Using Virtual Pool to play better One-Pocket

[JB Cases]

I've apparently and unintenionally stepped on someone's toes in this thread. I guess it's my bad.

I was just addressing the shot and table layout displayed in the original post and how it appears to be a bad decision to shoot either of those two balls in a real game of one pocket with no intent to knock the game.

Don't get so uptight about what other people say John.

That goes for you too. You weren't just addressing the table layout Joey, you were knocking the whole idea behind the reason for posting the thread.

It's not that you stepped on my toes it's that you don't get the concept. It's not to make people run out and play bad one pocket or make stupid decisions when they play in real life.

Instead it's to just show that a game can also be used as a training tool to stimulate the imagination which can then be taken to the table and practiced to see what's practical and what's not.

For me the absolute magic in one pocket is finding and shooting the creative shots which don't come up in other games. It's figuring out the non-obvious shots and mastering them to the point that they become deadly weapons. Weapons that may not come up but once a year but when they are needed you have it available. That's why I love one pocket. Not because I can shoot the boring standard shots.

If you watch any of the top one pocket players you will see a LOT of shots that they play which the amateurs do not even try. Why don't they try them? I think it's because they do not know the shots and because if they do know them they haven't practiced them.

For example Scott Frost kick banks balls ALL THE TIME. I would bet HUGE RIDICULOUS MONEY that you won't find two good amateur one pocket players who shoot as many kick bank shots in a month as Scott Frost does in one long session. IF ANY. And then when you have lost money to me on that bet you can bet on the success rate of the shots that the amateurs did shoot vs. Scott's.

Is Scott superhuman? No, he isn't. He simply made a choice to learn HOW to shoot those shots and his choice pays off with an increased arsenal of available shots. Unlike Scott I don't have the ability to spend all day at the pool room working on my game. So MAYBE it's good for me to spend some time using VP playing around with the kick-banks I see him play so I can kind of wrap my mind around them so as to have more effective practice time on the real table.

Just my opinion, now get off my toes because I can't shoot with you there.

 

[Bob Callahan]

Today's VP session was pretty instructive. The cut-break became popular during the 2 decades I've been away from pool. It took a little work to get the one in the pocket, and the cue ball mid-table:








The interesting thing was that it was easier to overpower it, than underpower it. It seems like there's a pretty wide range where hitting it with a softer stroke made it go.

Just a little more speed did this:




Everyone here probably already knew that--but I didn't until fooling with VP. Of course, there are other ways of finding it out...an hour or two at a table, maybe buy a $24.95 DVD, or take a lesson. But this only took 5 minutes.

Since VP lives in a perfect world, and I don't, it took some adjusting at a table. And it sure didn't go every time (I ain't no pro), but I felt like using a simulator gave me a leg up on mastering it. This general idea about the cut-break should apply in a relative sense to every table and condition normally encountered.

Was I wrong?

Did VP mislead me?


What comes next?

Well, it seems dangerous to let the cue ball travel down table and come back to mid-table. It'd be better if it came straight back. Of course, if some kind soul here at AZ would just take pity on me and tell how to do it....

 

[justnum]

Yes VP mislead you. It is using sometype of pre-cooked formula for generating paths of the balls. I am sure whoever cooked it up is a regular whiz but had trouble accounting for more complicated situations. And the result is what you have.

In short they determined some basic collision rules and then that was the end of the simulation. The game just re-applies it and you have the normal situations you have detected.

You most likely noticed that the same paths occur every time for specific shots or breaks. That is because the math genius that solved the problem didn't want to put a random factor in or didn't know how to introduce it. Random factors like, the path of the cue stroke and random cloth imperfections.

Great pics BTW.

The green ball doesn't move. Interesting there is no path line.

Are you sure the pic is correct?

 

[Bob Callahan]

Yes VP mislead you. It is using sometype of pre-cooked formula for generating paths of the balls. I am sure whoever cooked it up is a regular whiz but had trouble accounting for more complicated situations. And the result is what you have.

In short they determined some basic collision rules and then that was the end of the simulation. The game just re-applies it and you have the normal situations you have detected.

