Using Ghost Ball Contact Patch to understand aiming geometry

JB Cases said:

The table doesn't lie to you. When you are playing you are either running out or missing. So if you choose GB or feel and you are missing and you choose another method and you are making more balls then it's obvious to you which one works better. I think playing on pure feel and never missing would be the best way possible. But if I am not able to do that then I want to learn whatever methods will help me to miss less.

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JB Cases said:

I would bet a lot that just about every player on this forum started out with ghost ball. I would further bet that many of them have used many of the available ghost ball trainers out there.

The forum's players who even care about other aiming methods than feel or GB can be divided into two classes in my opinion.

Those who have graduated from GB/Feel and those who have not. Now we can argue the effectiveness of non GB/feel methods until infinity and it seems no amount of demonstration is sufficient for die hard GB aimers to accept that those methods do in fact produce more accurate shooters (assuming that the mechanics are in order).

So for me it really goes all the way back to the fact that other aiming methods require nothing more than the cue ball and object ball to be used effectively. They can be learned and practiced with no additional props and devices and guides. They work the same all the time and take the optical illusions out of the game.

I agree that all these training aids, including placing an extra ball, are helpful to develop a feel for the fullness of the hit. I think though that this is a waste of time when there are better methods out there.

This was my personal answer to another Duckie challenge many months ago. It is my personal opinion of why GB is an inferior way to aim in pool. Yes it can work well for some people and they can enjoy a lifetime of playing pool with nothing more than GB/feel as their way to aim. But it is not right to assume that those on here who don't use GB have never used or don't know how to use it. Many of us have certainly grown up with GB/Feel as our only method of aiming and I would say that we know as much or more about it than anyone else on this forum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMNs82JOumU

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JB Cases said:

I didn't take it as condescending. I jsut wanted to point out that it's highly unlikely that there are any "non GB users" here who haven't learned to play pool using GB.

I hate to bring CTE into this but some people cast this as a GB vs CTE debate constantly. It isn't that in my opinion. GB exists it's not ever going away and is the easiest possible method of teaching the basic principle of where to aim the cue stick.

It's great for diagramming, easy to explain, and thus will be eternal. But it's not the only way to aim. People tend to forget or maybe don't even know that there have been other ways to aim created and taught long before the internet came about. Alternatives to GB have been around, they just weren't being discussed at length and dissected and argued over in worldwide public debate.

To me it's like this....there are many ways to aim, many ways to stand, many ways to stroke, many bridge lengths, many head positions, but the one thing that must be the same is where your cue points because for every shot there is a very narrow sliver where the cue can be pointing to make the shot and an even narrower sliver where the cue can be pointing to make the shot AND get position for the next shot.

So regardless of how you aim, either you land on that sliver consistently or you don't. And now, thanks to the hard efforts of many people, players have choices of how they want to approach aiming. From the very common Ghost Ball approach, with it's easy diagrams and dozens of training aids, to the less common (but more accurate imo) CTE approach and everything in between.

Aiming geometry isn't hard, especially with the GB diagramming. Pretty simple, line to the pocket, line to GB center, two lines. The lines to the pocket back through the ob is easy to pick out. The line to the GB center is easy to estimate. But getting it just slightly wrong is often a miss.

The table doesn't lie to you. When you are playing you are either running out or missing. So if you choose GB or feel and you are missing and you choose another method and you are making more balls then it's obvious to you which one works better. I think playing on pure feel and never missing would be the best way possible. But if I am not able to do that then I want to learn whatever methods will help me to miss less.

And everyone starts with GB as their first step in that direction. (for now)

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336Robin said:

Some interesting posts on this thread.

I remember back when I first started playing and I had absolutely no instruction on bar boxes I was 12 maybe.

At that age your depth perception is near perfect and I never envisioned a Ghost Ball the thought never occurred to me and I had no pool books.

What did occur to me was that ball needed to go in a pocket and I knew I had to glance the cue ball off of the object ball to do it.

When I figured out that there was once place I could hit to do that I tried everything to hit the spot that I knew would do it. I tried aiming the stick at it which works for fairly straight ins but does not work on anything else.

Then I thought about how to connect the equal opposite points on the ball together and that worked everytime provided I sent the cue ball to the right picked out spot.

I picked out the correct spot by looking down the edge of the cue ball and trying my best to get it to a point not far from this contact point spot I picked out and it worked if I did my job right.

