This is Your Captain Speaking

By John W. Loftus

Stop, Stop, Stop … and Out!

In the game of pool the most important shot, next to the o­ne your bartender serves up, is the straight-in stop shot. It's the shot that comes up most often in a game of pool. It's also the easiest shot to help you gain precise shape o­n your next ball, so it should be the first shot you look for whenever you want to plan a run-out.

How many times has a member of your pool team made a ball and your whole team stood helplessly by while the cue ball rolled slowly toward that same pocket o­nly to drop in as well? It's agonizing, especially if it's an important game. You just want to blow o­n the cue ball to keep it from rolling in!

What was needed there was a stop shot. The stop shot is o­ne in which the cue ball has no rotational spin o­n it when it makes contact with the object ball. A perfect stop shot will cause the cue ball to stop dead directly behind where the object ball had rested.

How you do it can vary, but it depends a great deal o­n the distance between the cue ball and the object ball. If the balls are approximately 1 to 6 inches apart, it's probably best to use a half tip of bottom with a soft stroke.  From approximately 6 inches to 3 feet apart you can either hit softly with a full tip of bottom, a half tip below center with a medium stroke, or dead center with a medium hard stroke. For balls that are approximately 3 to 5 feet apart you can use a tip of bottom with a medium stroke, and for 5 to 7 feet apart you can use a tip and a half of bottom with a medium hard stroke.

You must be able to hit the object ball dead o­n so that all of the energy from the cue ball is transferred to the object ball. You must also be able to hit the cue ball directly in the center of the ball and/or further down the vertical axis line. To see how well you actually do this, use a stripe ball in place of the cue ball and watch the spin of the stripe after you hit it. Be forewarned! You might be in for a rude awakening when you see for yourself just how far off from the center you actually hit the cue ball.

To get a feel for this shot you just have to practice it.  Vary the distances between the balls, and vary how hard you hit them. Practice it until you can make the cue ball stop dead in its tracks more than 75% of the time. It's a harder shot than you think, and as we'll see next month with the stun shot, its use is the most important o­ne in the game of pool. Come to think of it, it's more important than what your bartender serves you!

As you get better at doing this shot, you'll need to look for it. This is the first shot you need to look for whenever you get up to the table for a run-out because it gives you the greatest potential cue ball control. Before reading any further, study the diagram. Can you run the solids out? How would you do it? Is it hard to do?

If you take any ball other than the 5 ball first, you will have a harder time running this rack. But by using nothing but stop shots, an average player will run out most of the time. Just take the balls in the following order: 5, 6, 2, 7, 4, 1, 3, and then the 8 ball in the corner pocket marked "A."  Stop, stop, stop….and out!