You most likely noticed that the same paths occur every time for specific shots or breaks. That is because the math genius that solved the problem didn't want to put a random factor in or didn't know how to introduce it. Random factors like, the path of the cue stroke and random cloth imperfections.

Great pics BTW.

That's interesting. Bob Jewett found an older version to be pretty accurate (http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/1995-08.pdf), and only had minor problems with it. It seems the new version is better.

Do you know of an even better simulator?

Thanks for the compliment on the images, but all I did was resize screen captures.

 

[justnum]

That's interesting. Bob Jewett found an older version to be pretty accurate (http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/1995-08.pdf), and only had minor problems with it. It seems the new version is better.

Do you know of an even better simulator?

Thanks for the compliment on the images, but all I did was resize screen captures.

I am not trying to be funny.

The best simulator is a real table. The hard part is getting the player or shooter to realize what they are doing may or may not be different at the same shot on repeated occasions.

 

[JB Cases]

I am not trying to be funny.

The best simulator is a real table. The hard part is getting the player or shooter to realize what they are doing may or may not be different at the same shot on repeated occasions.

Then it's not a "simulator". The title of the software explains it about as well as can be, VIRTUAL Pool.

Just about every one of the billiard scholars and physics geeks agrees that VP is pretty good.

 

[Bob Callahan]

I think I understand what you are getting at, justnum. I alluded to it in one of the above posts by mentioning the inherent chaos in breaking, and also that the physics of pool is incomplete.

It would be nice to control the cloth dampness, introduce random imperfections in the cloth, and vary the dirtiness of the balls, among other things--but it might take a Tianhe-1 to process all of those fast enough to make the game playable. Until I have one of those on my desk--and someone writes the software, I'm content to use VP and adjust on real tables.

It's pretty funny when introductory college dynamics texts use billiards as an example of Newtonian physics. In another thread I mentioned that when I quit thinking about the physics of pool 20 years ago...I'd just realized that the friction between colliding balls is in the form of skewed annular rings of stick/no-stick. <--Disya dred, mon.

I'm too lazy to learn more advanced finite element analysis just for pool. :embarrassed2:

 

[justnum]

I think I understand what you are getting at, justnum. I alluded to it in one of the above posts by mentioning the inherent chaos in breaking, and also that the physics of pool is incomplete.

It would be nice to control the cloth dampness, introduce random imperfections in the cloth, and vary the dirtiness of the balls, among other things--but it might take a Tianhe-1 to process all of those fast enough to make the game playable. Until I have one of those on my desk--and someone writes the software, I'm content to use VP and adjust on real tables.

It's pretty funny when introductory college dynamics texts use billiards as an example of Newtonian physics. In another thread I mentioned that when I quit thinking about the physics of pool 20 years ago...I'd just realized that the friction between colliding balls is in the form of skewed annular rings of stick/no-stick. <--Disya dred, mon.

I'm too lazy to learn more advanced finite element analysis just for pool. :embarrassed2:

That idea with an annular ring is something that I missed. That simplification would speed up the calculations when compared to other models.

 

[justnum]

Then it's not a "simulator". The title of the software explains it about as well as can be, VIRTUAL Pool.

Just about every one of the billiard scholars and physics geeks agrees that VP is pretty good.

Being good and being mildly accurate are two very different things. The geometers I know always push to be more accurate, though their one idea in the direction of accuracy provides them with a healthy career they still try to promote furthering developments in others.

I am almost interested in revitalizing an old idea about a pool simulation. This time instead of dealing with the standard games it would be more of a set of challenge shots, to test your concepts on physics and cue-cue stick interaction. So it is not like I am trying to own your idea just trying to simplify it into something useful.

Back to the geometers I knew good in their day was entirely wrong by today's standards, or just partially correct.

I have not seen VP for sale at any stores I visit regularly.

 

[JB Cases]

Being good and being mildly accurate are two very different things. The geometers I know always push to be more accurate, though their one idea in the direction of accuracy provides them with a healthy career they still try to promote furthering developments in others.

I am almost interested in revitalizing an old idea about a pool simulation. This time instead of dealing with the standard games it would be more of a set of challenge shots, to test your concepts on physics and cue-cue stick interaction. So it is not like I am trying to own your idea just trying to simplify it into something useful.

