1.
Don't go for the clearance unless you are at least 95% sure that
you can make it.
2. Don't
go for the clearance unless you are at least 95% sure that you can
make it. This is a really serious point. Unless you are
unbelievably
awesome, going for a clearance without having a very clear route
planned out for how you are going to clear will almost certainly
result in you losing. Why? Let's say you pot off the break and start
potting yellows left, right and centre, without a route planned
out. You hope that you'll land on that one tricky yellow on the
cushion at some point, but it never quite happens. Eventually you
are left with a difficult or impossible pot on that last yellow,
and you miss it.
What does your
opponent do then? If he's got half a brain, he'll snooker
the crap out of you - it's pretty easy as he's got 7 red balls
and the black to hide the white behind. You foul, he gets 2 shots.
And with 2 shots, and especially now with no pesky yellows in the
way, it's not exactly difficult to clear up. He's probably looking
pretty smug
right now.
To illustrate
why your opponent will relish this opportunity, take a look at the
following 2 tables. You're Reds. Which table would you find easier
to clear up? Thought so. Now imagine you have 2 visits to clear
up those reds. A one-armed 8 year-old wouldn't have much trouble
with that.
I used to do
this all the time. Just start potting away without thinking, then
I'd leave myself with a difficult last yellow and miss. I'd get
snookered, foul and give away 2 shots and then the guy would just
clear up. I used to think "damn, I messed up that last shot",
but what actually happened was that I messed up my first shot. Or
at least my early ones. I should have got that difficult yellow
potted earlier on or at least opened it up to make the clearance
easier later on. It took about 20 losses in such circumstances for
me to think "hmmmm,
maybe I'm doing something wrong here..."
3. Block
pockets!
Take a look
at the table below. You are yellows. What would you do here? If
your answer is "pot that yellow near the black into the corner"
then you get a slap. You're
doing it wrong. If your answer is "pot that long yellow
on the cushion into the corner pocket and screw back for the yellow
near the black" then, unless
you are a professional snooker player with insane potting skills,
you still get a slap, just not as hard. But you still fail.
If, on the other
hand, your answer is "knock the yellow over the pocket to block
the black", then you get a drink and, hell, you can marry my
daughter. Why is this the obvious shot to play here? Look at the
result from that fantastic decision:
What is your
opponent going to do here? Let's say he manages to pot either of
the difficult reds at first, and then gets the 2nd one. What now?
He can't pot the black, because your ball is blocking the pocket.
And if you've done it perfectly so that the black is touching the
yellow, if he even nudges the black, your yellow will go in. That'll
be a foul and 2 shots to you, with just one yellow and a black on
the table. And if not, all you have to do is knock your difficult
yellow close to the pocket and wait for Redboy to perform a miracle,
which he won't because he's buggered. You'll have your next go,
with 2 yellows over the pocket and a black over the pocket.
Here's a slightly
different example of the wonders of pocket-blocking, at the beginning
of a frame. Take a look at this table - you're reds (although really
going by the state of the table you should have chosen yellows but
anyway, this is just to illustrate a point). Now you could pot that
red. But take a look at those 3 yellows in the bottom left hand
corner. They're all close to the pocket, and all very easily pottable.
Generally, it is considered a Bad
Thing when your opponent has lots of easily pottable balls,
especially when you have 2 reds on the cushion.
One way to make
those three yellows less easily pottable, and indeed IMPOSSIBLE,
is to cover the pocket with the red, as follows:
Just look at
that. Poor Mr Yellows will have an awful lot of trouble getting
those yellows back into pottable positions. And by the time he's
done that, you'll hopefully have potted the black (or at least opened
up your difficult reds to make the clearance easy). Oh, and by the
way, while those yellows are there, and you don't yet have a clear
route to clear up your balls, don't touch that red. It's bar none
the most awesome
ball on that table.
4. The
black! Won't somebody PLEASE think of the black?
