How to aim in pool: the ghost ball, simply
Nearly everyone who picks up a cue aims at the ball they want to pot. That is the mistake, and it is the only one that matters.
You are not hitting that ball. You are hitting the white. Where the white needs to go is somewhere else entirely.
The one idea: the ghost ball
Here is the whole method.
- Look at the ball you want to pot, and look at the pocket.
- Draw a line between them, in your head, and keep going past the ball, back toward you.
- Now picture a ball sitting on that line, touching the back of your ball. A ghost. It isn’t there.
- Send the white to where the ghost is.
When the white arrives, it’s exactly where the ghost was, which means it’s touching your ball on the side facing away from the pocket. Your ball gets pushed straight down that line and drops.
That’s it. Every aiming system anyone teaches is a way of finding that ghost faster.
Getting good at seeing it
The ghost is imaginary, and imaginary things are hard to aim at. Two ways to make it real:
Walk behind the ball. Stand behind the pocket-to-ball line, not behind the white. From there the line is obvious. Pick something on the cloth to mark where the ghost sits, then walk round and get down on the shot without losing that spot.
Aim at the contact point instead. Some people find this easier. Instead of a whole ghost ball, find the single spot on the back of your ball that points at the pocket. That’s where the white has to touch. It’s the same shot described two ways — use whichever one your eyes like.
Why the same aim keeps missing
Three things trip people up, and none of them is your stroke.
A tiny error at the ball turns into a big one at the pocket. This is the real reason pool is hard. When the white touches your ball slightly off, your ball leaves at an angle — and that angle gets multiplied by however far it still has to travel. Miss the contact by the width of a fingernail and a ball on the far rail misses the pocket by a hand’s width.
What that means in practice: short shots forgive you and long ones don’t. If you have a choice between a long pot and a short one, take the short one every time.
Thin cuts are much harder than straight ones. A ball you’re hitting nearly full-on has a big margin. A ball you’re clipping the edge of has almost none, and the same small error does far more damage. When a cut looks very thin, look for a different shot before you look for a better aim.
Your head has to be in the same place every time. Get down on the shot with your chin over the cue, and don’t move it. If your head shifts between practice strokes and the real one, you aimed one shot and played a different one.
Aim before you get down, not after
This is the habit that separates people who improve from people who don’t.
Work out the shot standing up. Find the ghost, pick your line, decide how hard. Then get down on that line already knowing everything.
If you find yourself shuffling and re-aiming while you’re down on the shot, stand up and start again. You cannot see the line properly from down there — your eye is right next to the cue, and the angle is flat. Standing up you can see the whole table.
Skip the side spin while you’re learning
Side spin — putting the tip left or right of centre — pushes the white slightly off your aiming line before it even reaches the other ball. It’s genuinely useful later, for controlling where the white ends up. It is a terrible idea while you’re still learning where to aim, because now two things are wrong and you can’t tell which.
Hit the middle of the white until you can pot reliably. Then read english in pool and add spin on purpose.
A drill worth doing
Put one ball halfway between the middle of the table and a corner pocket. Put the white anywhere. Pot it. Now put the ball back and do it again from somewhere else.
Twenty of these teaches you more than an hour of playing frames, because a frame gives you maybe six real pots and this gives you twenty. Aim standing up every time, even when the shot is easy.
A free table to practise on
Chalkwick is pool in your browser, free, with no download and no account. Two things in it are built for exactly this:
- A guide line that shows where the white is going, where it will touch your ball, and where your ball will go afterwards. That’s the ghost ball drawn for you. Use it until you can predict the line yourself, then turn it down — one cushion, then none.
- No turns, no fouls. Turn the rules off and it’s just a table. Set the same shot up as many times as you like.
The balls carry real spin and the cushions really grip, so what you learn about aiming there is worth something when you stand at an actual table.
Next
- Pool trick shots: seven you can actually learn — once you can pot, these are next.
- Bank shot pool — aiming when the straight line isn’t there.