jimstone said:

Hello, for those of you who use contact point aiming systems, where you first find the contact point on the object ball
by drawing a line from the pocket through the object ball, here is my question.
Let's say you have a long shot , and the object ball is a solid color. You step away from the object ball, after finding the contact point, and head
back to the cue ball which is say - 4 diamonds away. How do you keep track of that contact point on the object ball with your eyes? Thank you.

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You take a rough approximation of the contact point from any position where you’re not fully down in your stance at address. The contact point you identify while standing will naturally “move” as you get down into position.

You also don’t need to stare at the object ball’s contact point the entire time you’re assuming your stance or in your stance—notice how pros regularly look away from the contact point to check their aim point on the cue ball.

Bob Jewett said:

I think the only time that is supposed to happen is if they have not submitted a TIN to the organizer or they have no TIN. That will often be true for foreign players.

Well, maybe one other situation. I have been contacted twice by the IRS about players who had played in tournaments I organized. They said something like, "If you see Mr. Smith again, please let us have first crack at any funds he might be due. He seems to be careless in his bookkeeping and tax filing."

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It was a team outta Pueblo CO....

Bump

straightline said:

Here's a clearer depiction of the contact ellipse. Also apologies to @iusedtoberich who has some visual issues. If you need to know anything about the diagrams, please ask. If not it's all good.

View attachment 899425
The cool thing about this lick is you can take what you see on the OB and "paste" it on the CB. (blue line on the CB.)

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your ellipse seems to be the circumference which is round and only appears as an ellipse in a 2d image
either way i dont "see" how that is helpful
not sure if your blue line is supposed to be the parallel line shown in the picture below showing the contact point on the cue ball that has to match the contact point on the object ball and is a parrallel line to the object ball to the pocket line

You have learned some lessons well, and others not at all. I don't mean to be overly critical, but you have to work on your end pattern plans.

1. You cleared up most of the problem balls at the correct time, and in the beginning of the rack I can't really fault the way you went about things. Granted I might have done things differently, but it's a matter of taste really.

In your first rack you made a classic and fundamental mistake. When you have a ball close to the rail and you have to move the cueball down table, you never try to get low on it. Stay high, make sure to have an angle so you don't end up in the position of death: Straight in with both balls near the rail. Walk over there to find out where you want to get. You might be surprised at how high you can stay and still have a good shot with control. You got out of trouble this time, the next time...perhaps not.

2. You do seem to understand which balls connect with eachother, giving you more control over the cue ball and smaller movement, but some times when you have a long(ish) shot you seem to go a little crazy and hit it too hard and with the wrong english. I noticed this in your earlier videos as well. The shot on the one being the prime example. You last shot on the 7 was perfectly doable, had you not put inside english on it. I'd take my medicine here, hit it with straight draw and taken the longer shot, I might have even put a touch of outside on it to make sure what happened to you, could not possibly happen. The angle on the breakshot is alpha and omega. I'll take a long shot with an angle over any length of straight in. For a side breakshot, the further the break ball is away from the rack, the more angle you generally need on it. Play on tighter pockets for a while, and you'll know why.

3. Once the balls are all open, take a pause, walk around the table and make a plan for the end pattern. Remember that the end pattern is there to make the ending of the rack as close to idiot proof as possible, not just to look smart or knowledgable. The 7 and the 14 are both dreadful key balls to the 8. The 12 was your only good one. Had you not bumped the 14, the 7-14-8 could have been, not good, but defensible if you could set up well on the 7.

here is a review of various chalks at pooldawgs

CanadianGuy said:

the Judd Trump escape kick into pocket jaws from Wilsons drop dead perfect safety was a beauty

that had to just suck all life out of Wilson

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my friend sent me a clip of that as he was impressed with the escape and I think I was just as impressed with how Wilson laid the snooker as I was Trumps escape. As you said he played it drop dead perfect, he had a bout a balls width space to get behind the colour and judged both the weight and line of the shot to perfection.

Prices on Dale Perry cues that have been sold on eBay:

CocoboloCowboy said:

My best Pool playing friend and I were debating weather Points, Inlays, Veneers, ringwork, and other embellishments effect the hit of a Cue.

He says his next custom Cue will be a plane jane with no nothing to effect hit of a cue.

I think he is gone off the deep end as his best hitting cue has 8 points in the Forearm, and another 8 points in the Butt, and it is his best playing cue.

I do not think embellishments effect a cue hit, but it does make em pretty.

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One of the great masters of cue building fiercely belived this. Martin would not do points or fancy ringwork because he felt it changed the hit and feedback of the cue so significantly.

Honestly this all comes down to what you need your cue butt to do. Is it only delivering stroke or do you also require it to deliver consistent feedback to your hand?

My experience has been the more shit you do to the forearm with inlays and points and multiple materials the less of that feedback that makes it to your hand. Makers try to get around this by having a solid core of maple running from the joint to the sleeve but that's a hack and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I'm having a BEM merry widow built for me right now with old growth maple that's was sitting in a makers wood crib for over 30 years that they got from a different maker when they retired, who probably had that piece of wood since the 70's. No points, no fancy rings, just a natural born killer...



I am getting the steel joint and the two silver dollar rings in the sleeve engraved by a master engraver to add a bit of flair...