I don't think
I'm being too controversial when I say that the black ball is quite
an important ball in the game of pool. For a long time I never even
noticed where the black was until I only had a couple of balls left.
That's because back then I was Captain
of the FAILBOAT You need to be aware of the black right from
the start, and especially when deciding which colour to be (in World
Rules if you pot off the break you have to nominate which colour
you're going to be. This also means that you don't have to be on
the colour that you potted, although if you choose to be yellow
after potting a red off the break, you have to pot a yellow after
nominating).
Ok, so you've
just broken and potted 2 reds. "Great!", you say. "I'll
choose reds because obviously fewer reds on the table means it's
easier to win, right?" Oh
dear. Look at the table, look at the balls, and look at the
BLACK before deciding on your colour.
In this scenario
the black cannot be potted in any pocket. Look at it. Every pocket
is blocked by a yellow. Your opponent can pot all the reds he wants,
but unless he pulls off an amazing disturbance to free the black
up, he can't pot the black. At some point he's going to have to
free up that black, but he won't pot it (notwithstanding the possibility
of an outrageous
fluke), at which point you will be on the table with the opportunity
to clear your open balls without any reds in the way. And even if
he doesn't free up the black, you're still absolutely in control.
Another reason you should
always be aware of the black is when you are ready to clear. A good
rule of thumb is that you should decide what your last ball before
the black will be. In other words, you need to decide how you are
eventually going to get on the black. Find the simplest route to
the black possible. Take a look at the following table. You are
yellows.
In principle
this should be the easiest clearance in the world. But it's A LOT
easier if you take the yellows in the right order. As I've said
above, you should think about the last ball before the black. In
this case I've indicated the best 'last ball before the black' with
a handy Massive Red Arrow (please note that in real life you are
not allowed to put massive red arrows on a pool table). Why should
this yellow be the last ball? Because all you have to do is tap
it in (off the other yellows you'll have to do a lot of work with
the cueball and that makes things more prone to error - why risk
it? Choose the easiest option!), and you'll have an easy black to
the centre left pocket. The centre left pocket is ideal because
red balls are blocking 2 other pockets, and the black is closest
to the centre left pocket. So, now you've decided on the last yellow,
which one do you take first? You could take the yellow near the
centre pocket first, and screw back for the yellow in the bottom
left (as you see it in the pic) pocket. But because of the angle,
you'll be left with a long pot, and then you'll have to perform
a mighty screw
shot to get on to the last yellow.
The easiest, and hopefully
obvious route is to take the bottom left corner yellow first, hold
for the yellow to the centre, giving yourself a slight angle to
get to the last yellow. Knock old Lasty in and you're guaranteed
an easy black to finish.
5. Deliberate
Fouls
In old rules,
a deliberate foul resulted in immediate loss of frame in a competition,
and a possible broken nose in a pub. The problem with it was how
do you prove that the foul was deliberate? A player can always say
he didn't mean to miscue or something like that; it just becomes
impossible to arbitrate. With World Rules you can deliberately foul
- you still give away 2 visits but in many circumstances the advantages
you gain from controlling the state of the table outweigh the disadvantage
of giving away 2 shots. In some cases, a simple deliberate foul
can completely turn the game to your favour.
If you really
want to become a good player, youmust
master deliberate fouls. They're a huge part of the game.
Use them as often as possible (within reason of course!) in friendly
matches, you'll be surprised just how effective they are. Once you've
got a stock of situations in your head where they put you in a dominant
position, then you can start being more intelligent about them.
There are two
basic environments where you might want to play a deliberate foul.
The first is when your opponent snookers you. Take a look at the
following pic. You are yellows. Your opponent has snookered you,
and he probably should have as well - you have two yellows over
the pocket, which moreover are blocking some of his reds. He needs
at least 2 visits to get those reds available that's for sure.
