Open V-shaped Bridge

In order to be a good pool player, you need to have a good solid bridge hand to stabilize your cue as you shoot. The bridge hand will assist you in hitting the cue ball accurately and applying the appropriate english (or center ball hit). There are two basic bridges:

(1) The open v-shaped bridge

(2) The closed bridge

Regardless of which bridge option you choose, remember that your bridge hand is always made with your non-dominant hand and must be firm!

The open v-shaped bridge is the easier of the two bridge styles. However, as you become a more proficient player, you will find yourself using both bridge styles depending on the shot.

The following visual guide is for beginning pool players who want to know how to form an Open V-shaped bridge:

1. Make a fist on the surface of the table with your non-dominant hand

2. Without losing the elevation of the knuckle area of your hand, spread your fingers out

3. Raise your thumb up and pinch it against the first finger/knuckle area

4. You should see the formation of a "V" shaped groove

5. This "V" shaped groove will form a stable bridge for your cue stick to glide over your hand

End game situation #1

In the above game of Eight-ball, you are stripes and it is your turn. What would be the best thing to do here? Do you bank, play safe or make a ball. Please post your solutions under comments.

Object ball frozen to cushion

In this shot, the object ball is frozen to the rail and you have a very steep angle with the cue ball.

The secret to making these kinds of cut shots is to actually aim to miss, just a little, and play the cue ball into the rail first with low english in the direction of the object ball. The cue ball will rebound off the cushion and into the object ball to make it into the corner pocket. This is actually much easier to execute than to try to cut the ball in.

Try it as shown. As you get more proficient, move the object ball further down the rail until you reach a point of difficulty or low proficiency that would not benefit you in a game. Practice this shot and know you percentage for making it one diamond out from the pocket, 1.5 diamonds out, 2 diamonds out, etc. That way, when it comes up in a game, you will know whether or not you should shoot it, or play a safe instead.

Follow and Draw drill

This is a great little exercise to learn how to follow and draw for basic position zones.

Place one ball on the foot spot (8-ball) and another on the headspot (9-ball). Place a third ball in the dead center of the table. Last, place the cue-ball anywhere on the straight line that allows you to pocket the center ball in a corner pocket and either follow or draw for postion on the next ball. You can shoot one rack of balls to follow to cue ball position A for the 8-ball, and another rack of balls to draw to cue ball position B for position on the 9-ball.

Your position goal should be to achieve either straight in position on the next shot, or at least a comfortable confident cut shot, no more than say a 30 degree angle.

Pocket Billiards 101: How to throw a ball with english.

In the above diagram, you are solids and you need to make your last ball, so that you can play the eight in the lower corner pocket. The problem is, your opponent still has a ball on the table (the stripe 12 ball) and this ball is preventing you from hitting your object ball at the cut angle you need in order to make it into the upper left corner pocket. Cue-ball diagram The answer to your problem is to "throw" the ball into the pocket using some right side-spin/english as shown in the cue-ball diagram above. By putting right side english on the cue-ball, the object ball will be thrown off it's trajectory slightly to the left of it's intended path. This occurs because the right hand spin (a counter clockwise rotation on the cue-ball) will transfer to the object ball in an equal and opposite manner, Think of two cog wheels interacting. When one turns in one direction (clockwise), the other turns in the opposite direction (counter-clockwise) This is exactly how english transfers from one ball to another. The friction created when one ball hits another allows for a transfer of spin (known as English in billiard terms). Left english on the cue-ball will throw the object ball to the right. Conversely, right english on the cue-ball will throw the object ball left.