Possibly the initial ETC @ 6 o'clock... Then 11 or 1 (30 degrees) part...?
CTE experiment, with civil discussion
- Thread starter dr_dave
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Possibly the initial ETC @ 6 o'clock... Then 11 or 1 (30 degrees) part...?
I'm sorry John, but your explanations didn't really answer my question. I still don't know how to measure increased pocketing percentages or tremendously increased confidence, or any of the other intangibles that a player might claim they benefited from once they started using CTE. I'm looking for improvements through the use of CTE that can actually be measured. The reason I need that is so I can put a value to it in the form of money. Why? Because it's already been proven in these threads that CTE is far too complex to try and explain to novice players, so its true value must be with advanced players and professionals. And what is it that these players use to track their success rate? Money.
Let me give you an example of what I mean: Suppose a player is making $20,000 a year just off of his/her game (no other sources of income counted). Now suppose a CTE instructor tells this player that he/she could increase their pocketing percentage by 10% (a HUGE supposition since this person must already be a very skilled player). Further suppose that the 10% increase in pocketing percentage could be directly transferable to winnings in tournaments or gambling (another HUGE supposition). What would the real value be? It would be $2,000, of course. Would that be enough value to this player after considering the time and money investments involved in learning CTE? Who knows, except the player? Many players might decide that more practice time, using their current aiming methods, would yield greater values.
As far as the intangible benefits (values) go; you had a point with the increased confidence thing, John. I remember years ago when I bought a beautiful new cue at a tournament in N.C. from Joe Blackburn (built by him). I then drove the 700 miles home and immediately jumped into a tough 9-ball tournament without ever hitting a ball with that cue. I won that tournament, and I firmly believe it was because of the increased confidence I gained from owning a new cue. And I know for a fact that CTE had nothing to do with it.
Will we ever reach a point where we can put some measurable values on CTE?
I apologize in advance if this post is off track, Dave.
Roger
I read these loooong threads about CTE and try and stay out of them, (mostly because I think CTE is a bunch of hooey), but I do think Roger has hit on an interesting question.
However, I think perhaps the question concerning ball pocketing needs to be rephrased, because after all, isn't the real question not about how many more balls you may be pocketing, but: about how many more balls you're running. IOW, if I'm playing straight pool and am suddenly facing some awful back cut and I pull out my official Hal Houle Decoder Ring, set it to CTE, pivot and Chicken Dance my way up to the shot, but end up totally out of line with no kind of next shot, what have I really accomplished?
It can't just be about pocketing balls because pool, regardless of the particular game, is about pocketing a succession of balls. And for that any aiming "system" needs to take into account squirt, and swerve, and english, and throw, and speed, and elevation, and stuff like that there.
Lou Figueroa
You have made the ball with no shape on the next ball? I am not sure what your point is? No one who advocates using an aiming system says that position play doesn't matter.
I think that we would all agree however that making the ball if you are trying to make the ball is the number one task.
What would you say to a player who misses the ball but gets perfect shape?
"My turn" comes to mind.
And wind speed, and the lie, and how the table was brushed, and the humidity level, etc....
Any aiming system or method exists for one purpose and that is to put you on the only possible line to make the ball. If you aren't on that line then you can account for everything else perfectly and you will still lose your turn at the table.
Aiming is only one part of pool for sure but it's a very important part.
Today I did a 30 minute video where as a lark I decided to shoot all the balls with a "half-ball" aim, that is to line up side of the cue ball with the center of the object ball and the center of the cue ball with the side of the object ball. I did this on all sorts of shots to see what would happen.
The result was that I made most of the shots and the ones I missed were made the next time I tried it.
I had several discoveries today. One of them is that a "half-ball" aim does not result in a half ball hit. As in when I stand directly behind the cueball and line it up so that it "should be" a half ball bit it doesn't actually happen that way. In order to get a real half ball hit I actually have to line up slightly to the right of center and slightly inside the edge of the object ball.
I have tried to put this video up on Vimeo but my bandwidth won't support it. So I will probably need to cut it into three sections and put it up on Youtube.
What you will see is a person trying something he has never tried before. What I wanted to see was the effective pocketing range of a half-ball aim. Originally I wanted to see if the same aim would make the ball at whatever the half ball angle was and maybe 5 degrees on either side.
What I discovered is that using this aim I was able to make cut shots at shallow angles up to almost 90 degrees.
So great I discovered I could make all these shots using the same aim. What about it?
Well then I decided to try those shots with a little backhand english. Same thing, I could make the shots and play position.
