Become a professional billiards player - Stroke is of the essence

I truly believe that in order to become a true pro at anything you have to come back to the fundamentals. It's the same with billiards. In order to learn how to become a professional billiards player, stroke is of the essence. In this article I'll be letting you know about this fundamental rule of billiards, and I'll be providing exercise drills for you to use to improve your game.

Like the year old question, "What came first the egg or the chicken?" the question is, "What's more important, stroke or aim?" The answer is stroke. Don't get me wrong. Aiming is definitely important, but what good will aiming do if when you stroke incorrectly the ball goes nowhere near where you were aiming. It's like a hawk with great vision but with no claws to grab his prey with, or a sniper rifle with zoom-in vision but a twisted barrel. The hawk dies from hunger, and the sniper shoots his own butt.

It is important to get this fundamental key down before you learn how to become a professional billiards player. That is why I have developed this exercise routine that you can perform as much as you like. Get this routine down to the dot and you're ready for the next level.

This exercise consists of 2 phases, which aim to improve the precision of your stroke and ultimately improve your game tenfold, and at the end you get to play 8-ball to internalize and fine-tune what your body learned throughout the exercise.

Before you begin
When I began this journey towards of improvement I came across a great book by Phil Capelle. He uses a great system of training which I will be adopting and adapting to my own way of training. The difference between his method and mine is that I'm a bit annoyed at over explaining things and I'm more to-the-point so to speak.

1. The bullets: with bullets I mean the little circle-like thingies that are used to prevent binder paper from ripping when placing them on a binder. You sticker the little white donut circles on the hole of the paper and presto no more annoying ripping of the paper. Phil uses these to pinpoint exact positions on the table so that you can easily return your balls to the required position (no pun intended :). You can get these at any office supply store or even at the super market. They're very common.
2. The practice strokes: Before every shot you will need to do some practice strokes. Practice strokes are when you physically move the cue stick back and forth so as to hit the cue ball exactly where you want to hit it and with you cue stick aligned perfectly towards you targeted area. Think of it as rehearsal before the real thing. Phil recommends for practice stroke before every shot, as do I.
3. The mind scheme: Remember this is a TRAINING routine. It's important to keep this in mind since it will help smooth the learning curve. Make sure you stick to the limits I set for each exercise before trying anything crazy. Chances are that if you try things prematurely you will fail to internalize the fundamentals and then you game will suck forever. If this is the game you know and love you should have no trouble having fun even if it is "training". The fact is that if you love this game and your passionate about becoming the best player you can be the training WILL be fun no matter how repetitive or how many limits.
4. Stoke, feel, observe, and memorize: With every shot that you make do those four things. Take a deep breath, visualize the shot, make your practice strokes, shoot, feel with every muscle what you just did, then carefully observe the cue ball and where it goes, hits, and does thereafter, and finally, if the shot was successful, take note of what you did and memorize.
5. The diagrams: I'll be using diagrams all through the training exercises so as to help explain my point.

Exercise: The ball tunnel
There are 2 phases to this Exercise we'll begin with the first. Oh! And don't forget to place your balls back in place if you accidentally move them.

Phase 1


Ok, start by setting up your table as seen in figure 1. Create a sort of tunnel with four balls (It can be any balls). The idea is that the ball will travel from the starting point to the rail, and then bounce off the rail and stop exactly at the starting point. Yeah, that's right! The ball will stop right where it started. So basically you aim in a straight line from your stating bullet to the dot that is directly in front of the cueball (on the rail). It is important to note that if you hit the ball anywhere but directly in the center, you will fail. This is because by hitting the ball off to the side, you give the ball English (or effect) that will derail the ball after it bounces. So even if you hit the targeted spot on the rail you will hit one or more of the obstacle balls and fail to reach the starting point.

To help you out with this endeavor go ahead and place a bullet right where each ball should be. That way if you move anything by accident you will know exactly where to place each ball. You will also know where the starting point is.

Ok, I recommend repeating this exercise at least 50 times per session. Once your consistently landing the cue ball exactly at the starting point you can move on to phase 2 you the ball tunnel. Remember to HIT THE CUE BALL AT THE CENTER. Don't forget your practice strokes. Use them to visualize the shot. Do four practice shots before every attempt. Also, remember to stoke, feel, observe, and memorize. Without observation you're doing nothing. It's through a keen eye and observation that you will learn how to become a professional billiards player.

Phase 2


You should be getting the hang of the whole cue-to-center thing by now, if not don't sweat it all you need is more practice. Remember you're going to make A LOT of mistakes, but practice makes perfection so don't give up and keep at it.

To me this is the most exciting phase because this is what you see the pros do when they want to decide which player goes first. Both players shoot a cue ball by the long side of the table the hit the opposite rail. The ball then bounces back and the player who lands the ball closest to the rail on the starting point goes first.

So basically it's the same set up, but on steroids. Place you bullets as seen in figure 2. So remember what you learn from phase 2 have a firm grip, nothing should be moving side to side. Ok then, try it. Stoke, feel, observe, and memorize. Don't forget your practice strokes. Another 50 please!

8-ball time!
After you've completed all 100 shots (got done with them pretty quickly didn't you? ;) you should be feeling pretty pumped and ready to play some pool. The best game for this is 8-ball since it leaves a lot of balls to practice on. Be sure to check out 8ball Secrets for the rules of 8-ball, and further tips and secrets of playing pool (it will teach you how to become a professional billiards player).

Now, do NOT try any fancy shmamsy stuff, stick ONLY to hitting the cue ball in dead center. I know it's tempting but don't. Even though it's a game you're still in your training session. So doing crazy stunts will only set you back. And then the whole point of the exercise will be thrown away. Got it? Good :).

Well, that's it for this training session. Did you learn to stroke more efficiently? Remember that without a proper stroke all your aiming efforts will fail, due to the simple fact that if you hit the cue ball the wrong way it will go where ever it wants to go and not where you are aiming. So do the the ball tunnel and let me know if I can help in any way. Happy pool-playing!

Best regards,
Hidemat

PS: and be sure to check out the videos below!