Now, your instinctive
choice may be to try and go off the side cushion to hit that yellow
in the corner, like this:
You could do
that. But you're dangerously close to hitting that red along the
way, so it's a bit risky. Unless you're a God
of Angles, you'll probably miss and give away 2 shots. If it's
likely that you'll give away 2 shots anyway, this is the time to
consider playing a deliberate foul. Two points should be considered
when playing a deliberate foul. First, ask yourself "is he
likely to clear with 2 visits?". If not, a deliberate foul
might be a good idea. Secondly, the key is to make his first shot
unpottable. Here's what I would do in this situation:
Simply roll
up to the top red. Now look at the table:
Your opponent has 2 shots,
but what is he going to do for his first one? He can't pot anything
at all on his first shot. And even after his first shot, you still
have your yellows over the pocket, with 3 reds being blocked. You
are totally dominant here.
The 2nd environment
is when you're not snookered, but you want to control the state
of the table to your favour. Remember what I said above about blocking
pockets? Let's imagine your opponent has done that to you. You're
reds. All your reds are blocked by that yellow over the pocket.
You are now absolutely buggered, right?
Not necessarily.
If you play that loose red into the cluster so that the yellow drops
in, look at the result:
Oh my, that's changed
things around a bit hasn't it? You've gone from being buggered to
being the buggerer in about 3 seconds. "But it's a foul! He
gets 2 visits now!!" So what? Look at his yellows! What the
hell can he do even with 2 shots? He's certainly not going to clear
up, and soon you'll be back on the table with all your reds in easily
pottable positions.
And now the
final Deliberate Foul tutorial. This, to me, is the absolute King
of Deliberate Fouls. I first saw this shot in action in
the final frame of the BUSA Championships Final in 2008 from one
of the players on the Ulster team. It blew my mind how dramatically
it changed the odds of the match. I've been using it ever since,
and honestly, no exaggeration, if you do it right, it will win you
the game even from an otherwise seemingly impossible position. Remember
how important the black ball is? Ok, look at the following table.
You are reds.
If you even
touch that red over the yellow, the yellow will go in, and your
opponent gets 2 shots and is guaranteed to win. And if you hit the
other red to try and get it free, there's a very strong likelihood
that it will push the other red onto the yellow, and again you give
away 2 shots and lose. Mr Yellows is absolutely dominant in this
game, right?
Well, yes, kind
of. But let's say you were a particularly fiendish individual. You
could play a Deliberate Foul on the black so that it just reaches
the red over the yellow, and knocks the yellow in. Now look at the
table:
KABOOM!!!!
What can your opponent do here? 2 shots? Pfft, give him 3 shots,
it doesn't matter, this
game is yours. And if you've paced the shot correctly, the black
will be touching that red over the pocket. If he tries to hit that
black, your red will go in - 2 shots to you with a red and black
over the pocket. Thank you and Goodnight.
6. Ask
yourself, "What if I miss?"
I know, I know,
you won't miss BUT.... what if you do? This tip was forwarded to
me by Matt Cullen from Cambridge, a top 16 player at the BUCS National
Championships 2008. He says he always thinks, "if I
miss this shot, will the guy be able to clear up or royally f**k
me over? Unless it's an unmissable shot, I don't like that answer
to be 'yes'." The result of this way of thinking is
a high-percentage shot selection strategy which resulted in him
kicking my arse in all but one of my many matches against him :)
This strategy
serves two functions. The most important is of course securing
the frame. If you've overrun position in the middle of an otherwise
straightforward clearance and now you have a much harder shot, try
to predict where the cueball will end up if you don't make that
shot. If your prediction means the cueball finishes somewhere open
for your opponent, where he can either clear up or lay a devastating
safety, you should open up Plan B and consider playing safe, either
by covering a pocket, laying a snooker, putting the black safe or
knocking your opponent's balls safe. You always want to have some
assurance that your current visit is not going to be your last.
The second benefit
of such a strategy is frustrating your opponent. Have you
ever played someone and thought "bloody hell, he never leaves
me with anything on when he misses!" That opponent could be
a jammy git of course, but if he's an intelligent player, more likely
it was his contingency plan. There's nothing worse than playing
a pool match where you don't even get a chance. Many players take
this frustration out on the table and play a reckless shot - and
reckless shots usually lose games.
