in the front of the rack. That's because you have to hit the one ball first because that's the lowest number on the table. Following with the rules. The rest of the balls can go anywhere but the nine always goes in the middle and the one always goes up on the head spot. You gonna just take the rack, put all your balls anywhere. Sometimes guys will, when they give you a spot, some guys are really good and they play this game with a handicap and give a guy the five. The five will go sometimes here on the side because it's less common for the five ball to go in the pocket on the break than in the game. So with that said, though, if there's no spots and it's straight up, the one ball always goes on, in the front on top of the head spot, and the nine ball is in the middle. That is your rack. Also when racking, you might have a nine ball rack. They didn't have one today here at Steinway Billiards. Someone broke it. It's just a diamond rack and it fits the diamond shape of nine ball. That's just a nine ball rack that they have. If not, you could use the regular triangle rack. Take your fingers, press all the balls up tight into the one and just put that one right on that head spot. Gotta watch sometimes too, when playing guys, make sure if someone's racking, it's a universal player that don't know you because you could actually rack the balls a certain ways. If you're playing for money or something, sometimes and there's another guy racking, you might want to watch and see how he's racking. By pushing the balls up too far, if your opponent's breaking, he can have a little bit of an edge and get a better break. If the balls aren't tightly in the rack when you're breaking, it could not get that good bust that you want in breaking the balls. Make sure that you look at the rack, balls should be tight, one should be straight on that headrest."