The APA Black Widow Tour will be making a stop at Magoo's in Tulsa, Okla., on Wednesday, Feb. 22 at 7:30pm!

The Billiard Education Foundation (BEF) is now accepting applications for 2012 scholarship awards. All applications must be postmarked by April 2.

Natalie Tussey of Lakehurst, N.J., is a Family Medicine Doctor in the United States Navy. She’s currently deployed to Djibouti, Africa, while her current permanent duty station is Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Lakehurst, N.J. While on deployment she enjoys playing pool 2-3 nights a week, in addition to competing in tournaments every month or two.

“Playing pool while on deployment kept my spirits up when I was missing my family and friends,” Tussey said. “It also allowed me to meet new people and create friendships that are crucial to getting one through difficult times.”

Natalie has been an APA member since fall 2009. She first began playing when a friend and co-worker invited her to play on her team after she was first stationed in New Jersey. Her journey with pool began long before she started with APA however; Natalie first began playing during her freshman year at Penn State University in 1998. She learned how to play from her best friend’s husband who played pool semi-professionally. Natalie also played on Penn State’s intramural team.

“I love the competition mixed with the camaraderie,” Tussey said. “I enjoyed it so much that I continued playing in APA League matches up until a couple of days before I delivered my son last year—I think a few of the men on the opposing teams did not enjoy losing to a woman who was 9 months pregnant!”

APA League Operator and Hall of Famer Ewa Laurance won the 2012 WPBA Masters held at the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., Jan. 25-29! This was Ewa's first WPBA victory in over 10 years!

Of course we’d all rather have a clear open shot at the object ball, but in this article we’ll explore defensive options for kick shots, more specifically, kick shots where the object ball is close to the side rail. Next month, we’ll look at many other kick-safes with many different scenarios. But for now, we’ll start with shots where the object ball is close to the rail because those are easier to control. When an object ball is further away from the rail your margin for error decreases, which makes the safety more difficult.

Many players make the mistake of thinking that when you’re hooked, just hitting the ball is enough to consider the shot successful. However, when you’re playing against very strong players, leaving an open shot is almost as good as giving them ball-in-hand, so having a clear plan is important.

Let’s consider the 9-Ball layout below. This type of scenario comes up more often than you might think, whether the ball was originally tied up from the break or you or your opponent put it there as a safety.  In this particular shot, the cue ball has a clear path to hit a small part of the object ball, but this shot would be useful even if you’re unable to see the ball.

When a ball is tied up you should have one of two objectives:

1) Open up the balls and leave your opponent with no shot OR

2) Keep the balls tied up and leave your opponent no shot.

With this layout, it’s difficult to separate the tied up balls and play a controlled safety so we’ll examine an option of keeping the balls tied up. Many players would aim very thin on the left side of the 1-ball where the cue ball would first contact the 1-ball, then the rail, then it would come off of the rail and drift towards or behind the 5-ball on the opposite side. This is a perfectly good option but it’s also a very touchy shot where you could easily miss the safe or scratch in the side pocket if you don’t play the correct angle.  Another option that many people don’t think to play is similar, but instead you aim for the rail first and instead of sending the cue ball behind the 5-ball, you give it more speed and send it off the side rail down table and hope to block a shot on the 1-ball with either the 6-ball or by leaving the cue ball down towards the bottom rail.

This too can be a touchy shot, and you may have to aim to hit just a very small sliver of the object ball depending on your exact layout. This shot actually comes up quite often so try setting up similar shots and practice how thick and how hard you need to aim in order to get the results you want.

Another shot we should look at is when you’re hooked from the object ball, and it’s just a bit further from the rail than the shot before, but this time it’s not tied up. 

In this case, many players are only concerned with making a legal hit on the object ball. However, you should always have a plan in mind of where you want the object ball and the cue ball to land after your shot. The “hit and hope” method has a low success rate for most. The most effective safety shot in this situation is where you can separate the cue ball and the object ball and likely even hook your opponent behind the ball that you were originally hooked behind. In order to achieve this, you want to kick off the side rail with low english so the cue ball has a little draw when it comes off the rail.

You should set this shot up and get comfortable with how the draw affects the angle of the cue ball’s path off the first rail and in order to see what type of speed is good for different variations of this shot.

Next month’s article will explore some different shots where you have multiple options for which rail to use in order to kick at a ball and how to choose the most effective shot.

Attention APA members who are current or formerly in the military—we want to hear your story! Visit the link below and complete the form detailing who you are, where you are from, where you were/are stationed, how long you’ve been playing in the APA, how long you’ve been/were in the military and anything interesting you’d like to share about your experiences. Family members can feel free to submit something on the military member’s behalf. Stories may be selected as a feature that will be posted on poolplayers.com. Featured members will also receive a cue, t-shirt and hat. Submit yours today!

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