A basic defense formation is just a basic defensive positioning of your men. It is where you have two of your men paired up together to defend as much of the goal as possible.

A basic defensive formation
Usually, the front man is angled backwards while the back man is angled forward (See section on man position in the section called Catching). Not everyone uses this formation, but I have noticed that this formation is commonly used by most players. It is not uncommon to see the front man angled forward. I have found that by doing this, it has somewhat of a psychological affect on the shooter especially when the shooter is struggling or having a hard time scoring.

You want to maximize the distance between the two men, that is, you want to have the gap as wide as possible but not wide enough to allow the ball to pass. This is so that you can maximize the total blocking area of both men. The wider the blocking area of your men, then the less of your goal is exposed. Keep in mind that there is no way you can cover the total area of the goal, therefore, the idea is to create the illusion that you are doing just that.

ideal distance	bad distance

In the preceding illustrations, notice that the men are as far a part as possible without allowing the ball to pass between them. You only need to use just a tiny portion of the man's feet to stop or to deflect the ball. With this in mind, you can maximize the blocking area of your men. However, if your men are too far a part, then the ball will pass between them. Sometimes you can do this and get away with it because it goes undetected. If you are just learning how to play, then I would not recommend doing this until you get a better feel for playing defense.

Man Positions for Protecting the Goal
Another important aspect to man positioning is how you have your men while defending the goal. You may think this is taking the game just a little too serious. Well, that may be; however, if I am going to lose a game, I do not want to lose to a slop shot. Proper man positioning will greatly reduce the amount of slop shots during a game.

There are a number of ways you can set up your men in order to prevent slop shots from going in and to deny the opposition another scoring opportunity . I have found that the most consistent method used is like the one in the illustration above. I do not know why, but for some reason most experience players set their men up in this position. There is no rule written that say this is the way to do it, but somehow we instinctively evolved to using these types of positions.

Front goalie position
The goalie man closes to the opponent's front 3-man rod is usually angled back, almost like a back toe, at an angle between 30 to 45 degrees. Again, this is so that the ball can be caught or to deny the opponent another opportunity to score. If your goalie man is positioned straight down or pointed forward then the ball will bounce off of your man and returned back to the opposition, thus providing him or her with another potential scoring opportunity.

bad position for the front goalie because the ball can return back to the opposition

ideal position for the front goalie to catch the ball and to decrease the chances of the ball returning to the opposition

Back goalie position
For the back goalie man, you want to place the man in the opposite position as that of the front goalie man. This means angling the man feet in a forward direction. The idea behind this is to prevent the ball from going into the hole after it hits your man. This is commonly referred to as a "slop shot" when this happens. Also, by having your man in this position, the ball will bounce off and go to the front goalie man.

bad position for the back goalie because the ball can go in the hole

ideal position for the back goalie because the ball can return back to the front goalie

Try these positions, I believe you will find them to be beneficial to your game. Remember, you should never have your man pointed straight down. When playing single, it might be a good idea to have all the men pointing forward, with the exception of the front 3-man rod. You always want the front 3-man rod to be angle back so that you can catch the ball, prevent the ball from going back to the opposing goalie, and to prevent it from reaching your goalie's end of the table. The only time you do want your front men angle forward is when you are passing from the back.