Speed control
Dr. Dave ranks speed control as the most important fundamental after pocketing balls and controlling the cue ball's direction, and says it is developed mainly through practice and feel. His method: vary speed with the length of your backswing while keeping the same stroke, the way golfers putt and chip, and never decelerate into the cue ball.
Advice quoted on his site adds three habits that make speed easier: plan patterns that do not demand precise speed, play shape along the line of the next shot rather than across it, and master pocket speed before you try to control longer distances.
Principles of pattern play
- Keep it simple. Use stop shots and a rolling cue ball wherever you can. Avoid side spin, multi-rail routes and banks you do not need.
- Leave an angle, on the correct side. A dead-straight leave limits you to follow, stop or draw. A modest angle on the right side of the next ball lets you send the cue ball where you want.
- Think three balls ahead. Identify the key balls, especially the one that sets up the game ball.
- Enter the shape zone along its long side. Coming into the line of the next shot through the wide part of the area you are aiming for gives you more room for speed errors than crossing it.
- Use cushions as brakes when you need the cue ball to finish near a rail.
- Clear trouble early. Pocket balls in groups, and break up clusters and problem balls while you still have easy "insurance" balls left.
- Prefer corner-pocket shape to side-pocket shape unless the side shot comes naturally, and favor long-side shape.
The 45-degree rule
A cue ball rolling into a short rail at about 45 degrees will come off two rails toward or through the center of the table without scratching. A little outside spin self-corrects small errors in the entry angle.
A shape tip for balls hanging in a corner
When an object ball hangs in the jaws of a corner pocket and the cue ball is on the rail, rolling the cue ball along the rail into a half-ball hit sends it diagonally toward the opposite side pocket.
All of these build on the reference angles on the cue ball control page: if you know the 90-degree, 30-degree and trisect paths, you can see where the cue ball is going before you shoot.
Sources