Snooker Cue Ball Spin Control Break Building Tips

Breakbuilding. The art of scoring the highest number of points for a single opportunity. Just like a game of chess, the greater your understanding of where to put the pieces, the easier it becomes to play. And the more successful you'll become just by understanding when to deploy each move. But what if I'm likely to miss? That doesn't matter because it's factored into the strategy. And by deploying the correct move for your game, you're going to play better no matter what your ability. Because the best players in the world still miss. We even have a way of working this out. It's called a pot success rate. And when things are going well, a professional snooker player will be getting 90%. This means for every 100 pots they attempt, 90 of them will be going in the pocket. Increase pot success rate. It doesn't matter if your pot success rate is a lot lower than this because I'm more likely to pop this red when I'm here in position on it than when I'm here out of position on it. So we can define being in position as somewhere you're more likely to pot a ball than your average pot success rate. So you can increase your pot success rate by staying in position longer. And to do that, you need to know the right moves. How to maneuver the cue ball. On a straight shot, these are the three moves we can make. Starting with a stun shot where you strike the cue ball just far enough below center to make it stop dead on impact with the object ball. A run-through shot where you strike the cue ball above center to make it follow through. And a screw shot where you strike the cue ball below center to make it backspin when it strikes the object ball. But you're not always straight behind the shot. Most of the time the cue ball's at an angle. So we can simplify this by saying we have straighter shots where the cue ball runs through straight. Angled shots where the cue ball runs through but to the side. And thinner shots where the cue ball doesn't really run through the object ball. It glances off at an angle. When you combine these three different angles and these three different spins, it gives us a total of nine different moves we can make. For example, on this black I'm playing a stun shot at an angle. The whole point of this video is to show you that some of these moves are more helpful for keeping in position than others. This is what we're trying to do. The objectives. The first objective is to get in position on the next ball in a way that both increase your chances of potting it and make the next positional shot from that ball more straightforward. This means leaving yourself in position on the next shot to help you get in position on a third. This is crucial because every time you pot a ball you want to be thinking three moves ahead. So here we're looking at potting the red the first shot. The second shot being the black that we're trying to get in position on. But not only that, the third shot, this next red, we've got to end up in position on the black in a way to get back on the next ball. The second objective is to find the positional shot where the cue ball needs to move the least distance. I was only trying to run through a little way but I've overhit it making the black harder and causing me to run away from the next red. But instead of running it through if I played the stun shot on that red then I'd still have been in position. And this is less likely to go wrong because the cue ball isn't moving as far. In fact it's not going anywhere at all. And the third objective is to try to keep away from cushions where possible because you're not just making the pot harder you're making the subsequent positional shot harder as well. Improving accuracy of cue ball control. And the easiest way to do that is with a straight stun shot. Watch this. Because I've set the balls up perfectly here I can play seven stun shots in a row meaning I only have to play a comfortable pot and stun shot to keep position. And admittedly this won't happen too often in a game. But you do get situations where we're looking to play the black our first shot and we see that potentially our second shot could be this red that's already in position on the third shot the pink if we play a straight stun shot. So what we've got to do is get straight on that red and then we have a simple reliable shot to play to get on the next colour. But of course there's not always a stun shot that'll get you in position. Sometimes you have to make the cue ball move like here and I think the easiest two ways of doing this are a run through shot or possibly a run through shot at a slight angle. Once again we're on the black but we're not just looking to pot it the first shot we're also looking to get on the red the second shot in a way to get back on the black the third shot. So the best way to get from red back to black is to leave ourselves a straight run through shot because if we do that all we've got to do is play the red at the correct pace. The position for the black is guaranteed but are those straight run through shots and angled run through shots are some of the easiest to control they're not necessarily the easiest shots to get on in the first place with the correct angle. That's if we go back to this situation again it can be more reliable to leave yourself angled stun shots because if we play for the red and leave it short we won't be able to get back to the black again. So we can make sure we get on the red by playing the first shot on the black and going high and that way we can play the second shot the red and stun back down for the black and then we can play another stun shot back up for the next red or more precisely an angled screw shot which is the next best way to get in position. This is just as helpful as the previous shots but is a little bit harder to control and because you have to put quite a lot of backspin on the cue ball it makes the pot all the more difficult. The next shot is the straight screw shot which always looks impressive but isn't necessarily the most helpful. For example here it doesn't allow me to get on the whereas if I had a good angle on the blue there's now so many ways I can get in position. Don't get me wrong straight screw shots do have their uses but often when you're playing them it's because you've been forced down a dead end. Usually when you've ended up thin on a shot it's because you've slightly lost position. The only exceptions to this is when you've got to move the cue ball a long way down the table or when you're trying to open the reds and thin screw and stun shots can be very helpful for opening up the reds. Also the odd exhibition shot as well I suppose but other than this you want to be mostly avoiding them. So this gives us a list of the most helpful ways to stay in position in order but that doesn't mean one of the options at the top of the list is necessarily going to be on. For example here I have two fairly straightforward shots one I can play for the black the other I can play for the pink. Both of these shots are angled screw shots which is an option towards the middle of the list and that's absolutely fine and this is because I'm in position on these two reds whereas I'm not in position on the other two reds. So even though they're more desirable positional shots I'll pop them less than my average pop success rate. So here's how you move around the table in the most efficient way. How to break build. To start off with I need an angle on the blue to get down for the reds and I can get away with just playing a stun shot and I could roll through down for the reds but the stun shot leaves me in better position. I need to be accurate with the next positional shot because I need to roll through for the perfect position on the black to get through to the red on the top cushion. I left this a little bit short and should have changed my plan and not run through to the other side and just stun back to this side of the red. But you will make mistakes like this and what's important is my position is just about good enough on the red to hold for the black if I roll it in slowly. A tougher pot than I would have wanted but I'm in position on the black and my best option for getting on the next red is an angled stun shot and getting top side of the red is critical on this shot because I need an angle to be able to screw down for the black to be able to roll across for the next red. I have a little bit too much angle on the black so I can't get as close to the red as I want to but importantly I leave the white close enough to the cushion to leave an angle on the next red. Now if I pause it here I need to make sure I pop the red but also maximize my chances of being able to get on the yellow and the way I do this is by running through far enough so I've got an angle on the black to get me back down the table. As I explained earlier thin shots are great for making the cue ball move long distances because you don't have to play them with too much pace. Now you won't be able to do this without a lot of practice but it makes it a lot easier if you choose the best possible option for both the shot you're playing and the next one. Let's just quickly find Kevin in Gainesville, Florida. There it is. Maximizing your chance. But you won't always get a decent chance, it's important to remember especially in the amateur game often you'll come to the table with not a lot to go at and sometimes nothing at all and it's important to just take what you can and then play safe. Each player will usually only get on average one decent chance like this in the and it's the amount you make from this situation that makes a big difference. This might be somewhere between two and five reds but the difference between making six and 40 can be the difference that decides who wins it because this could be your only easy chance and if you don't take it things are going to become a lot more difficult. However there are still plenty of chances to sign up for the rocket method it's my ultimate snooker course. I want to teach you my method and mindset to play snooker at the very highest level. Sign up now on www.snooker.online don't miss out on working with me to get your snooker game to a whole new level. And you can get the rocket method at a discounted price by using a promotional code break. We've only been looking at the basic moves of break building once you start using sidespin there's a thousand different ways of getting in position. But sidespin can be difficult to understand and make it awkward to line shots up so I've got two videos that help you with just that. And remember don't just watch play and make the commitment to becoming a better player by subscribing to the channel and visit the website. See you later.