Now this isn't any system. It's definitely not any that I have heard of although I am sure that someone somewhere can say that they know this too.
But what it does show is that it is indeed possible to make a wide range of shots using the same approach and "aim" and it's possible to play position starting with that same "aim".
So you can call it hooey if you want to Lou and I know you are a great player and a student of the game as is Mike Page and Dr. Dave. But it's not hooey and the more people discuss it and do diagrams and videos and think about it the closer we will get to figuring out why or how it works.
Anyway....hopefully my video will upload and then you can watch it and offer your comments as to what you think is happening and why.
On the contrary, the more we see and hear, the more it is crystal clear that CTE, as described and "marketed," is hooey.
CTE does work for some people. That is fact. I think the best reasons for why it does work can be found here:
Regards,
Dave
Spider's webinair (sp?)
Whatever came of the 'webinair' (sp?) spider was going to do if 10 AZBr's agreed to pay $50? It is hard for me to believe that at least 10 of us didn't come forward.
Whatever came of the 'webinair' (sp?) spider was going to do if 10 AZBr's agreed to pay $50? It is hard for me to believe that at least 10 of us didn't come forward.
I hope this still happens. And I hope the result will be a list of well-defined steps using simple language, along with clear illustrations and demonstrations, that totally define a version of CTE that won't be perceived as "hooey" by many of us.
Regards,
Dave
That is the dual alignment I referred to.
The problem is that even with the dual alignment (and it is a curious alignment as it definitely has an intelligence behind it), the way I understand it is still static in nature. I'm trying to find the variable which makes the system click.
... the fastest jockey/horse combination, but only if the jockey (and the horse) truly embraces the CTE philosophy.
The horse that has the correct offset and pivot for the distance to the finish line.:smile:
I can FEEL IT, no wait a minute, let me go to http://billiards.colostate.edu/threa....html#, I know its here somewhere, DAM were's it at, the Ghostball got hurt and was scratched, Contact to Contact is the early favorite, SAM will be in the running, Shiskebob is the early speed. The long shot CTE will hang around for quite awhile, But in the end the winner will be PRO-ONE, Trained by Stan Shuffet.
Geometry:
"faith" and "hoax" often go hand in hand. Hoaxes can't work without faith. But they collapse under the weight of strict reasoning. There are lots of red herrings about CTE that sound really deep and hint at mathematical soundness. We have shot arcs, pivot points, a recently introduced "pocket circle", and all of those nifty CAD diagrams.
Faith may be a necessary component in CTE, in the sense that the shooter needs to believe he's using a mathematically flawless system that puts him on the right aiming line. That confidence helps your ball pocketing. And when the shooter subconsciously sees that he's arrived on the perfect line, and this tells him to stops pivoting... he is reaffirming the 'science' behind it. "After my pivot, I can just see right now I'm on the perfect line. It looks like I can't miss it. Holy crap it really works!"
When he misses, he attributes it to errors in fundamentals because he has faith the system couldn't have possibly let him down.
Lou:
Not to jump to the other side of the fence but this is not necessarily a fair argument against CTE. No aiming system or method plays shape for you, but that doesn't mean it's not useful. If you had a magic bullet that could put your stick on the right line of aim... you've got a huge leg up on the guys who are just guessing. Everyone still has to figure out how to play shape, but the other guys have nothing but unknowns. You'd have one of those important unknowns solved already.
Shank:
There are lots of things working against the webinar -
Some people are just cheap. Some would be willing but the naysayers have convinced them it's a waste of time. Many never believed in this or any other aiming system. Some are turned off by the massive threads and complex diagrams. Some are turned off by the way Spidey has chosen to handle it (intentionally adding some difficulty to the learning process so that people can "earn it"). Some are turned off that Spidey has chosen to charge for it (if it's charity for hal, then 100% of the proceeds should go to him. Though hal didn't charge for it and who knows if he approves of others doing so). These things all add up to people being unwilling to pony up 50 bucks.
On the other hand maybe spidey has enough interest but is just busy.
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It's getting hard to keep any sort of open mind about all of this. I've got some info that was helpfully PMed to me. If that doesn't work, I probably will just drop it. I was going to get help from one CTE guy, but now he doesn't want to show it to just one guy, he wants more people and some compensation. Then another guy offered to help, but he wants to make it a good video and maybe look into some better equipment and he's also go other stuff going on in his life, so who knows when that'll appear.
I can't believe it's only been 3 weeks since Geometry posted the initial thread that started all of this. Feels like longer.