Correctly seeing this all elusive line became the key thing to learn to do and refining the acquistion of the way those balls should meet became my goal. As a young man with great depth perception I was hard to beat on a barbox and this went on for many years but I wasnt playing road players but I won a lot of games and a lot of dollars doing it.

My point is there are a lot of "feel" players that arent necessarily Ghost Ballers if the truth be known but later find out about it. What they are are "Edge Players."

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ronscuba said:

The different terminology being used can be confusing. Different words sometimes describing the same thing.

Is pivot vs. no pivot a good dividing line ?

Within no pivot: ghost ball, edge, ball rolling lines, fractions, parallel offset, etc.. Someone said they are all a variation on ghost ball aiming. I had never heard of ghost ball and did not know what it was.

Whatever you call it, establishing the line the CB rolls is the easy part for me. What makes the biggest difference is my routine to align my vision, body, cue and focus all on that line. I'm a methodical thinker, so this kind of came natural.

Difficult shots have a very small margin for error. When I miss, it's because I got sloppy with my routine or stroke or both.

I know many beginners and people who have been playing for years, but never get better. I talk to them about pre-shot routine to help their consistency. Standard reply is, "nah, I don't want to do that" or "I don't believe in that".

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LAMas said:

Me too.:smile:

There were no instructors at the bowling alley pool rooms.
I knew that the contact point on the OB and CB must contact each other and that worked fine when the CB and OB were close to each other. When they weren't I would used proportions of doubling the distance aiming "DD".

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336Robin said:

I'm not sure what you call double the distance but it seems I read something on it long ago. I sort of make up my own rules when it comes to aiming as long as they work well.

Here is one for you that you might not have thought about that has made me a much better shot maker.

There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding an aim point on the object ball that sends you to center pocket.

Why do you have to shoot that way when all you have to do is miss the corner/point of the pocket ?

Its been a nice philosophy that's paid a lot of dividends. A bit unconventional maybe but I'm not arguing with what works and you wont have any problems cheating a pocket when it comes time to and missing shots quickly tells you that you are a little off and recalibration to on...is quicker.

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LAMas said:

PJ shows DD on post #2.

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=273900&highlight=double+distance+aiming

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JB Cases said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMNs82JOumU

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duckie said:

The truth is that this concept is the mother of all aiming systems. There is not a system that do not have these components in them. It is the only concept based on facts, so much so that pool games use these components......not CTE cause it can't work.

The truth is that just repeating empty statements without any facts or proof will not make CTE worth a shit.

Here's a curtain shot to try ..place one OB on the table, place the cb somewhere, now hide the OB from view....send the Cb two rails and hit it. Oh, the person doing the shot can not see the OB placement before the curtain is in place. They just walk up and see the cb and know somewhere behind the curtain is a OB.

Post the video of that setup shot to prove the might of CTE.

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BeiberLvr said:

You know that can't be done with ghostball either right

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duckie said:

The truth is that this concept is the mother of all aiming systems. There is not a system that do not have these components in them. It is the only concept based on facts, so much so that pool games use these components......not CTE cause it can't work.

The truth is that just repeating empty statements without any facts or proof will not make CTE worth a shit.

Here's a curtain shot to try ..place one OB on the table, place the cb somewhere, now hide the OB from view....send the Cb two rails and hit it. Oh, the person doing the shot can not see the OB placement before the curtain is in place. They just walk up and see the cb and know somewhere behind the curtain is a OB.

Post the video of that setup shot to prove the might of CTE.

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duckie said:

Say you got a OB close to a corner pocket, bout 3 inches. For a center pocket hit, the angle the CB comes off the OB is not right for the next shot. You need to hit to one side of center pocket to get the right angle for the cb to come off the OB.

Say it's the right side of center pocket. This means the ghost ball contact patch must move to the left along the aiming arc. How much is done by feel, but it is known the the margin of error is big being this close to the pocket.

Now move that shot setup 72 inches from the pocket. Now the margin of error is way smaller requiring a very precise hit on the OB, to go right of center pocket, due the the increase of distance. The direction of ghost ball contact patch is the same but the amount that it can be move and still hit right of center pocket is smaller than when closer.

Using the above example....explain using CTE. Explan how CTE allows for hitting anywhere in the pocket on purpose and not just in the pocket. What references does CTE provide in putting balls where you need them?

If it's a center pocket system only, then it can not. If it can put a ball anywhere in the pocket, it is impossible to do so with the same set of visuals as a center pocket hit.

It can not use the same visuals since the CB contact patch needs to be in two different locations along the aiming arc, one for center pocket, one for right of center pocket.

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