Andy Segal: Hi! I'm Andy Segal.

Bruce Barthelette: I'm Bruce Barthelette. Today we're going to give you some tips on 8-Ball.

Andy Segal: Now, what we're going to show you is how to rack and how to break. When you rack an 8-ball, the first thing you have to do, you want to make sure the 8-ball is in the middle and the front ball is on the spot. You also want to make sure that the balls are racked tightly.

Bruce Barthelette: Okay, now we're going to talk about breaking. Breaking is a very important part of the game. The main concern for breaking is to come in on the head ball as full as possible. The reason you want to do this, this will maximize the break and spread the balls out. Also, the cue ball will come backwards. You want to target the cue ball somewhere in this vicinity here, anywhere towards the middle of the table, the reason being, it's going to give you the most amount of shots possible. More shots you have, the better chance your have to run them out.

We're going to have Andy demonstrate the break now. If you notice, Andy has good balance, level cue. He's going to try to hit on the 12-ball as full as possible. Perfect! As you can see, the balls are spread out very well. He left himself may different choices as good solid break.

Andy Segal: That's how you break. Next, we're going to talk about what to do after the break, before you start to shoot.