Each month many bloggers in the pool world get together to blog about a unified topic for what they call “Pool Synergy.” The “Pool Synergy” topic “10 Things” inspired me for this month’s instructional article. These are the top 10 tips I received from other players, pros and instructors that changed my game the most.

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10. Warm Up Alone

Whether you’re warming up for League night or a tournament, it’s always best to warm up alone. I know that it’s customary to play a “king of the hill” format where the winner retains the table and challengers rotate in, but this is actually a very inefficient and ineffective way to warm up. In this format, you can’t re-shoot trouble shots and are only exposed to the few shots that you might get if your opponent even lets you get to the table. The better alternative is to take turns running racks with the others at the table. That way all of you get an equal number of shots and you can determine which shots you want to shoot.

9.  Stay Down

This is a tip that I constantly have to remind myself about. It’s a very common error for players to pull their head up, and consequently their body, during the last part of their shot. Staying down throughout your entire shot will reduce the room for error in your stroke. Pool is a game of small motions where millimeters count, so the less unnecessary movement the better.

8.  Have a Pre-Shot Routine

Having a good pre-shot routine will develop good habits. Becoming a consistent player requires some muscle memory, so having a defined pre-shot routine that you stick to with every shot—difficult and easy ones—will help create consistency in your game. When you become lazy and abandon your pre-shot routine, you have a higher chance of letting other things in your stroke go wrong as well.

7.  Sometimes Racking is More Important Than Breaking

When you check your opponent’s rack, sometimes your opponent feels offended, but there really is no reason that they should feel this way. In addition to checking whether the rack is tight, the real reason to check a rack is to determine which side is the best to break from and where to place the cue ball. This is a topic that I would need many more pages of text to fully explain, but for now I’ll just direct you to an instructional video called Joe Tucker’s Racking Secrets. This video shows you how each gap in the rack affects how the balls react. Mastering the concepts will increase your number of balls made on the break significantly—making a ball on the break keeps you in the driver’s seat.

6.  Pool is Like Golf

This is true in many ways, but the particular similarity I’m talking about on this tip is relating breaking in pool to driving in golf. Having a hard break is not necessarily related to how big or strong you are. But rather, it’s related to your ability to effectively transfer your weight in the correct part of the shot. If you’re not a golfer this may not make as much sense to you, but those of you that do golf know that there’s a particular way to transfer your weight in the shot that gives you that extra whip and pulls the club through the shot with greater force. The same is true in your pool break. Many people think you can simply hit the ball hard and get good results, but hitting the ball SOLID with the right timing is actually more important than your strength.

5.  Kick with a Purpose

When you’re hooked and must kick at a ball, many times just hitting the ball is not good enough. If you’re competing against a good player you need to make sure that you kick in a manner that will give you the best chance to leave your opponent a tough shot. Many times this means kicking at the ball from a different direction than the easiest way to hit the ball. For instance, sometimes you have a one rail kick that is a simple hit but you’ll almost definitely leave your opponent a shot—against good players leaving them a shot is similar to missing the kick and giving them ball-in-hand. But many times, if you kick two rails into the ball, your cue ball and the object ball are likely to separate with one staying on one end of the table and the other going to the opposite end. This is a great tool to have so I will likely expand on this topic in another article.

4.  Address Problems Early

Although you may have the perfect plan for a run-out, more likely than not that run-out will not go as planned and you’ll be forced to rethink your plan. Because of this, it’s important to try to take care of problem balls earlier in the rack. Whether the problem is that the ball can only be pocketed in one pocket and you need to have perfect shape in order to get to that shot, or the ball is tied up and you need to break it out, you have to try that shot earlier in the rack. This way, if you miss your break out or your precise shape on that shot, you will still have the opportunity to try to get to it later in the rack. And if you do execute it correctly the first time, then the rest of the rack is smooth sailing from then on out and there is less pressure on you the rest of the rack.

3.  Learn 3-Cushion

Three-Cushion is an incredible game which requires you to learn about the paths the cue balls and object balls take after contact. Many times in 8-Ball and 9-Ball you will have to move the cue ball up and down the table maneuvering through other balls. Three-Cushion helps take the guess work out of playing shape for your next shot. You become much more familiar with the exact path of the cue ball when you have experience playing 3-Cushion often. The balls are heavier and a bit larger, so it will be a bit of an adjustment at first, but the diamond system applies for all size tables. I suggest learning any and all kicking systems you can get your hands on and using them in some 3-Cushion matches. It will definitely elevate your game.

2.  Play the Percentages

Many times you’ll come to a shot where you can choose to take one shot over another and many times you can talk yourself into taking the tougher shot. Other times you may only see the tough offensive shot. Learn to determine what all of your options are before deciding on a shot to take and then decide with which one you have the highest chance of executing correctly. Many times the safety is, by definition, the safer shot. But when the safety requires such speed control or such a precise hit that is just as difficult as the offensive shot, then this could be a time to go for the glory and be offensive. Playing the percentages in matches may not be the most exciting way to play, but it will increase your number of opportunities at the table and keep you in control. You can try the crazy offensive shots when you are practicing instead.

1.  Get a Qualified Instructor

This perhaps had the largest impact on my game. Almost nothing I know about pool is something I learned on my own. I either learned it from an instructor or a fellow player. Not all great players make great teachers and what works for some people may not work for others. We all learn in different ways so I encourage you to find someone to learn from that is trained on the subject, not just a good player, and someone that teaches in a manner that compliments your learning style.

These are the 10 tips that influenced me the most, but all players are different so some may be better for you than others.