"faith" and "hoax" often go hand in hand. Hoaxes can't work without faith. But they collapse under the weight of strict reasoning. There are lots of red herrings about CTE that sound really deep and hint at mathematical soundness. We have shot arcs, pivot points, a recently introduced "pocket circle", and all of those nifty CAD diagrams.
Faith may be a necessary component in CTE, in the sense that the shooter needs to believe he's using a mathematically flawless system that puts him on the right aiming line. That confidence helps your ball pocketing. And when the shooter subconsciously sees that he's arrived on the perfect line, and this tells him to stops pivoting... he is reaffirming the 'science' behind it. "After my pivot, I can just see right now I'm on the perfect line. It looks like I can't miss it. Holy crap it really works!"
When he misses, he attributes it to errors in fundamentals because he has faith the system couldn't have possibly let him down.
Lou:
Not to jump to the other side of the fence but this is not necessarily a fair argument against CTE. No aiming system or method plays shape for you, but that doesn't mean it's not useful. If you had a magic bullet that could put your stick on the right line of aim... you've got a huge leg up on the guys who are just guessing. Everyone still has to figure out how to play shape, but the other guys have nothing but unknowns. You'd have one of those important unknowns solved already.
Shank:
There are lots of things working against the webinar -
Some people are just cheap. Some would be willing but the naysayers have convinced them it's a waste of time. Many never believed in this or any other aiming system. Some are turned off by the massive threads and complex diagrams. Some are turned off by the way Spidey has chosen to handle it (intentionally adding some difficulty to the learning process so that people can "earn it"). Some are turned off that Spidey has chosen to charge for it (if it's charity for hal, then 100% of the proceeds should go to him. Though hal didn't charge for it and who knows if he approves of others doing so). These things all add up to people being unwilling to pony up 50 bucks.
On the other hand maybe spidey has enough interest but is just busy.
------
It's getting hard to keep any sort of open mind about all of this. I've got some info that was helpfully PMed to me. If that doesn't work, I probably will just drop it. I was going to get help from one CTE guy, but now he doesn't want to show it to just one guy, he wants more people and some compensation. Then another guy offered to help, but he wants to make it a good video and maybe look into some better equipment and he's also go other stuff going on in his life, so who knows when that'll appear.
I can't believe it's only been 3 weeks since Geometry posted the initial thread that started all of this. Feels like longer.
Your link is not working properly, so I was not able to find the answer. I guess I'll just have to gamble and try to guess which horse will win by using my DAM intuition. :frown:
So do you think that the premise behind CTE has been misrepresented to make it sound more interesting? It is possible that once everyone figures it out that it won't be much different from other aiming systems...
I think he dropped it because only 4 people came forward.
Threads like this have actually been going on for many, many years on RSB, BD CCB, and AZB. The CTE "story" has changed a bit over the years, and many fancy buzz words and phrases have been added, but the fundamental conclusions are the same ... aiming still requires good visualization skills, precise body and cue alignment, accurate and consistent sighting, and an accurate and consistent stroke. And most importantly, it requires a lot of focus, and a lot of practice. There are no quick-fix, "silver-bullet" solutions; although, "aiming systems" can help some people (for the many reasons suggested over the years).
Regards,
Dave
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Cowboy,
I've got to admit that I'm not very well educated and these mathematicians and engineers have totally baffled me with their drawings, formulas, and descriptions. But it seems that you got it all figured in a very short amount of time. I congratulate you! Now could you please do me and some of the other slow learners on here a big favor and tell us how CTE actually works?
Your help would be much appreciated.
Roger
... or how about this one (see below) from Mike Page?I've got to admit that I'm not very well educated and these mathematicians and engineers have totally baffled me with their drawings, formulas, and descriptions. But it seems that you got it all figured in a very short amount of time. I congratulate you! Now could you please do me and some of the other slow learners on here a big favor and tell us how CTE actually works?Roger, does my last post (see below) really "baffle" you?:nono:
BTW, the answer to how and why CTE works is here.
Regards,
Dave
PS: I am not serious about the "baffle" remark. I know you probably relate to these posts quite well. I just didn't like you ragging on engineers (although, you can rag on the mathematicians all you want).
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Dave,
With all due disrespect, for someone who can't/hasn't figured out CTE, why would you try to pontificate some kind of "expert opinion" on the (un)virtues of CTE?
Eric >the world is flat
I "figured out" CTE many years ago. I'm just trying to help others "figure it out," because I'm tired of the endless barrage of ridiculous claims of how amazing and great CTE is. For examples of some of these claims, see the DAM marketing paragraph.
Regards,
Dave