Snooker Side Spin Shots How To Aim

Sidespin can make some snooker shots easier to play, not just by helping you get into position, but occasionally, potting the ball becomes more straightforward. But unfortunately, these shots aren't easy to line up, so here's a quick guide on how to allow for sidespin. If I strike the cue ball in the centre, then it should leave my tip in a straight line. I was a fraction off perfect there, but not too bad. However, as you can see from the line here, the further to the left my tip strikes, the further to the right the cue ball's going to go. So if we want to pot the red here, we have to allow for this, and the tip mark on the ball represents how far off I'm aiming from where the cue ball actually ends up. And if you strike the cue ball on the right-hand side, it's going to go to the left by the same amount. So how do you know how much to allow for? The only way of knowing how much the cue ball's going to deflect is by testing it yourself and seeing what works. But it's not even that simple. Watch what happens to the line here when I strike the cue ball slightly higher. It straightens up slightly because the cue ball won't deflect as wide. And, as you might expect, if you strike further down the cue ball, it's going to deflect slightly wider, and it would go even further if you were to strike down at the cue ball. Now I can also have a big effect on how far the cue ball breaks. Watch the line the harder I intend to strike the cue ball on the right-hand side. It just makes it go to the left even further. And because power can affect the direction the cue ball travels in, you need to know how hard you're hitting the ball before you get to the table, so you can work out how much it's likely to deflect. What you don't want to do when you're at the table is suddenly decide to strike the cue ball either softer or harder than you intended to, because the extra pace has caused the cue ball to break wider and the red to miss. Something else you really don't want to be doing is playing these shots too slowly. Because when the cue ball slows down, it starts to grip the cloth, and whatever spin it has on it, like right-hand side here, makes it change direction. And allowing for this as well as the cue ball jumping wide makes it very difficult to play shots accurately and pot the balls. That's why in the shots we're going to look at, we're trying to avoid the cue ball spinning on the cloth, because this can be very difficult to judge, and this means we only have to focus on how much the cue ball deflects. So here are the shots that it's beneficial to play with side, starting with the most straightforward. Just rolling this red in slow isn't too difficult, but if we play it slowly, we won't get on the colour. If I've got to hit it a little bit harder in order to get out from the black, then it just makes it a bit missable. But if you play this shot with left-hand side, you can still pot it slowly as the cue ball accelerates off the first cushion and breaks a bit wider off the second, and this means it doesn't need anywhere near as much pace to get on the black. And all you need to do is judge correctly how much the white deflects off your tip. So this is how you play it. Strike the cue ball on the opposite side to the cushion and allow for a small amount of deflection. As long as you don't change your mind about the pace, you should be able to pot this fairly consistently. This is also a good way of getting the cue ball back out into the middle of the table when the object falls close to the pocket, although occasionally you'll have to play this cushion first. But this shot does need close proximity, because you can't really play it when you're too far away from the object ball. And that's because you have to play this shot quite slowly, and when you're this far away, that's going to cause the cue ball to spin on the cloth, and as I explained before, that's something we don't really want to let happen. So if you've got a shot at this distance, you're probably best off trying to play it without any side spin. Our next shot is potting the black off the spot when the cue ball's going towards the top cushion. If I play the shot over and over again, playing ball from exactly this position, I'll keep going between those two reds and canoning the pink. And the only real way of changing this angle is to play the cue ball with backspin and stun or screw the cue ball into the cushion, changing the angle. That is, unless you use sidespin. Not that playing this type of shot with backspin is necessarily a bad idea, but compared to a playing ball shot, I just find that it makes the pot a little bit more missable and a bit harder to control the way the cue ball comes back off the cushion, as well as the speed of the shot. So this is how it works. With a shot like this one, you can use right-hand side to mimic a stun shot. It'll come back in the same place if you play it right. And I find it a little bit easier to control than a stun shot. But you also have the option of using left-hand side to get the cue ball to go across the other side of the table. Because of the way the cue ball spins into the object ball, this is a very slightly harder shot to judge. But again, you only really have to allow for the deflection, as the cue ball doesn't have time to spin on the cloth from the sort of distances you'll be playing the shot from. Which means on this shot, not only can I run through the gap or stun back over here, but I can also get the cue ball over this side of the reds. And using side gives you a little bit more control as well. So these shots aren't very difficult to learn, and once you get used to them, they make break building around the black spot a lot easier. Shot three. This next shot is a very common one when you're clearing the table. It's just got a bit too much angle on the blue. Now, the trick to this is to use the top cushion. But as you can see, if we just play that plain ball, we're nicely on the