Back to the geometers I knew good in their day was entirely wrong by today's standards, or just partially correct.

I have not seen VP for sale at any stores I visit regularly.

So would you say that a person cannot learn the effects of spin by using Virtual Pool?

Could they not learn the effects of speed?

Can they not learn how to draw the cue ball? How about basic aiming?

Do you honestly think that the designer of VP has not considered the physics involved when making the game?

What does you not seeing it for sale have to do with anything? I bought my first copy at the BCA Expo. I bought my next copy off the rack at Best Buy. It's available and for sale in all versions and still being developed with newer versions.

In fact the developer is a good friend of our own Chris Tate who happens to be a strong A player. I am sure that Tate would not let his friend develop a pool game that was inaccurate.

So yes, in this situation, being fairly accurate is GOOD ENOUGH. Which means good enough to use as an excellent simulator to train on and good enough to have fun with as a VIRTUAL pool game.

Good enough means that you can mess around with shots using various combinations of speed and spin and infuse your brain with the results and then when you go to the table you already have a wealth of DATA to use so that you can check the data against real world objects and turn it into practical KNOWLEDGE. Why is this concept hard to understand?

Here is a REAL WORLD situation for you that emulates VP.

The break. In VP the balls are always frozen, the conditions are always the same. Thus if you set up any break shot and use the same speed/spin the balls always do the same thing.

Guess what.

With the advent of the perfect rack - using the Sardo, and racking templates such as the Magic Rack - the players have figured out that the balls will do the same thing if they set up the break shot using the right combination of speed and spin.

Makes me think that VP is not so far off as you seem to think it is.

When I was in high school I used to play my own version of virtual pool. It was called doodling. I would set up a shot and then draw out the various paths the cue ball could take or the object ball. I would imagine how I would need to hit it to make it go that way. I had notebooks filled with these doodles. To anyone else they must have looked like weird scribbles but to me they represented learning about acute and obtuse angles to get a real sense of what was possible and impossible and where the border was.

So I don't see how Virtual Pool, the game/training tool can be BAD for a player in any way shape or form. As far as that goes even Yahoo Pool is worthwhile as is any billiard simulator that uses basic physics and geometry as it's engine.

 

[justnum]

So would you say that a person cannot learn the effects of spin by using Virtual Pool?

Could they not learn the effects of speed?

Can they not learn how to draw the cue ball? How about basic aiming?

Do you honestly think that the designer of VP has not considered the physics involved when making the game?

What does you not seeing it for sale have to do with anything? I bought my first copy at the BCA Expo. I bought my next copy off the rack at Best Buy. It's available and for sale in all versions and still being developed with newer versions.

In fact the developer is a good friend of our own Chris Tate who happens to be a strong A player. I am sure that Tate would not let his friend develop a pool game that was inaccurate.

So yes, in this situation, being fairly accurate is GOOD ENOUGH. Which means good enough to use as an excellent simulator to train on and good enough to have fun with as a VIRTUAL pool game.

Good enough means that you can mess around with shots using various combinations of speed and spin and infuse your brain with the results and then when you go to the table you already have a wealth of DATA to use so that you can check the data against real world objects and turn it into practical KNOWLEDGE. Why is this concept hard to understand?

Here is a REAL WORLD situation for you that emulates VP.

The break. In VP the balls are always frozen, the conditions are always the same. Thus if you set up any break shot and use the same speed/spin the balls always do the same thing.

Guess what.

With the advent of the perfect rack - using the Sardo, and racking templates such as the Magic Rack - the players have figured out that the balls will do the same thing if they set up the break shot using the right combination of speed and spin.

Makes me think that VP is not so far off as you seem to think it is.

When I was in high school I used to play my own version of virtual pool. It was called doodling. I would set up a shot and then draw out the various paths the cue ball could take or the object ball. I would imagine how I would need to hit it to make it go that way. I had notebooks filled with these doodles. To anyone else they must have looked like weird scribbles but to me they represented learning about acute and obtuse angles to get a real sense of what was possible and impossible and where the border was.

