On behalf of TVLesson.com, this is Roy Pastor. I’m a BCA accredited advanced level instructor with BilliardAcademy.com.
In this clip on beginner billiards, I’d like to show you how to aim in the game of pool. There are many, many aiming methods none of which are perfect. However, I’d like to show you one that is commonly used and it’s particularly good I think for beginners and it’s call the ghost ball technique.
To understand the ghost ball technique, you have to be able to distinguish between a contact point and an aiming or a target point. Let’s see what those things are. Take a look at the table. I have marked a white line on the table. Now, that white line is our line, intended line of travel. If I draw a line between this and onto the pocket through the center of my object ball, that’s where I want this object ball to travel to go to this pocket. I’ve also marked a little red dot on the edge of this object ball and that’s our contact point. Most of us know intuitively that that’s where the ball has to be struck in order to drive it along the line to come into this pocket. The difficulty is that unless you are in a straight in shot, that contact point is never your target point. You should never be aiming at that point.
Let’s see what the ghost ball technique is. If I put a second ball behind that line touching the contact point, we’ll know that that’s where the cue ball has to travel to contact this ball on that red dot to drive it along that line. So what we’re actually aiming for if you think about this, we’re actually aiming for the center of this ball. We’re going to drive the cue ball through the center of this ball to make that 12 ball at the correct location. Now, a little background, all of these balls are 2 ¼ inches in diameter. So the ghost ball technique tells us that I’m visualizing a second ball behind this 12 ball and that’s where I’m aiming for. Now mathematically, what this is, this is a half ball’s width beyond the object ball on that line so that’s 1 1/8 inch. If I travel along this line of travel past the object ball, it’s 1 1/8 beyond that contact point and that’s where I have to aim the center of the cue ball to contact it at the correct location.
You may say, “Roy, how am I going to imagine 1 1/8 inch at some place and space around the table?” Well, if you have difficulty, there are many, many commercially sold ghost ball or devices to help you learn how to do this. One is prepared by my teaching partner at the University of Connecticut Walter Sincabage. And if you look at this device, I will place it underneath the ball, and this gives you a target spot. So the difference between this contact point and this white dot is exactly 1 1/8 inch. So whether I’m located here or here, that’s my contact point. That’s my target point, that white dot. It’s 1 1/8 inch beyond. So if I take this ball, I’m going to aim at the white spot, I can’t miss.
On behalf of TVLesson.com, this is Roy Pastor. Thank you for watching.
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