Basic Position Play - Stun - Easy Pool Tutor

Now that you are familiar with the Stop shot, Draw shot, and the Follow shot, you are now ready to take on the basics of playing position. Playing position or cue ball preparation as I normally call it is simply the process of controlling where you should position the cue ball in preparation for your next shot (assuming of course that you pocket the object ball first). Knowing where the cue ball goes after impact of the object ball and learning to position the cue ball so that it makes it easy for you to pocket the next ball is vitally important if you want to win the game. At this point, it is no longer enough to pocket just one ball per turn. You should strive to pocket as many balls as you can when it's your turn to play. This lesson will give you a basic understanding of cue ball control.

Stun Shot

Let's start by defining what a Stun Shot is. By definition, a Stun Shot is a shot where the cueball does not have any forward or backward roll at the moment it collides with the object ball. If you recall the lesson on Stop Shot, the Stun is executed with a stop shot stroke speed regardless of whether or not you have a straight in shot or a cut angle.

Refer to the illustration below. Figure 1 shows you that pocketing the 15-ball with a stop shot will give you perfect cue ball position (indicated by the black circle) for the eight ball to win the game. To stop the cue ball dead in its tracks, you need to execute the Stun stroke.

Figure 1

Most of the shots you will do in the game of pocket billiards will have some angle or cut on it. Therefore, it is important to know where the cue ball goes when doing cut shots.