There are some great books like the 8 Ball Bible.
Read mohr's excellent 8 ball layout posts, he's made almost 20 of them in the past few weeks,
and many of the comments in there show a very advanced way of looking at a tricky rack of 8 ball.
This is one way to dissect each 8 ball rack. I didn't intend for it to be this long,
but I think it's gonna help you. I was in the same boat once.
• Scan the table. Does either group have zero problems, and is 100% runnable
(no blocked pockets, no tricky position required, every ball goes into its nearest
sensible pocket)? That's the group you want.
If both groups are that way (pretty rare) then take the group that 'controls' the 8,
meaning blocks it from going into pockets. If neither group controls the 8, just go with the easiest opening shot.
• If both groups have problems, you pick out balls that solve those problems... balls that easily break clusters,
balls that allow you to play shape into a small window, etc. After doing this, you usually will have a sense that
one group has more problems with no obvious solution. That group's much less runnable than the other.
Notice I keep mentioning 'runnable', at the highest levels, you are trying relentlessly to run out.
Your gameplan will almost never be "I'll sink these 4 balls, then play safe off this other ball".
If you absolutely can't run out but like one group better, make a single ball in that group and then do your safe.
Try to reposition a ball into an area that solves one of your problems, while leaving the opponent nothing.
If you try to run the rack and fail halfway through, it makes things 100x easier on the opponent to win.
He doesn't even have to run out, just run a few and then hook you on your remaining balls.
But if he's any good he will probably run out because you removed half the traffic from the table.*
• If you're going to take a gamble in a rack, such as an unnatural forced breakout or difficult shot,
do it as early in the possible in the rack. That way if you miss, the table is as tough as possible to run for him.*
Also whenever you go into a cluster, try to imagine what ball you can realistically shoot afterwards if successful.
This is called the 'insurance ball' in straight pool. Do NOT count on it being the ball you just broke out!
Just assume that the broken out ball will NOT work out and have an insurance ball picked out ahead of time.
If no insurance ball seems to exist, you may have already shot it off the table... doh.
In that case, your best bet is usually to go into a breakout softly and hit your ball before the opponent's ball.
You don't need to blast breakouts apart, you only need to move them a few inches. And if you go into
them softly, the outcome is more predictable. If you're forced to shoot the broken out ball,
it will be a lot easier from just a few inches away.
*Note your strategy in league pool might be a little different, in games where each ball is worth a point.
Then you usually want to cash in as many points as you can.
• In terms of patterns, going from the top down (clear one half, then the other) is not bad, but it really
applies mostly to wide open tables. If you have problems to solve,
solve them early.
Even if you have a gameplan for them, do not take balls off the table and say "and on my fourth shot,
I'll go ahead and break that cluster"... break it on your first or second shot if it all possible.
Don't save it til the end. Once all the balls are opened, then you can pretty much roll your own.
Get rid of stragglers at the top of the table, then move on to the bottom.
• Pick out a key ball to get on the 8 ball. The kind of ball where, if you did a simple stop shot on it,
you'd have a pretty good shot on the 8. But don't count on getting a simple stop shot into the side pocket,
unless the ball is pretty close to the side. Getting straight in on a ball that's like 18" from the side is often
difficult and something can go wrong. Then you're forced to move the cue ball all around the table to recover.
A corner pocket shot where the object ball is fairly close to the rail is better.
• There are sort of three phases to the rack...
1. Getting control of the table
2. Solving problems
3. Running out.
Getting control: Your very first shot is crucial, especially if it's after the break.
You almost never want to shoot a missable ball here.
If I see that solids has 2 problems and stripes has only one, but all the stripes are tough shots
that I'm like 40% to make... then I'll just take solids. On the other hand if stripes
have a 75% shot, and the solid problems are hard to solve, I may gamble on that missable stripe.
I can't really give an exact formula for this but as a rule of thumb, don't shoot a shot you can miss.
Sometimes your first shot is missable for either group. Then you might as well gamble on the better group.
And occasionally your first shot is so awkward all you can do is cinch it, and then your next shot is tough too.
