I gave birth to my first child just 3 weeks ago and although I have not picked up a cue in over a month, my first big tournament of the year is next week. With this in mind, I’ve been meeting several times per week with my instructor in an attempt to get back into stroke and build up my conditioning again.  During my practice session this week, we stumbled into a conversation about a very simple kicking system that I had never learned before, so I thought it would be perfect to share with you for this month’s article.

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This is a kicking system that my instructor discovered when he was learning a similar banking system.  The basic shot for this system involves the object ball (3-ball) resting in or near a pocket while the cue ball is blocked by another ball (8-ball). See below:

The first step is to measure the mid-point between the cue ball and the rail that you’re kicking at.  Then draw an imaginary line (line A) from that midpoint to the center of the corner pocket extending that line all the way to the rail:

Next, you take the spot on the rail where your line extended to, and draw a line from there, thru the cue ball and extend that to the opposite rail (line B below) to determine where to aim on the opposite rail:

One common misconception is that one-rail kicks are easier than 2 or 3 rail kicks.  However, one-rail kicks are sometimes tougher because the speed and the amount of right or left spin used on the shot can greatly affect the outcome.  For this kicking system, it’s very important that you use medium speed (about the speed of a lag) and top spin, with little to no english.

You might be thinking, “What about shots where the object ball is NOT in the pocket?” The answer is simple—you change the first imaginary line based on where the object ball is located.  See the example below:

I suggest trying this system a few times to get a feel for how hard and what type of stroke to hit in order to get the most accurate results.  The rails on some tables are more stiff than others, so they’ll vary slightly, but this is a great guide for one-rail kicks.  Try moving around both the cue ball and the object ball until you’re comfortable with how to measure the aiming points. It’s a great, simple tool to have in your toolkit of shots.