Here we have a collection of tips from the best on the game to help in your game play. They are ideal for beginners through to the expert. We hope that you find this section useful in improving your game but remember that above all it will always take practice.


Franky's Tips - The Use Of Side

Only use side on the spotted colours because the aim point (where you aim the shot) is always the same. There
are only 2 players I know who can effectively use sidespin on loose reds and that’s Mozman and Bodo. Myself
personally, I find using sidespin on reds is just a little too risky for my liking. Here’s a couple of examples of ‘constant aim points’…… Fig.1. On this yellow, whenever you play with ‘top left side’, you always aim at the same place. Fig.2 On the blue here, whenever you play with full left hand side, then as with the yellow, you always aim
at the same place. This way, you can’t go wrong and instead of these two shots being tricky, they become
percentage shots that can be played with full confidence. The same principle applies to all 6 colours.

If you are using left hand side, then you need to aim to the left of the pocket (as you look), and to the right of the pocket when playing with right hand side. The greater the side, the further away from the pocket you need to aim.

There’s 3 main combinations of sidespin shots that can be played. They are:
1. full left/right spin
2. top left/right spin
3. bottom left/right

These 3 combinations can be played on all 6 colours and depending on which type of spin you use, the aim point will always remain the same. This opens up many possibilities to aid positional play.

The only time the aim point will change is if you vary the shot strength. Fig 3. For example, if you play this shot on
the black with extreme power (80% or harder), then the aim needs to be about half a balls width further away from the pocket.




Fig1

Fig2

Fig3


Left Yellow

Left Blue

Right Black

Right Blue
Franky's Tips - Potting

When lining up a tricky pot, always set the power to 100%. This will give you “fine-tune” aiming and increase the chances of you making the pot. Once the aim is sorted, left click and then set the desired power via the yellow
power bar on the right of the screen. You’ll find that your success rate on difficult pots will increase dramatically.

For those difficult pots, always, if possible, play the white ball with no top or backspin. This again will increase the likelihood of you making the pot as top and backspin tend to throw the object ball slightly off course. For the
simple pots it makes no difference but when the pot is touch and go, it’s the difference between the object ball going in off the jaw and it rattling the jaw and coming back out again.

For those full table long reds, you need to use between 24% and 55% power. Less than 24% and the nap affect comes into play where the white will stray off line. Not by much, but enough to make you miss the pot. Any harder than 55% and the difficulty increases as you get what is known as ‘power error’. This happens when you play with increased shot strength with the difficulty increasing the harder you hit the cue ball from 55% upwards. If the
white is on the cushion the power error comes into play at about 40% shot strength.

For break-building, try and keep the white from bouncing off the cushion as and when possible. As soon as the
white bounces off a cushion, you lose 50% ball control. I’ve had a full table clearance where the white touches the cushion only 6 times and the thing I noted from the replay was the increased amount of control I had on positioning. There’s no need to go excessively out of your way to keep the white from hitting the cushion. Rather just do it when you have the choice and it’s just as easy a shot to play.

Only use the error lines (shadow) to assess the difficulty of a pot when you are hampered, have a long red or any other tricky pot. The rule being this…… if the shadow does not fit within the pocket, then don’t go for the pot.
Once you have some experience of the game, always keeping the ‘error lines’ on really doesn't help I find.


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