Lesson Category : Practice & Improvement

This is a great drill to fine tune your cue ball control. Set up 15 balls as shown in the diagram below. Take cue ball in hand. You can pocket any balls in any pocket. Try to run them out without missing. Only 2 simple rules:

1) You may not hit a rail, and
2) You make contact another ball besides your primary object ball.

Set all 15 balls up as shown in the diagram. Take cue ball in hand for every shot. Shoot 7 or 8 balls in to pocket A and the remainder to pocket B. The object is to shoot it with lag speed with center ball hit. After you pocketed all 15 set it up and do it again til you miss.

Maintaining sharp focus at the pool table is one of the hallmarks of the professional or top amateur. But if you, like me, sometimes find your practice games degenerating to just “banging balls”, then you might try the practice game discussed below to see if your focus improves. At the very least, I can almost guarantee that you’ll find you’re spending more of your practice time in a mentally ‘high-focus’ zone – the place you need to be to see improvement in your game.

Here's a safety to practice. It can help in many situations. Hit the 1-ball on the left side, with lower left english (softly). This makes the cue ball travel off the rail at a wide angle (missing all of the other balls) and will hide the 1-ball behind the cluster.

I have submitted one of my favorite trick shots here. I realize this is not traditional practice for your game, but a good trick shot are great to have. I find that when practicing with drills and whatnot sometimes practicing a good trick shot rejuvenates me to go back to practice. Its a great break from the drills, and most trick shots require great pool skill to complete, so you can hone in on your skills while having some fun.

Since my biggest issue in pool is shot making consistency, I came up with this drill for me. I figured since there are 15 balls in a rack, it should take no more than 15 shots to clear the table. One shot, one ball in a pocket,sometimes more depending on the shot.