I've noticed
in some of my league matches that some of you don't take this into
consideration and essentially gift the frame to me, and I can't
believe my luck! Say I'm on the black which is over the centre pocket
but just on one side of the table - if you have anything but simple
roll-ins for your balls, and you might miss, make sure that
the cueball ends up on the wrong side of the table for me!
In such circumstances, it's far more important to prevent your opponent
from potting his balls, than you trying to pot yours.
7. Get
your own cue
It doesn't have
to be anything fancy (mine only cost £10), but it's absolutely
vital if you want to play well that you get your own cue. As you
may be aware, judging pace and spin in cue sports is very important;
in fact it's more important than potting ability. If you use a different
cue every time, which is a different weight and which has a differently-shaped,
sized or constructed tip, you will mis-judge the pace and spin of
shots. Pool is all about feel - after a while playing with your
own cue you *know* what a medium strength shot feels like. You know
what medium backspin feels like. If you suddenly find yourself playing
with a different cue, which for example is heavier and with a smaller
tip than your own one - a medium strength shot will be a medium-hard
strength shot, and a medium backspin shot will end up with the cueball
travelling all over the place. Either way, this can be DISASTROUS
given the precision needed in positional play. If you have your
own cue however, with enough practice you will be comfortable judging
pace and spin and you'll know that if you do lose position, it was
due to your own mistake and not just because you weren't accustomed
to the different cue.
Personally, I sleep with
my cue every night, and before I go to sleep, I chant the following:
"This is my cue.
There are many like it but this one is mine. My cue is my best friend.
It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without
me, my cue is useless. Without my cue, I am useless. I must aim
my cue true. I must shoot straighter than my opponent, who is trying
to beat me. I must pot my balls before he pots his. Before God I
swear this creed: my cue and myself are defenders of my country,
we are the masters of our enemy, we are the saviours of my life.
May God Almighty allow my last ball to leave me with a straightforward
black into the centre pocket. Amen." (Slightly modified from
Full Metal Jacket :D)
Of course, you don't
have to do this. Feel free to change the words to suit you. As long
as you chant something before sleep ("Oh, Cuey you're so fine,
you're so fine you blow my mind, hey Cuey!" is a quicker option
for example), that's all that matters.
8. Dishing
Tutorial
There's nothing better
than dishing (clearing all your balls and the black in one visit)
off the break. It's the equivalent of a century break in snooker,
and even the best players still get a cheesy grin on their face
when they pull it off.
There's one problem however.
It's ****ing hard. Rarely are the balls so open that you can see
a straightforward route to clear, and your cueball control needs
to be precise, and if you go for it you often have to develop balls
by cannoning into them off a pot, which can be very risky as you
have to trust a little bit to luck where the balls end up. BUT,
there are occasions when the balls do open up nicely, and you have
a great chance. However, even when the balls are perfectly open,
most players still mess up 90% of the time, not because they're
not any good, but because they chose a more difficult order of balls
to take than they could have done. The rule is, if you can keep
it simple, without having to do too much with the cueball, then
take that option. There is often no need to have to do anything
fancy if the balls are open, you just need to use your head and
take the balls in the right order.
Here is a step-by-step
dish guide for a clearance I made on the game iPool. If you want
to see the video of this clearance, I've embedded it into this page
at the end of this tutorial. Btw yes I know the break is crazy...
