I'm mostly a 9-ball player and recently I've been running the balls really well with a few break and runs here and there. I want to produce more break and runs however I realize that my break is holding me back. If I don't have a good break I have no chance of running out.
So I decided to do some serious research and figure out the trick to breaking well and always pocketing a ball. I knew the obvious stuff like breaking from the side rail and hitting the head ball full however there was a lot more info I was missing out on which I will share with you today.
I learned that if you know what you're doing you can read the rack (even bad racks) and depending on how the balls are racked you can pretty much always make one of the wing balls. The spacing of the gaps in a bad rack and the position of the dead balls tell you which spot on the table to break from. This is a pretty complicated concept to explain in the forum but you absolutely need to buy Joe Tucker's Racking Secrets DVD to fully understand. The article below summarizes some of the tricks but the DVD has much more info that you need:
http://thepoolscene.com/instructional/hjorleifsons-debut-article-secrets-9-ball-break
The second thing I learned is that when you're breaking from one of the side rails you can control where the head ball goes depending on your break speed. The head ball will always shoot out toward the side pocket. If you break very hard it will hit below the side pocket and if you break soft it will come further down table past the side pocket. This info is explained briefly in the following article:
http://thepoolscene.com/instructional/importance-breaking-running
So with these two major pieces of info we know where to shoot from and how hard to hit the rack. If everything goes perfect we will make the head ball and wing ball on every break. This gives you the best chance of running out.
My breaks have easily improved 200% and I'm breaking and running a lot more often.
I just figured I'd share my knowledge with everyone so everyone can improve their game. I'm also on an endless quest for more knowledge so if anyone has anything to add please do!
So I decided to do some serious research and figure out the trick to breaking well and always pocketing a ball. I knew the obvious stuff like breaking from the side rail and hitting the head ball full however there was a lot more info I was missing out on which I will share with you today.
I learned that if you know what you're doing you can read the rack (even bad racks) and depending on how the balls are racked you can pretty much always make one of the wing balls. The spacing of the gaps in a bad rack and the position of the dead balls tell you which spot on the table to break from. This is a pretty complicated concept to explain in the forum but you absolutely need to buy Joe Tucker's Racking Secrets DVD to fully understand. The article below summarizes some of the tricks but the DVD has much more info that you need:
http://thepoolscene.com/instructional/hjorleifsons-debut-article-secrets-9-ball-break
The second thing I learned is that when you're breaking from one of the side rails you can control where the head ball goes depending on your break speed. The head ball will always shoot out toward the side pocket. If you break very hard it will hit below the side pocket and if you break soft it will come further down table past the side pocket. This info is explained briefly in the following article:
http://thepoolscene.com/instructional/importance-breaking-running
So with these two major pieces of info we know where to shoot from and how hard to hit the rack. If everything goes perfect we will make the head ball and wing ball on every break. This gives you the best chance of running out.
My breaks have easily improved 200% and I'm breaking and running a lot more often.
I just figured I'd share my knowledge with everyone so everyone can improve their game. I'm also on an endless quest for more knowledge so if anyone has anything to add please do!
