Natural Roll of a Cue Ball

Series Summary

The game of pool, or billiards, was developed, like other cue sports, from outdoor stick-and-ball lawn games similar to golf or croquet. Pool was originally played on tables without pockets. Holes were added later, used first as a hazard and later as a means of scoring. The term 'pool' was derived from 'poolrooms,' which were off-track betting facilities where gamblers would 'pool' their money to determine the odds on horse races. These facilities were often equipped with a few billiards tables, and the words 'pool' and 'billiards' soon became interchangeable.

In this free video series, our expert Roger Long will tell you everything you need to know about positioning in pool. He'll tell you about the natural roll of the cue ball, how to get top spin, and shooting at angles. He'll even tell you how to do several drills for a follow shot, a stop shot, and a draw shot. He'll even talk a bit about table length, sliding shots, and cheating the pocket.

Video Transcript

"So now we're going to start getting into what's happening with the cue ball to make our basic cue ball positioning shots. Our stop shots, follow shots draw shots again. What we have to start doing is looking at what kind of actions we want to be on that cue ball, on contact with the object ball. But the first thing we need to look at is what's happening on just about any shot where the cue ball is just rolling naturally. In other words if I don't try to apply any funny action to this ball to get it to do something specific. What's it going to do and where is it going to go if it just contacts that ball with a natural roll. Well let?s look at it. Let?s just let it hit it. And we'll see that with a natural roll it actually is a follow shot. Whether it follows it a short distance or a longer distance is going to depend on when it becomes more than a natural roll. In other words, when you start hitting the ball at a speed to where you are giving it excess top spin to make it farther than it would with a natural roll. But any shot with a natural roll is going to actually be a follow shot."