One of the most important things in playing pool is planning your shots.  You need to try and think your shots through for at least one turn ahead of where you are at.  This will allow you to decide where you will need the cue ball to stop.  You should always be able to plan a shot ahead, in fact if you do this well and can place your cue ball in the right place you might even be able to run the table and not even give the other person a shot!

Even if you are not shooting you need to be thinking in your mind what your shot would be when the cue ball stops and how from there you would go onto your next shot.  There are times of course when you may not be able to place your cue ball in a place to set up your next shot in this case you should try and make sure that you are not lining up your opponent with a perfect shot.  Thus allowing them to possibly run the table and win the game.

With planning your shots you may need to slow your game down a bit so you can see the whole table and figure where you best shots would be.  You may be able to plan out all your shots if you are looking and planning well in advance.  You will also need to make sure you are taking the highest percentage shot, and leaving yourself with another high percentage shot.

Another important thing about planning your shots is to control the speed of your stroke.  You can’t continually hit the ball hard and plan the ball to land where you want it to be.  There are times yes you will need to hit the cue ball hard, but you will want to practice with different speeds, because there are times where just a light touch is needed to place the cue ball where you want it to be at.
So remember to plan your shots out and make sure to control your stroke speed, your game will become better.