The Carom Shot in Pool

Video Transcript

"Next up we've got the Carom shot. Carom shot is what some beginners call a combination shot because we're driving one ball into another. But for knowledgeable pool players, once again, they like to use a little different terminology. With the Carom shot, what we're trying to do, is we're not trying to make this fist object ball, say in this setup we've got here, we're not trying to cut this ball into that ball to make the combination on the 5 ball. No. What we're trying to do is propel this 1 ball into that ball so at a point to where it will come off of that ball and then the 1 ball goes into the pocket, That's what we would call a Carom shot. Now, the important thing about Carom shots is, we're back to that tangent line thing once again. We have to look at what a tangent line would be that would allow this ball to come off of that ball to head over towards that pocket. So, in other words, we're back to looking at, let's say we pick a contact point of right here, well that's going to give us a tangent line like that and, obviously, that's not going to put us in the pocket. So, what we have to do is keep looking at a tangent line and contact point that's going to bring this ball off of there into the pocket. We'll go ahead and try that, see if we can line it up. I'm saying that my contact point needs to be right about there. So, I have to come over here, line up that ball to hit at precisely that spot. And, that's a Carom shot."