Winning the break is an essential part of a defensive 8 ball strategy. You must devote yourself to winning the break, and focus on never letting your opponent take the first break shot. When you are executing your break shot, focus on a medium-paced break shot, and avoid full-powered break shots. Concentrate on pocketing the two solid balls on the wide ends of the triangle. (wing balls) You’ll also want to try and leave the 8 ball entangled with several balls from the striped group.

If you have accomplished the above defensive 8 ball strategy successfully, you will note that the solid group of balls will always have the advantage. Strive to pocket a few more solid balls in the inning. When preparing to shoot, consider where the cue ball will end up after the shot plays out. Try to ensure that if you miss your shot, your opponent is snookered or does not have any easy plays and open shots.

To accelerate your defensive 8 ball strategy, try shooting with a lower level of power. This will help to ensure that if you miss your shot, the object ball will still hang out very close to the intended pocket. Not only will you be set up for an easy shot, but you’ll also be effectively blocking that pocket for your opponent. This is called holding the pocket.

Finally, when playing out the game, observe where most of your opponents balls are clustered, and implement a pocket holding strategy in that area if possible. Of course, you’ll want to delay pocketing those balls holding the pockets until absolutely necessary.

Players soon decided to travel with their own cues, since they noticed that they played better with a familiar instrument, and the two-piece cue became an overnight necessity. About that time, cuemakers invented methods to secure the two pieces of the cue. This spawned the invention of several modern-day joints that pool cues use today. Several advancements have been made to enhance the pool cue and it’s playing characteristics, but for the most part all cues have the same elements of construction; butt, shaft, joint, tip and ferrule.
There are numerous brands of pool cues available in the market today.  Most of the brands fall into two basic categories; custom cues or production cues.  Custom pool cues are cues that have hand chosen materials and have an artisan construct them to the highest qualities.  They would be synonomous with a Ferrari.   Production cues usually lack a portion of the hands o­n attention that a custom cue receives, but they also lack the price tag that accompanies the more sought after custom names.  Make no mistake, a good production cue will improve a players’ game.  Production cues can be synonomous with anything from a Ford Escort to a Cadillac or a Lexus. Prices range from $10 to over a $1000 in this category.  The best way to judge these cues is by the way they feel in your hand.

What most players need to do is to get away from house cues that have lousy tips and varnished shafts.  These o­ne-piece cues or bar cues are synonomous with a subway or city bus.  They’ll get you top where you’re going, but it won’t be in style and rarely o­n time.  In a word, o­ne-piece cues offer limited playing characteristics.  The characteritic that most house cues lack is the materials of construction.  The most important of this category is the wood in the shaft.   It should be a Hard Rock Canadian Maple and not Pine or Ramin wood.  These woods are not flexible oand do not allow the cue stick to bend and apply english during the stroke.  A shaft that bends during the shot is like a loaded rubber band or spring that snaps back and releases energy into the cueball in the form of speed and spin.  So the next time you’re forced to shoot with a bar cue, choose the o­ne that has a shaft made from Canadian Hard Rock Maple.

When the cue ball is hit above it’s center line, as in a follow shot, the cue ball will travel at an angle less than 90 degrees from the direction of the object ball after the two collide. This will of course vary with the degree of “follow” or “top-spin” that is used as well as with the amount of cut or angle used in the shot.

With a billiard follow shot, the direction of the cue ball after contact increases toward 90 degrees as the angle of the “cut” increases. Likewise, the opposite of this is also true. This means that there is a high degree of risk for a scratch while using billiard follow shots without any “cut” put in to the shot. This is because the direction of the cue ball after contact decreases toward 0 degrees as the angle of the “cut” decreases.

The stun run through is shot that needs an accurate strike on the cue ball, good timing, and a good feel for the pace of the table.

You should aim to hit the cue ball a half of a tip to three quarters of a tip above center, no side spin. The stun/draw shot is at the krux of this drill. Here is a little clip of a well-executed stun shot with draw.

This drill focuses on stun shots or stop shots that actually draw back at a slight angle to give you position for your next shot. To set up the drill place a number of object balls in a line around the corner pocket as follows:

The stun run through is a shot that needs an accurate strike on the cue ball, good timing, and a good feel for the pace of the table. You should aim to hit the cue ball a half of a tip to three quarters of a tip above center, no side spin. The stun/draw shot is at the crux of this drill. Here is a little clip of a well-executed stun shot with draw.

Begin at Position A, pot the 1-Ball in the corner with a crisp stroke of the cue. The result should be the cue ball floating on its natural path back, and over to Position B, leaving the necessary angle on the next ball. Continue down the line as far as possible. Your goal should be to purposely bring the cue ball back out to as close as possible to where it started, while still pocketing the ball you are shooting at.

Billiard Stroke Drill 1

The shot involves the set up below, with the english shown. Because you are applying some left english you must aim your object ball to the left point, or side of the pocket, depending on the conditions. The desired cue ball position is IMPOSSIBLE unless you have a perfect stroke on the shot. The better your stroke, the better your position on the 8-ball. It looks simple, but this is a hard and frustrating drill at first, but it really teaches you “stroke”.

Billiard Stroke Drill 2

Using the same english try to get the same desired result of good position on the 8. Again you must aim to the extreme left side of the pocket or the point, and you MUST have a good stroke to do this drill.