Master Snooker Shots Unlock Your Full Potential

Knowing how to play this type shot well will make a huge difference to your game because once you pop along red, you can never be exactly sure where the white's going to end up. If it ends up here somewhere, you can then just play the bolt colour and get back down the table. If it lands here somewhere, you've still got quite a simple shot into the middle pocket to get back down the table. But if it ends up somewhere in between, things aren't so easy. Most players will play safe in this situation because what I'm about to show you is quite a difficult shot, but with enough practice you can learn how to screw the cue ball in and out of bulk and back down the table. Usually you're only leaving yourself a chance of a long red, but it's a good way to keep a break going. This is a really difficult shot, but given enough practice you can quickly become confident at this overpowered shot that gets you a lot more chances in the game than you normally would have. Most of these shots aren't easy to play, but if you practice them, you can quickly get used to these overpowered shots. And these are the 10 you want to be practicing the most to improve your game. Finishing straight on the black is rarely a good thing because it limits your options. When you're straight on something, you can only ever really go forwards or backwards. Now if I go forwards here, I'm not going to end up in position. So that means I have to come back, but that doesn't really guarantee I'll end up in good position either. An incredibly helpful shot for when you finish in this situation is the reverse side shot, because it helps the cue ball ping up the table with sidespin as soon as it hits the cushion. The way you do this is you strike the cue ball with backspin and the opposite sidespin to which you want the cue ball to go. So in this case, it's right hand side, and that makes it move to the left when it strikes the cushion. Once again, this isn't the easiest shot to get right. This time because you have to put quite a lot of sidespin on the cue ball and allowing for that can easily make you miss the pot. So it needs a lot of practice to get right, but it's worth it because once you learn how to spin the cue ball back off the cushion sideways like this, you'll be able to get in position a lot more often. Next to the break off shot, but it's not really about breaking off, it's about using this shot in other areas of the game. When you break off, you use sidespin to manoeuvre the cue ball to the other side of the table, and you do this by using a thicker contact, and you can use both of these things to your advantage. For example, with this shot, I've got a fairly straightforward safety shot. As long as I hit it thin, I end up coming back safe, but the problem is I end up leaving the same shot for my opponent. So a lot better solution is to play the shot thicker with a lot of sidespin like you would with the break off, spin the cue ball around the table, and all of a sudden your opponent is in a lot more trouble. It can also help you out with this type of safety where you have to hit it pretty thin to get the cue ball back down the table, and if you don't cover the red, it's heading towards the pocket, so you're likely to leave your opponent on. This is where the break off shot can help us once again because it allows us to contact the red a lot thicker and still get the cue ball back down the table, and because we've struck that red a lot thicker, it's come away from the pocket, and we're not leaving as easy a shot on as we were before. It doesn't matter how good you are, you're not always going to be able to make it topside of the blue, so you can simply get back down the table for a red. Sometimes you're going to end up the wrong side of the blue and have to go in and out of bulk to get back in position, but getting the cue ball in and out of bulk, avoiding the colours and back down for a red can be difficult, so it's incredibly helpful to practice this shot. But it's also incredibly beneficial to know which shot to play. For example, with the red over that side of the table, what I want to do with this one is play the cue ball between the green and brown with right hand side and backspin, and that's going to make it go towards the red off a couple of cushions. But this time, if the red's on the opposite side of the table, I'm going to want to play this the other way. So this time I'm using backspin and left hand side to manoeuvre the cue ball between the yellow and the brown, and hopefully spin it on towards the red. So the side takes effect, and it comes back towards the red in this direction. This next one's a little bit more simple, but it comes up quite a lot, especially when you get a thinner shot, like this pink into the middle pocket, and you're looking to try and get in position on the black. Because the best way of doing this is to manoeuvre the cue ball round the back of the black. So the way you do that is using sometimes a small amount of running side, like this, and you just, as long as you pop the ball, you've just got to get the angle right, so you come round the back and finish on the black. It really helps if you practice this shot a lot, because it comes up quite often in a game. It's surprising how often you finish a bit out of position on the yellow like this, and that's why it can be incredibly helpful to know how to play the shot where you stun the cue ball around two cushions per side, and end up in position on the green. This really isn't an easy shot, so it does need practice. To play this shot you need right hand side and backspin, but you don't want to be striking the cue ball too low, because that's probably what players get wrong the most with this shot, where they just put too much backspin on the cue ball. But at the same time you really need to learn this shot. This is one of the ultimate feel shots in the game, but it can dig you out of trouble so many times. It's really worth learning. It's a bit too hard really. Another feely type of shot is a roll-up snooker behind a bolt colour. Players often tell me they lack confidence with this type of shot, but this type of shot is really all about confidence. You have to be confident how hard you're going to play it, because if you change your mind it won't work. And it's interesting how accurate you can be with this shot when you play it with confidence and don't doubt yourself. A couple of tricks to this. It's usually harder to escape from a snooker when the cue ball's closer to a cushion, so if you've got a choice like this, pick the ball to roll up behind that's closer to the cushion. Secondly, if you just need to get the snooker, make sure you're pushing the object ball towards the reds and you're hitting it hard enough. It doesn't matter if that object ball runs on quite a bit here, because you can't see the reds. And escaping from a snooker like this will be almost as challenging as if it was right up behind the yellow. Before the next shot, we've just got to find MK Soto is. He's in Northampton, England, which is in there. The next shot seems simple because it's a ball over a pocket, which you'd think would be easy to get in position, but it's actually very easy to overhit this or get completely the wrong line. And this is often because you have to play these shots quite slowly. And if the cue ball just happens to roll off a little bit, you can either hit it too thick or too thin and not end up anywhere near in the position you were looking for. Again, I'm suggesting you practice these shots because they can be incredibly crucial, but also you know which shot to play. So that might be thin off a single cushion, playing a cue ball with sidespin around two cushions, or like here where I'm looking to screw the cue ball back onto the black. Being comfortable with this type of shot is crucial to making any sizeable break. Getting into the position on the yellow off the black can be a challenging shot unless you know exactly where to put the cue ball. Position one is here. Now this doesn't make for the easiest of pots on the black, but the great thing about this shot is as long as you pop the black at a slow speed, the cue ball automatically travels towards the yellow. And if you're not quite in this position, you can just play the same shot with a small trace of sidespin and get closer to the yellow. Position two is here on this side of the table. Somewhere I'll try and end up off the last red to get black to yellow. And again, not the easiest of pots, but as long as I pop the black at a relatively good pace, then the white's automatically going to travel towards the yellow once again. Lastly is bouncing the cue ball. You'll notice here I don't have much angle on this red, so ordinarily it would be difficult to stun out for the black. But if I just strike down on the white just a little bit, it actually makes it jump out a lot further. And look at that, I've got there without really too much effort. This one's probably the simplest one of the lot. All you need to do is strike down just a little bit of the cue ball with whichever shot you're going to play, and it'll make the cue ball break a bit wider when it strikes the object ball. And this allows you to make a little bit more angle, and it'll really help you with position. But if you want even more help with position or even cue ball control, then have a look at these two videos that will show you how to do exactly 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.