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After you have developed your ability to make straight shots, you will naturally want to learn how to bank. One thing that will help you learn banking easier is to avoid putting any english on the cue ball at first.

Contact the cue ball with the cue tip at the horizontal and vertical center so you don't put any spin on it.

This is called hitting the cue ball dead center. By hitting the cue ball this way, you will have the straightest bounce off the cushions, making the bank shot as easy as possible.

After you get good at banking you can get fancy and start adding some english.

Making a good bank or kick shot during a game is truly an enjoyable experience, to say nothing of how impressed your opponent will be. Once your skill level at pool starts to rise and you can make these shots more consistently, you will definitely win a lot of pool games.

Bank shots involve hitting the cue ball into an object ball and bouncing that object ball off the rail. By hitting the cue ball dead center with a medium hard stroke and a level cue, the least amount of deviation in ball path will be encountered, and the truest bank angles will be the result. This is the easiest way for the beginner to improve their skill at banks in the shortest amount of time.

There are several aiming methods that have been devised for bank shots. Parallel-lines banking, System X, Ghost Table, and the Diamond System are all systems that work, but they are also fairly complicated to learn and use. Mirror banking is not as scientific or even as exact as the other ways, but I feel it is the easiest way to make bank shots.

Mirror banking means that the angle that a ball comes into the rail is also the angle that it leaves at as it bounces off the rail. While these angles may not be entirely true and even all the time, this system is a good starting point for the beginning pool player to learn how to bank. One other concept to introduce here is the "ball path".

As seen in the diagram Bank 1, the diamonds are an aid to banking. In shot A, the start of the ball path is 2 diamonds away from the object pocket "x" in the corner. By banking the object ball off the diamond in the middle, this 2 diamond distance is cut in half. The angle that the ball entered the rail is the angle that it left the rail - mirrored angles.

In shot B, the result is the same except that the distance from the start of the ball path to pocket "y" is 4 diamond lengths. By bouncing off the diamond that is 2 lengths from the pocket, the distance is cut in half, mirrored angles are created, and the ball travels the correct path to the pocket.

How To Aim cont. - How To Bank 3