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Snooker Practice Routines/Drills for Safety Play

Safety can be a bit of a tricky area of the sport to practice seeing as it takes you away from the objective of the game, which is to pot balls. However, in order to get into that prime potting position, you may need to force your opponent to put you in play. A solid safety game can do wonders and here are some ways to help you strengthen that aspect of the game.

Travelling the Length of the Table

It doesn’t particularly matter how the balls are set up since you’re essentially practicing the same shot. However, for simplicity you could place a red somewhere between the pink and black and the cue ball at the upper end of the table. John Parrott demonstrated this exercise during a WSC segment where he places an object (i.e. chalk or tape) a few inches from the cushion where the objective is to play a safety shot and have the cue ball land behind the line of the object.

The more consistent you become at getting the cue ball behind the object line, you can move the object closer to the cushion and work on getting the cue ball tight to the baulk end. You can also practice this from different positions such as off a pack. A significant proportion of your safety shots is likely to have contact with other reds on the table, so practicing this will help you with the concept of assessing whether shooting off the pack will result in a red being left over a corner pocket.

Coming Up the Table

If you’re at the scoring end of the table and are at the end of a break, you’ll need to play back up the table to leave your opponent a difficult next shot. You can practice leaving a red along the side cushion and playing off it to leave the cue ball up the baulk end. You can practice this using one cushion or two, depending on the layout of the table. You can also place a colour in a possible snookering position and aim to get the cue ball behind it using however many cushions are necessary.

Glancing off a pack can be a useful shot to practice to learn the speed of the table and improve your judgement of pace as you travel up the table. The good thing about the shots which require you to come up the table is that you really get a hang of how the angles work, particularly when you use a bit of side.

Cushion Shots

So far, we’ve touched on the types of shots that can get your opponent in trouble, but you’ll need to be able to comfortably play the next shot if you happen to be on the receiving end of a telling safety. Similar to the first exercise, you can practice the same kinds of shots and attempt to return the safety that was played against you. The main idea here is to get comfortable cuing along the cushion and ensure you get the perfect contact on the object ball to return to baulk.


You’ll notice that these exercises aren’t as specific as simple potting routines such as a line-up. That’s mainly because safety shots can be played from a variety of different positions and table layouts. The main way to practice safety is to continuously attempt particular shots to make sure you have the correct pace and contact with the object ball.

I wouldn’t say that safety shots are something that can ever be perfected or mastered; only practiced to a point where you’re consistent enough to have a high success rate. When you become more advanced, you can experiment with different table layouts where you’ll need to negotiate the cue ball around the table. That’s where things get fun!

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What Exactly is ‘Match Play’ in Snooker?

The term ‘match play’ doesn’t have an exact definition but it can be described as the choices made by a player to improve their chances of winning a match. While all snooker players will have their respective strengths on the table, a good match player will have the ability to convert a difficult match into an opportunity that favours their chances. What sort of qualities constitute the characteristics of ‘match play’?

Match play in snooker can ultimately be derived from the shot selection employed by the player. While being able to pot your way out of trouble can sometimes be a viable method of continuing a break and winning a frame/match, it isn’t the most reliable way to secure a frame. A good example of match play would be when a player has made a 50+ break and puts a colour safe instead of attempting to keep the break going with a high-risk pot or cannon attempt. This favours the player who made the 50+ break by making the table difficult for their opponent when they come to play.

Seasoned veterans such as John Higgins and Mark Selby (or Steve Davis and Ray Reardon from the golden ages) aren’t known primarily for their ‘prolific break-building’, rather they are notorious for their formidable temperaments and aptitude to turn around a match where the chips seem to be down. When the score-line is against them, or if they’re playing poorly, these guys know how to play the right shots to halt the momentum of their opponents and put them in serious trouble. They can then capitalise on the mistakes of their opponents and build momentum and confidence of their own.

While the objective of snooker is to pot balls, the game will favour those that play the game in less of a one-dimensional manner. The table isn’t always going to be in a position where you are always able to pot a ball when you play your next shot. A decent match player will know when they need to play aggressively and when they need to put their opponent against the ropes with telling safety/containment play.

A solid match player is generally the more complete player, not only in physical attributes when playing the shot, but also the mental toughness to carry themselves through the battle. Being able to adapt to the circumstances that arise in their matches by playing conservatively or taking chances where required are notable qualities of the thinking process required by a tough match player. The type of shots taken by these players may not be the most flamboyant or enjoyable to watch but at the end of the day, when the objective is to win the match, these tactics can produce dividends for the match player.

Who do you think are the best match players in snooker right now? Specifically, are there any players that you think go unnoticed when it comes to their match play ability?

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What Should The Four Majors In Snooker Be?

