By: Erik Hjorleifson
Good day Cue Sport Nation readers. I found this drill on Facebook a few weeks back and although I am not personally a huge fan of drills, I do think they can be beneficial especially when the shots that you have to execute in the drills are applicable to real game situations. I like this drill because most of the shots deal with balls that are very near a rail which is very common in the rotation games, particularly 9 ball. It also involves going up and down table on each shot which adds a nice level of difficulty in the drill. I don't know the player shooting in the video but he looks like a strong semi pro caliber player, and it is nice to see someone execute it with good quality.
For your interest I am going to give some insight into how he executed the shots in the drill.
Balls 1 to 3
-The 1 ball is fairly straight forward because he starts with ball in hand, I think there are two ways you could try to play position on the 2. You could take the wider track like he did or you could try to get straighter on the 2, I like the way he played the shot because this way you take out the variable of landing to straight on the 2.
-The 2 to the 3 is a nice shot, usually this type of shot is played drawing the ball past the side pocket not before it but because of the angle of this particular shot he executes it correctly. Notice that instead of floating the cue ball one rail he uses 2 rails for better control.
-the 2 to the 3 is pretty straight forward, using the rail to pay into the angle of the 4.
Balls 4 to 6
-The 4 to the 5 is a classic straight back power draw, watch how he lengthens his backstroke and follow through on the shot to create more power.
-On the 5 to the 6 I think I would have used a closed bridge, because the speed of the shot is pretty high. I would like to note as well that on shots like the 2 to the 3 and the 5 to the 6 he could also go 3 rails forward but the positioning of the balls in this drill dictate him to draw the ball two rails.
-The 6 to the 7 is a little tricky because I believe he over hit the position on the previous shot, he wanted to play more to the middle of the table. Kind of odd that he over hit it by so much but if he wasn't trying to play it to the middle I would definitely recommend to do that. I cant tell if he had the angle to go forward from the 6 to the 7 but if he did that is the right shot, if he chooses to draw it like he did I would have tried to draw the cue ball all the way back to the side rail and back into the angle for the 7.
Balls 7 to 9
- The 7 to the 8 is a simple one rail but notice the he chooses to play the natural angle instead of drawing the ball which some players might have done. He makes the right choice here, whenever you can move the cue ball naturally, or naturally with a tip of spin it is almost always the right choice.
-The 8 to the 9 is also a natural 1 rail follow
-the 9 to the 10 is one of the shots I'm not going to say what he did was wrong but personally I would draw the cue ball 4 rails to try and get underneath the 10 creating a more natural angle to get back on the 11. Notice that he ends up over hitting the shot from the 10 to the 11 which left him in his toughest spot in the run out.
Balls 10 to 12
-From the 10 to the 11 I would've followed the cue ball 1 rail to try and get more angle on the 11. The max draw angle on that shot was always going to leave him with a straighter shot coming off the third rail.
-From the 11 to 12 he executes a nice closed bridge on the rail shot this is a very tough bridge to execute and I would never suggest it unless you are powering a ball like he was here, you could also hit this with an elevated open bridge. It
was a tough shot all around and he got a little lucky with the cue ball, almost scratching but all around a very nice out.
I recommend that you watch the video 3 shots at a time to better follow the instructional analysis. Good luck hope this helps.
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