pink, but we're way too close to the cushion, and that makes the pop difficult. So the trick to this is to use check side, which is just a fancy way of saying the cue ball's going to be trying to come off the cushion in the same direction that it went on. So in this case, we need to strike the cue ball with right-hand side. And watch the difference here in how much closer we are to the pink. It's a much easier shot than the previous one I had that was close to the cushion. So here's how it works. You might be a little bit further away from the object ball on this one than you were from the previous two shots. However, it doesn't matter, because you've got to hit it a bit firmer. So once again, you've only got to allow for the deflection, from this time, the left-hand side. And remember that you've just got to hit this a little bit harder, because you really don't want to leave the cue ball short of the pink. Even going a little bit further is better than leaving the cue ball there somewhere and having to go round the table again for the black. Now for a bonus shot. I'm assuming everybody already knows that if you play the cue ball towards a cushion with a certain side spin, it's going to come off in that direction. So you can use this to help you escape from snookers, like this shot where I'm trying to hit the red. If I played it plain ball, I wouldn't get anywhere near it. But if I play it with a lot of right-hand side, I can make the cue ball move towards the red off the cushion. A lot of these shots need to be played at a slower speed, so you will have to allow for the cue ball to spin on the cloth. But fortunately, it's such a big target, as you're only trying to hit the object ball, that this isn't really too difficult. And if you get good at this type of shot, you can start being really accurate. Shot 4. Next, we've got side to avoid things going wrong, like here where I just played it with backspin and ended up in the middle pocket. So the trick is, instead of playing this type of shot as a screw shot and risking the in-off or leaving the cue ball in this sort of area, to instead stun it to the side cushion with a small amount of right-hand side in this case. And that way, you don't go anywhere near the pocket and you're in better position on the blue. Once again, this is another firm shot, so you only need to be worried about the angle the cue ball's going to leave your tip at. And my advice with these is to stun them into the cushion and let the spin take you topside of the blue. Similarly, when you've got a thinner shot like this into the middle pocket and you're trying to play down for the black, it can be equally difficult to hold on that side of the table or finish in a good position. A stun shot can even go wrong quite easily and you end up in an undesirable position. So the solution with this one is to just use a bit of sidespin and guide the cue ball around the back of the black spot. Once again, if you can allow for the deflection, it's a very straightforward pot. And it's also fairly easy to control the line of the cue ball around the back of the black and know exactly how much side you're going to need. The only thing you need to make sure is you hit it hard enough. It's far better to go a little bit too far with this one and end up short. Shot 5 is where you can't quite see enough of the object ball in order to pot it. But if you use a lot of sidespin, you can actually turn the object ball over and make it travel towards the pocket. This one's a little bit harder because we're going to have to allow the spin to take because it's going to move on the cloth. But that's going to help us because we're going to use that spin, in this case, to get round the pink here. And not only is the spin going to make the cue ball spin round the pink, it's actually also going to make the red flick a little bit to the left-hand side from the point of view where I'm looking. So it means the shot's a little bit easier if you play it a bit slower. To play this shot, you need to strike the cue ball on the same side as the obstacle you're trying to spin it around. That's left-hand side here because we're trying to get around the brown. But the trick to it is not to play the shot as a swerve shot. Instead, just play it as though you're trying to pot the red and the obstacle isn't really there. So instead, you just play it as a slow shot with sidespin, trying to pot the red. And if you can do that, you should be able to play it. Shot 6. This is the break-up and it's probably the hardest shot we've looked at yet because you've got to allow for quite a bit of spin to take on the cloth between the distance of the D and the reds. And you're looking for quite an accurate contact. And this takes quite a bit of getting used to on a table you haven't played on before. And that's because the cue ball won't grip the cloth the same on different tables. And that makes this difficult because you have to hit the end red between half ball and quarter ball. Because even hitting half of the end red could be too thick and cause you to go in off. And hitting quarter of it could be too thin and result in you striking the blue on the way back down the table. So you actually have to be quite accurate with this one, which is difficult to do when you sometimes have to make a complete guess at how much the cue ball is likely to grip the cloth. Shot 7. The final shot to look at is reverse side, which is almost always played too hard to have to worry about the cue ball spinning on the table. But it's still a difficult shot because of where you have to strike the cue ball and the pace you need to play it at. But it is a nice trick to strike the cue ball on the left-hand side here and make it spin back to the right. Nearly forgot to do the mat, but Lord Chronic is in Helston in Cornwall, which is in there. So I've got two videos here that'll help you play shots with reverse side and help you break off better. 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