Billiards: English Effects

Video Transcript

"Hi, my names Joe, I'm at Break Time Billiards in Williamington, North Carolina. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about the effects of English. Now, English is anything that you put on the ball that is left or right of the center access of the cue ball. So, if I was going to hit this rail here and I were going to hit it and want it to go to the right, I would use right hand English, and that makes it come to the right. If I want the cue ball to hit that rail and come to the left, then I would use left hand English, which means that I'm hitting to the left of the center line. Now, all that does is it allows you to change the angle from natural to either making it wider or making it shorter, depending on what English you're using. So, if I were going to shoot this eight ball in and I wanted to keep the cue ball here, the natural angle is to go here and out to here, but if I wanted to come here, I have to be able to make that angle shorter, so I use an English that is opposite of the direction that the angle would normally be. So in this case, because I want it to come back this way, so to the left of the normal angle, I would use left English, and when I hit the ball, it will stay over here. Now, if I wanted it to go wider than the natural angle, and the natural angle is to here and to here, if I wanted to go wider, then I would have to use right English because I want it to go to the right of the natural angle. So I would shoot with right English and it's going to come off at a wider angle then it would normally come off with no English. That is the effects of English."