the balls just open up much better on the game when you do that
break - I wouldn't recommend it in real life :)
Ok, so after
the break, this is the state of the table:
Now, reds are
more open here, but you don't have an easy first red, and moreover
the black is in a tricky position next to those two yellows. Fortunately,
that yellow into the bottom corner is very easy, and it provides
an easy screwback to develop the yellow/black cluster:
Bit of a risk,
but it turns out quite well:
Ok, now all
your yellows are in pottable positions. Now is the time to plan
your route to the black. Remember, you need to decide what your
last ball before the black is going to be. Choosing
the last ball is deciding which ball to pot which will allow the
least complexity with the cueball in order to leave you with an
easy black. There are two contenders for this role here, which I
have marked with arrows:
The yellow close
to the centre pocket would be an ideal last ball but a) it's difficult
to see how you can easily get onto that yellow to the centre from
another ball, and b) you don't have a straightforward pot anywhere
else! So I've decided that my last ball is the top one with the
arrow, near the corner pocket - tapping that in will leave an easy
black to the centre. So, now I have to start potting. The only option
is to pot that yellow to the centre, so let's see where that leaves
me:
Awesome, now
I can see a clear route for the 5 remaining yellows which will allow
minimum travelling of the cueball. Ok, now this might sound counter-intuitive,
but it is vital that you think like this when planning
a clearance. Think BACKWARDS from the black. In
the pic below, I've numbered the balls in a backwards order (last
ball is 1, first ball is 5):
Now, I didn't
just decide this order willy-nilly. Let's work backwards. No. 1
in this pic is last ball, we've established that :) How am I going
to get onto the last ball? There's really only one contender, and
that's 2 in the centre of the table, which passes
Last Ball into the corner pocket. So now I have to decide what order
to take the first 3 balls. I could take 4 first,
which would leave me an easy shot on 3, but getting
from 3 to 5 is difficult, and I wouldn't want to
risk a pot into the centre for the 5 ball, and
especially since it would be even more difficult to get onto the
2 ball from the 5. While I have the cueball where
it is, I should take the 5 ball now, which would leave me a relatively
straight shot on the 4. That would then leave me
with a relatively straight shot on the 3. Now,
I don't want to be too straight on the 3, because
I want to come down the table in order to pot 2.
So I can either a) run the cueball through a little on the 4,
leaving me an angle on the 3 to come down the table,
or b) screw back slightly to leave me an angle on the 3 to come
off the top cushion and down the table. I chose option b) in this
game, but either would have been fine, as long as the shot on the
3 wasn't too straight.
Ok, so now I've
decided on the route by thinking backwards from the black, now I
can take the shots in the right order. Below is a diagram where
the balls are numbered in the order I will take them, with lines
showing where the cueball will travel. Note that all these shots
require virtually no cueball travel, and virtually no spin - it's
all about keeping it as simple as possible:
Watching those
last 5 balls, it looks like this was an easy clearance, all the
pots being gentle without doing anything fancy to the cueball. But
it was only easy because I took the balls in an intelligent order.
The highest compliment you can give a pool player is "you
never had a difficult pot to make". Mad skillz may
be crowd-pleasing, but if you want to be really good at this game,
you need to FINK INNIT. I appreciate this tutorial may seem like
too much effort at first, but a), it's so important to think like
this, and b) after a while it becomes a lot easier.
"WAAAH!
I lost position!!!"
Ok, so you underhit
or overhit a shot and now that means you're not on the ball you
intended to be on in your clearance attempt. Your carefully thought-out
plan has backfired. The first thing to do when this happens is to
punch the table, fall to the floor and scream, "WHY DOES GOD
HATE ME?" Once you've finished that, just RE-EVALUATE
THE TABLE. You may need to change your mind about what
the last ball may be. This happens all the time - if you've still
got an easy pot on, but it's your previously-decided last ball -
you should then just work out a new order, and a new last ball,
from which to finish with an easy black. If the cueball has gone
in a place where the probability for the clearance is now less than
90% (see rules 1 and 2) because of a difficult pot, play safe, cover
a pocket, put your opponents balls safe, put the black safe, play
a deliberate foul if you have to - but don't risk losing a game
just because you think "I decided to go for the clearance and
I'm damned well not going to let losing position stop me!".
But if you do still have easy pots on, just re-evaluate the order
you take them in so that you can clear with as little complication
as possible.
More tips coming
soon. If you have any suggestions of your own, please email
me and I'll add to the list.
