In this article I want to look at a simple idea that will improve your game without a lot of work, but rather with some thinking.  We have looked at the benefits of rolling the cue ball softly and doing the minimum with the cue ball to improve our pocketing.  But you might ask, what if I have to move the cue ball around the table to get to my next shot.

The key idea here is putting your cue ball in a place that you can make the current shot and roll the cue ball to its next location in the easiest way possible.  Take a look at this diagram highlighting the right side and the wrong side of the ball. 

Getting on the right side of a shot means in most cases we only have to roll the cue ball to pocket our shot and move the cue ball.  Being on the wrong side of a shot means we have to do something with our cue ball.  Any time we start having to do things with our cue ball, we open the door for bad things to happen; bumping in to another ball, missing our position, or missing the shot!

Let’s see how this works in a game of 9 ball.

In this diagram we stun the cue ball over to get straight on the 2 ball.  This is the key to this lay out!  A simple stop shot on the 2 ball puts us on the correct side of the 3 to roll the cue ball two rails and fall on the short side of the 4.  From here it is a connect the dots run out as long as we stay on the right side of each shot.  Use some paper donuts and set this diagram up.  See how many times out of 10 you manage to run this out.

Here is another idea about getting on the right side of the ball that you may not be so familiar with.  Any time a cue ball is hit at an angle, both the cue ball and the object ball pick up some Collision Induced Spin (CIS).  We can use this idea to help us pocket balls.


Look at this diagram.  We have two cue balls, the dotted line cue ball is cutting the 1 ball to the right, and the solid cue ball is cutting the 1 ball to the left.  The solid cue ball puts a little right spin on the cue ball that helps pull the 1 ball into the pocket. 

The dotted cue ball is cutting the 1 ball to the right and putting a little left spin on the 1 ball, that tends to keep the object ball out of the pocket.  Getting on the right side of this shot means leaving your cue ball in a place that the collision induced throw helps pocket the object ball rather than tending to keep it out of the pocket.

Think about where you want your cue ball to make sure you put it in the most advantageous place.