You’ve done it a thousand times. You ran through that rack like fatback through a hound dog and then you scratched when you made the nine. Your opponent won the game without ever getting out of his chair. The illustration shows one of the most popular scenarios for this, where the nine ball is an easy shot into the corner but the cueball has a lot of potential trouble waiting.
This is the ‘last ball brain bloop’ and is caused primarily because so many players shoot the nine ball differently from the way they shoot every other ball in the rack. How’s that, you say? Well, on the one through the eight your shot routine includes aiming, stroking, and planning position on the next ball.
But when you get to the nine ball you leave out that last part. There is no need to get position because there are no other balls on the table. This causes two problems. First, the cueball is set loose to wander into trouble, and two, the old shooting brain is still screaming for information when you pull the trigger.
Remember that we always want to use the same routine on every shot. Your brain is very comfortable dong the same thing over and over. That’s why you tend to steer towards those golden arches three times a week, it’s familiar territory and you know what to do there. Same thing when you shoot pool. Your brain becomes a creature of habit, and when it gets used to playing shape it wants to do so on every shot. It can’t understand why you fail to give it good info on the last shot, and this confusion can even lead you to miss the shot altogether.
So here’s what you do. Put that last ingredient, that playing for shape, into the last shot as well. Just pretend you need to go somewhere on the table that uses a path that goes nowhere near pockets and use that as your position input on the shot. Usually if you try to leave the cueball somewhere down the middle of the table you can avoid those nasty holes and keep your mind at peace as well.
The whole purpose of developing a routine is because it allows us to consistently win and remain comfortable at the table. Use your routine all the way through the rack and you can avoid the problems of the past. Be a good boy, dance with who brung ya!
