How to Understand a Throw in Billiards

On behalf of TVLesson.com, this is Roy Pastor. I’m a BCA accredited advanced level instructor with BilliardAcademy.com.

In this clip on advanced billiards, I’d like to show you how to make an adjustment in your aim for the effects of throw.

First of all, let’s talk about, what is throw? If you look at the balls that I’ve set up on the table, I have the 9 ball set up and I have my ghost ball device. So I got that little red line on my ghost ball device. It shows you that if I hit the cue ball on this little white dot, the 9 ball is going to hit that 3 ball that is about three quarters of a dime and away from that corner pocket.

So if I place a ball in my ghost ball device, if you look at it, this line of aim will go directly for that 3 ball if I shot it right through the center. But let’s talk about the effects of an angled shot. Anytime you have a cut shot, you have what’s called throw. When the balls connect at an angle, they grab on for a little bit of an instant. There’s a little bit of friction involved and the object ball tends to get thrown over in the direction that the cue ball was coming. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to take this cue ball, I’m going to strike the center of my ghost ball so that would have the same effect as if I had cut that 9 ball at that location. But we know that at that contact point, the 9 ball should hit the 3 ball. So what I’m going to do—but let’s look to see what really happens. Let’s see where the 9 ball ends up. I’m going to hit the cue ball straight into this 1 ball, that will mimic that effects of a cut shot and then we’re going to see where that 9 ball goes.

Let’s take a look now at the effect of this 9 ball when I come at it at an angle, then let’s see how the shot works. You see that I missed that 3 ball a good three or four inches and I moved it over even though the line of aim was directly at the 3 ball. In most scenarios, you’ll have at about that angle that I shot that cue ball. The throw will have about one inch for every 12 inches down the table. It will be one inch moving over to that side and you have to make your adjustment frame. And that’s what happens when you make an account for the throw when you’re shooting on a game of pool.

On behalf of TVLesson.com, this is Roy Pastor. Thank you for watching.


Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services