Focus on position and stay down and watch what the cue ball does after contact. This lets you know everything, the tangent line how that ball reacted after hitting a rail. When i was in my 20's and 30's all i focused on was making the balls. I believed if i could pocket balls good enough if could see it i could make it. I dont care how good you are at pocketing balls if you dont learn how to control whitey every rack is a struggle. If you are at the stage where you are working on just making balls. The best advice i can give is in order to pocket balls you need to know exactly where center of the cue ball is and you need to deliver a straight stroke. So I know this is boring compared to throwing balls out and pocketing balls but practice width of table and length of table with just the cueball having it return to the tip of cue after your stroke. Do about a dozen slow speed, dozen medium across table to you get consistent. The length of table same. this will train you to see the center and let you know if your stroke is causing a problem at increase speeds. Next work on straight in shots increasing distance and speed but still only center ball. Do not move on to top or bottom yet. Always work on your stroke and approach. fix the flaws with body alignment, firm bridge, if you are using closed bridge snug up the fingers on the shaft, be aware of your wrist position, elbow position, loose grip on the cue, take a lot of practice strokes before you execute the shot and watch what your shaft is doing if it is going in a straight line. I thought i was doing everything right for a long time all this i had down but i was missing long straight ins by a mile sometimes especially when i was hitting the cue ball harder. Took me a long time to narrow it down. That loose grip, was'nt loose before impact with the cue ball. I was gripping the cue right before impact and it was throwing my tip off center.
