How to aim, control spin and power, read path previews, set up positions, use the shot recommender, and play frames.
Snooker Sim is a real snooker table in your browser — somewhere to play with the game as much as play it. Try shots, study angles, recreate positions you've seen, or rack up a frame against a friend or the computer.
Under the hood it's a proper physics simulator. Every shot is modelled — cushion bounces, spin transfer, throw, swerve, jumps and masses — with no scripted outcomes. If you put bottom-left on a thin cut at three-quarter pace, the cue ball does what the laws of physics say it should. The path previews on screen are the engine running ahead of time, so what's drawn is exactly what will happen.
That opens up things a normal snooker game doesn't:
And when you do want to compete, the simulator wears a referee's hat. Play a frame Solo, Pass & Play with a friend, or against the Computer (which uses the same recommender at varying strengths). The Challenge panel turns it into structured practice with star ratings, with more on the way.
Set up a shot in three steps and pull the trigger:
Turn on Path Hint while you learn — it draws the cue ball's line up to the first contact. Once you can read angles by eye, switch it off and rely on your own aim.
Stuck on a position? Press Recommend. The engine runs the actual physics on hundreds of candidate shots and ranks the best lines — useful as a coach, not just a button to press for points.
There are three ways to aim, and they're useful in different situations:
In Aim mode (A) on the default Aim camera, the camera sits behind the cue and orbiting also turns the shot. This is the natural way to line up a pot — you're sighting down the cue. The further you orbit, the bigger the aim change, so it's best for the coarse part of an aim.
On any other camera view (TV, overhead, cushion, etc.) orbit only moves the camera; the shot direction doesn't follow. Use those views to inspect the position, then switch back to Aim when you want to commit a line.
The two small arrows on the cue butt are the fine-aim control:
Look mode (L) lets you orbit, pan and zoom freely while the cue stays locked. Use it to check a pocket angle, scout the run of a colour, or see if a snooker is real. Switch back to Aim when you're ready to play.
Object Ball (O) zooms onto the first ball your aim line touches and shows the contact point. It's the simulator's version of getting down behind the line — much easier to judge "am I half-ball or three-quarters?" here than from behind the cue. Press A, L or Esc to come back.
The Shot settings panel has an Aim slider for the full ±180° sweep, plus Fine tune (±2°) for hundredths of a degree. After each shot the fine offset is folded into the coarse aim, so you always get the full ±2° fine range for the next shot.
Where you strike the cue ball matters as much as the aim. Use the on-ball tip mark — drag it to set spin directly on the ball, exactly as you'd line up a real strike. The Vertical / Side spin sliders in Shot settings do the same thing if you prefer keyboards.
You can't strike off the edge of the ball: the tip is clamped to a realistic miscue envelope. If you push the offset further, the engine just clips it back — the rendered tip is where the ball will actually be hit.
The vertical Power slider runs from a barely-rolling touch (very soft) to a full break-off (very strong). It's quadratic: the lower half is for safeties and positional shots, the top half for power. Hold + / − to ramp without taking your eye off the table.
The Follow slider on the right edge models how long the tip stays with the ball. Leave it on Neutral for normal shots. Push it up (Through / Deep) to deepen spin — sharper screw-back, more aggressive running side. Push it down (Short / Stab) for a dab. A very low follow-through near touching balls is judged a push shot and refused.
Elev raises the butt of the cue. Use it for jump shots, masse curves around a blocker, or simply to clear a cushion sitting behind the cue ball. The slider's minimum lifts itself automatically when there's something in the way — that's the engine telling you the flat stroke won't fit. A masse is just elevation plus side spin; a jump is elevation plus a firm strike with topspin.
The path previews are the simulator's best learning tool. Because they run the real physics, what you see is exactly what will happen if you shoot.
Preview seconds controls how far ahead the predictor looks (0.5–10 s of table time). A short preview keeps the screen tidy on a busy table; a long one lets you see a full safety roll back to baulk.
If the previewed line surprises you, that's worth pausing on — usually it's throw on a slight cut, or running side carrying off a cushion. The preview is a reliable teacher of those small effects.
You can rearrange the table whenever a frame isn't in progress.
Take a phone snap of a real table and use Import from photo… (Tools). The detector finds the cushions, pockets and balls and rebuilds the layout. Drag any misdetected balls to fix the position.
Copy share link encodes the entire scene — ball positions, settings, camera, in-progress score — into a URL. Send it and the recipient opens the exact frame in their browser. Useful for snooker puzzles, mid-frame discussions, or asking for a second opinion. Tick Include predicted paths if you want them to land with previews already on.
The camera-views icon gives you eight presets: Aim, TV view, Overhead, Baulk / Top cushion, Left, Right, and Reverse aim. Each is useful for a different job — overhead for plotting position, cushion views for safety angles, TV view for the cinematic look.
After-shot camera picks how the camera behaves once you've shot:
Shot zoom nudges in on the cue ball at impact for a moment of focus. Slow motion in this panel slows the live shot itself.
After every shot the Replay button lights up. Click it for a re-run; open its menu to pick any of the eight camera presets — plus a Pot angle that follows the ball into the pocket — and optional replay-only slow motion. The replay is byte-identical to the original, so it's the right place to study a near-miss frame by frame.
Start recording (Tools) records a video of what's happening on the table, up to one minute. Set your camera first — TV view plus a slow-motion replay is the usual recipe for a shareable clip. Stop via the red indicator at the top of the scene.
The rules engine handles scoring, fouls (minimum four points), free balls, ball-in-hand, respots while reds remain, and end-of-frame detection. The break chip top-left tracks the current visit — click it for a breakdown of pots.
The Challenge panel has structured drills: pot sequences, spin requirements, break targets, clear-the-table puzzles. Each drill awards up to three stars — you get more stars by completing it with fewer assists. Three stars always requires path previews to be off, so they're the test that you've learnt the shot, not just followed a line.
Every challenge is timed. Some are time-limited — finish before the clock runs out or it counts as a fail. The rest are open-ended but your time is recorded, so a clean run with a fast clock climbs the overall rankings. Play steady first, chase the leaderboard once the shot is in your hands.
Recommend runs the real physics on a large pool of candidate shots, scores them on the points they win and the position they leave, and ranks the best lines. It's not a heuristic — it's literally simulating the table.
Lookahead in the bubble (1, 2 or 3 shots) controls search depth. Depth 1 is fast and good for "what's the best pot from here". Depth 3 builds break-building lines but takes longer.
The candidate list isn't just "the answer" — it's a set of strong shots ranked by score. Click any candidate to load its aim, power and spin into your sliders, then look at the path preview before you commit. Comparing two candidates side by side is the fastest way to learn why one leave is better than another.
Auto-play keeps recommending and shooting in a loop — watching it clear a difficult frame is a good way to see lines you wouldn't have spotted.
Signing in (via the Account tab) connects the simulator to your profile. It's optional — everything on the table works without an account — but an account gives you:
| Take shot | Space |
|---|---|
| Aim / Look / Object ball | A · L · O |
| Aim (Aim mode) | ← → — hold to accelerate |
| Elevation (Aim mode) | ↑ ↓ |
| Side spin | Shift+← → |
| Top / back spin | Shift+↑ ↓ |
| Move selected ball | ← → ↑ ↓ (when a ball is selected) |
| Power | + / − — hold to accelerate |
| Orbit camera (Look mode) | ← → ↑ ↓ |
| Undo / Redo | ⌘/Ctrl+Z · ⌘/Ctrl+Shift+Z · Ctrl+Y |
| Deselect ball / close dialog | Esc |