Tips for 8-Ball Pool - Playing Defense

Andy Segal: Hi! I am Andy Segal. Bruce Barthelette: And I am Bruce Barthelette and we are here to give you some tips on 8- ball. Andy Segal: Now, we are going to show how to play defense.

In this situation, we have a bunch of balls on the table. We are playing the solids and our opponent is playing the stripes. Now if you notice, we have a really good shot at the 1-ball and a sort of decent shot at the 4-ball. The problem is that the 6-ball is tied up and we can't get a good shot at the 6-ball after we make from 1 or the 4. Now when you have a really good chance of playing defense, and the opponent may miss their ball, you possibly could get ball in hand and when you do that, you could put the Cue ball here, I have a really good shot at the 6 and then running out. So in this situation, because we have a really good chance of playing defense and hiding the Cue ball behind the 8, that's what we are going to do. So Bruce, is going to demonstrate and instead of trying to make the 1 or make the 4, Bruce is going to just hit the 4 and try and hide the Cue ball behind the 8, so our opponent can't hit any of the stripe balls.

Now we have put our opponent in the difficult situation. If they don't hit one their stripe balls, we can take the Cue ball in hand and place it right here, get a great shot at our only ball that's tied up and possibly run the table.

Bruce Barthelette: Here we have another situation. Our opponent has run down all the way to the 8-ball and has missed. Now we have our stripe balls still on the table. So instead of trying to run out, because all the shots here are very difficult, it's much better to play it safe. In the end, we will demonstrate how to do that here.

Okay, now what happens here is Andy has struck the Cue ball behind the 15, our opponent now has, no shot whatsoever on the 8-ball and there is a good chance, we are going to end up a ball in hand and we will be able to win the game.

Andy Segal: And that's how you play defense. Andy Segal: Next, we will show you how to get out of the defensive shot that your opponent may play.