Billiards: Rail Bridge

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Joe. I'm in Breaktime Billiards in Wilmington, North Carolina, and today I'm going to show you how to make a rail bridge. There are times when the cue ball is going to be close to the rail. And you're not going to have enough room to put your hand down between the ball and the rail to either use a closed bridge or an open bridge on the table. So that's when you would use a rail bridge. Now, a rail bridge can be done very easily, you take your hand, and with it spread you bring your thumb to the center of your palm. Now what you're going to do is you're going to put the stick in that little groove it's made there. You're going to place your hand down on the rail with the stick between your forefinger and your middle finger. And resting against the fleshy part of your hand. Now once you've done this, you will be able to shoot the cue ball into the object ball and have enough room to make a stroke. Now if the ball is very close to the rail, then what you would do is you would take and use an open bridge except that you would have it on the rail, so I have formed an open bridge, I put it on the rail, and I've allowed myself enough room to be able to stroke the ball. Now those are two methods of making an open bridge and a rail bridge for shooting off of the rail when the cue ball is close."