Week 8: Point Positioning

The first formal positioning method, Point Positioning: can I make the cue ball finish at a specific location?

12 April 2027

Learning objectives

Select a specific cue-ball finishing point.
Combine speed with simple stop/follow/draw control.
Understand when precise point positioning is useful.
Recognise that high precision creates a smaller margin for error.
Use point positioning mainly for simple or short-range position play.

Learn
Point Positioning asks a precise question: can I make the cue ball finish at a specific location? It combines speed with the stop, follow and draw control from Week 6 to aim at one target point. It works best for simple, short-range position, because it demands accurate cueing and speed control — a small error can send the cue ball too far, too short, or onto the wrong angle for the next shot.
See
Diagrams show one exact target point, a small error short, and a small error long.
Think
Is point positioning appropriate for this simple position problem, or is the target too demanding?
Play
Short-range position drills, aiming for a visible target marker.
Table check
Pot the object ball and finish the cue ball inside or close to a small target area.

A note on these labels

Point Positioning, Zone Positioning (Week 9) and Route Positioning (Week 10) are the labels this course uses to organise cue-ball position play, from most precise to most strategic. They’re a teaching framework for this course — not universal or official terminology used by every billiards coaching system.

Choosing the target

Point positioning starts with a specific desired cue-ball finishing location, then uses speed, vertical spin and a simple natural cue-ball path to try to reach it.

Where it works

It works best when the shot is relatively simple, the cue ball’s travel is short, and the next ball needs fairly precise position.

Its limit

Point positioning demands accurate cueing and speed control. The smaller and more exact the target, the smaller the margin for error — a small error can mean travelling too far, stopping short, or losing the correct angle for the next shot.

You can now control where the cue ball stops. But in a real run, precision alone is not enough.

The next question is not: “Can I stop here?”

It is: “Which side of the next ball should I be on?”

Overhead table diagram of a point-positioning shot: the cue ball travels to one exact target point in the correct half of the landing area to set up the next ball.