The BBC have proudly claimed the Masters, UK and World Championship as snooker’s majors for decades. A lot of fans have their own views of what the major tournaments in snooker should be and think it should venture further than tournaments residing within the UK. While these events do have a lot of historical significance, I thought I would pose the question to the audience as to what you think the majors in snookers should be. Meanwhile, here are my picks.

World Snooker Championship

No explanation necessary

European/German Masters

I think a ‘Masters’ event should remain as a major but perhaps the German or European Masters should take its place. Both events date pack to the early-mid 1990s and could offer the flexibility of being held in various locations around Europe. Most tournaments in the calendar are housed in Europe anyway so I think it’s a natural choice to have a Masters as a snooker major.

China Open

One of the most significant regions representing the game, it makes sense to hold a major event within the country. There have been many rumours of the World Championship eventually being moved to China, but I think converting an event such as the China Open would do well to bridge this gap and show the importance of China as a growth area in the game.

Scottish (International) Open

One of the longest standing events that remain on the calendar to this day, the Scottish Open has stood the test of time through a series of name/brand revisions. Initially, the tournament was known as the International Open which, similar to the European Masters, could benefit from being held in a variety of locations where snooker has potential for a packed audience.

My choices aim to represent the variety of regions where snooker has the most footfall as opposed to having all major events in one spot. Ideally, I would prefer if snooker had greater traction in an area like the US because I think having a major there would be great for the sport. Or even if the Dubai Classic was still around, this could also be a potential contender in my eyes.

Also, my majors change the Triple Crown notion by adding one more event to the mix in order to be in line with other sports. I also chose events that all players have a chance at winning i.e. didn’t choose events like the Tour Championship or Champion of Champions which only allow the top ranked players for a certain period to qualify.

Obviously, something would probably have to change regarding the format of these events in order to make them ‘major-worthy’ but as it stands, these would be my choices. But I pose the question to you. Which tournaments, past or present, would make up your snooker majors? You can choose three or four, but the decision is entirely yours! Or do you think the Triple Crown should remain as is?

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Snooker Practice Routines/Drills

Whether you’re a complete beginner or even an intermediate snooker player (however in this instance, more likely a beginner) you may find your typical practice routine to become quite stagnant and repetitive. Whilst consistent practice is the key to improving your fundamentals and break-building, perhaps you can add or try some of these methods to mix up your practice sessions.

If you’re completely new to the game and are looking for ways of practicing and improving, then some of the routines below may be quite useful to you. The methods below exclude the line-up or ‘T’ drill which are probably the most common routines for practice.

Black off the spot

A very simple exercise – place the black on the spot, pot it. Rinse and repeat. Wherever the cue ball ends up, continue attempting to pot the black from there. This is a useful routine to practice soft screw and stun shots in order tighten up your cue ball control. Once you become more advanced, you can attempt using one cushion only to continue playing for the black.

Pot Quiz

If you watch the segments during the intervals of the World Championship, you’ll see John Parrott playing a mini-game with the professionals where they aim to pot all 15 reds and the black in the fastest time possible. Whilst it’s all fun and games, it’s actually a useful way of keeping close control of the cue ball and efficiently navigate your way through an open table.

Put the reds in a 3x5 layout from the blue spot to the black spot, and the black on the brown spot. The aim is to pot all the reds then the black in as fast a time as possible. What’s your fastest time?

Long straight blue

Place the blue on the spot and the cue ball a fair distance behind it in order to leave yourself a long, straight blue into one of the corner pockets. Practicing this shot will improve your straight cueing and give you the confidence to play the long blues to corner pockets in order to keep a break going. How many can you pot in a row?

Cueing on the baulk line/colour spots

Something that is useful right before you go into your main practice and drills is to place the cue ball on the baulk line and spend some time cueing up and down the line, ensuring the cue ball returns to you along the baulk line. This will make sure that you’re cueing well and straight without placing unintentional side on the shot, which of course you would notice if the cue ball returns off-line.

This is a routine that Steve Davis would do before his sessions and to add an extra challenge if you feel you’ve mastered this is to go the full length of the table, this time using the colour spots as reference. You could set yourself a target of 5 or 10 in a row (or a pre-determined time limit) before you continue practice.

Shot-to-Nothing

If you can improve your consistency at shot-to-nothings, you will find yourself creating more opportunities for yourself rather than waiting for your opponent to leave you amongst the balls. While practicing close cue ball control is paramount, if you can practice getting yourself in those positions, it should pay dividends in the long run. Practice shot-to-nothings from a variety of positions until you can confidently pot (similar to the long blue) and change up the angles so there won’t be too many surprises to you in a real game scenario.

Of course, there are a countless number of routines and drills that you could practice and this just shines a light on a handful of them, so expect a follow-up showing a selection of different routines in the future. It also goes without saying how important the safety game is to snooker, so don’t neglect practicing this. There will be a Short post in the future on various exercises you can perform to improve on this aspect of the game so stay tuned for those!

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