When that happens, just remember, you never want to run half the balls and then miss.
Is it worth it to take a flyer at a tough ball, ESPECIALLY if you 'earmarked' that ball to solve a problem?
Solving problems: Again just do this as early as you can. Some guys get locked in an "insurance blocker"
mindset where they refuse to touch a ball blocking one of the opponent's balls or tied up with one of his balls.
That's amateur thinking. It's fine to save a blocker if it's 100% makeable for you, but ruins one of his balls.
But most of the time it's not that simple, and both balls are unmakeable (or his ball is more makeable
than you thought... lots of ways to deal with blockers... bank it in, make it follow in one of his hangers,
play position on the 'short side' of the ball, etc.). Play to run the rack, don't play to sink half your balls
and then get mired down in a safety battle. When two balls are tied up so that neither one goes,
the guy with the advantage is the guy with more balls on the table. He can more easily play a safe
that results in ball in hand, and he has more 'ammo' for breaking up the cluster.
Running out: By the time you shoot any difficult opening shots, and then attack your problems,
and then reserve a single ball to get on the 8... you may only have like 3 left.
In that case the pattern will be pretty obvious.
Don't shoot a ball you can miss just for the sake of a "prettier pattern"!
Don't "save the easy ones for later"! Use them to get shape on the hard ones.
OK, to sum up, some common mistakes I see (and made) at the intermediate level:
- Selling out when the opponent has few balls left, or is on the 8.
When the opponent only has one or two balls left, you should either run out,
or immediately look for a really nasty safety that virtually guarantees ball in hand.
He should never see those balls again.
If you're trying to run out and get a little 'funny' and all shots look missable, you ALWAYS ALWAYS
play a two-way, meaning leaving him no shot on his final balls (or the 8).
Look for a shot where the natural leave gives him at MOST a tough bank shot if you miss.
Never take shot where missing = you 100% lose. Not if you can help it.
And if you only need to hide from one or two balls, it's ok to play safe halfway through the run.
I know, that sort of contradicts what I said earlier
But it's an exception.
The point is, don't leave the table on a miss... Unless the miss has built in safety.
Simply missing and selling out is the worst thing you can do in this game.
Other mistakes:
- Always going for the group with fewer balls, because they think that means it's easier.
The number of balls you made of stripes or solids on the break is
100% irrelevant.
Do not count them, do not care about it. Look for the most
runnable group.
That sometimes is the group with more balls on the table.
As a side note, good players don't worry about how many balls were left after the win either.
- Overthinking the first shot and taking a flyer at a hard shot just to get the better group.
Having the better group is important, but not as important as keeping control of the table.
- Saving hangers for later and passing them up to shoot a missable shot. Don't shoot missable balls.
Use the hanger to get better position on the next ball. Then it won't be missable anymore.
- Saving "blockers" to prevent the other guy from running out. This is a scared way of thinking.
Play to run the rack, don't play like you're definitely going to miss later and you need to prevent
his runout. You might think "but I almost never have run a rack. I do it once a year!"
...well in that case your opponent is probably at a similar skill level so you might as well shoot
those blockers because even if you mess up, he probably won't run a wide open table.
And if he's better than you, shoot the blockers anyway because good players can figure out
a way to work around blockers.
- Shooting away balls that are necessary to solve problems. If there's only one ball near a cluster,
and you shoot it without breaking out the cluster, you're probably not going to run out.
If you're not going to run out, you might as well leave it there to solve the problem later,
and just take a harder shot instead.
- Leaving a lousy "key ball" to get the 8. Any ball near the head spot or head rail usually sucks for getting on the 8.
A lot of guys dog runouts and think "man I always choke on the 8". Well, maybe you choked or maybe you tried
your best but you left yourself an unnecessarily difficult 8 ball. Try instead to leave yourself a 'dogproof' shot
on the 8. It's so much nicer shooting an 8 ball from 2 feet away, off the rail, and straight in...
vs. a 50 degree cut, frozen to the rail, north of the side pocket.
There may be more I'm not thinking of but this is turning into a novel so I'ma leave it here.
Good luck.
don't miss. 