So I don't see how Virtual Pool, the game/training tool can be BAD for a player in any way shape or form. As far as that goes even Yahoo Pool is worthwhile as is any billiard simulator that uses basic physics and geometry as it's engine.

I am for the VP product, it is a great production. I was more interested in the 5 year old who barely knows how to talk but likes pool. And instead of just pushing a button and seeing a bunch of lines and watching a bunch of circles move around a screen. I am suggesting something more playful. Maybe instead of a rolling ball a child wants to see rolling carrots or rolling trucks. This realm becomes mildly pool or would be considered extras for the VP software.

It is a lot of work to explain that a ball goes this way if you hit if that way without looking like a fool even with the help of a computer. The computer has more abilities and that is where I am going with my discussion.

If your point is to just state and defend how great VP is that is fine. I accept that you stated your point and see it in the thread history.

 

[Bob Callahan]

When I was in high school I used to play my own version of virtual pool. It was called doodling. I would set up a shot and then draw out the various paths the cue ball could take or the object ball. I would imagine how I would need to hit it to make it go that way. I had notebooks filled with these doodles. To anyone else they must have looked like weird scribbles but to me they represented learning about acute and obtuse angles to get a real sense of what was possible and impossible and where the border was.

Well, I was about to challenge you to doodle pool, but now that you've shown your true speed, I'll need the orange crush! :grin-square:

This was so cool to read. Did you keep the notebooks?

 

[JB Cases]

I am for the VP product, it is a great production. I was more interested in the 5 year old who barely knows how to talk but likes pool. And instead of just pushing a button and seeing a bunch of lines and watching a bunch of circles move around a screen. I am suggesting something more playful. Maybe instead of a rolling ball a child wants to see rolling carrots or rolling trucks. This realm becomes mildly pool or would be considered extras for the VP software.

It is a lot of work to explain that a ball goes this way if you hit if that way without looking like a fool even with the help of a computer. The computer has more abilities and that is where I am going with my discussion.

If your point is to just state and defend how great VP is that is fine. I accept that you stated your point and see it in the thread history.

um, ok. I am not sure but I think that there are tons of physics based games already out there using all sorts of objects. I guess I wasn't really following your logic and thought you were saying VP is not any good for a person to use as a learning tool for playing pool.

 

[JB Cases]

Well, I was about to challenge you to doodle pool, but now that you've shown your true speed, I'll need the orange crush! :grin-square:

This was so cool to read. Did you keep the notebooks?

No, those were lost in the many moves since then. But thinking about them has brought up the reason I did them in the first place.

I actually learned to play golf on the snooker table BEFORE I learned how to play nine ball. When I found Tiger's pool room in Edmond OK, they played golf and I wanted to play. So I got involved with that game mostly. In golf you have to able to bank and kick really really really well AND control your cue ball so you don't sell out to the player that follows you.

So as I remember it I spent a lot of time figuring out paths so I could be a better golf player.

 

[TATE]

My friend for 30 years, the person who developed and owns Virtual Pool, is known as "Tall Steve". He's a strong player and has been placing up high in the Hard Times tourney's lately, playing against the likes of Morro Paez, Louie Ulrich, and a bunch of other tough players.

Having developed and worked on VP for the last 20 years, I don't think anybody knows more about the physics of pool than Steve. His specialty was developing machines and software to generate high speed graphics in simulators, and he worked for Lockheed before leaving to start his own company, Celeris, in 1988. Plus being a player, he has a keen sense of the calibration needed for the game.

Funny thing is, I don't play VP. The few times I've played it, I thought it was an absolutely amazing simulation. I've seen gamers who play virtual pool like pros who play really bad in real life. I came to the conclusion there are two facets to pool, the mental perception, and the physicial execution. Both aspects are required to play the game well.

Steve doesn't have the time to participate in message boards, plus he would be speaking a different language than us anyway. He's very smart and an avid learner. I once sent him the link to Dr. Dave's site, and the same day he bought everything Dr. Dave had. He loves those little film clips.


Chris

 

[Bob Callahan]

My friend for 30 years, the person who developed and owns Virtual Pool, is known as "Tall Steve". He's a strong player and has been placing up high in the Hard Times tourney's lately, playing against the likes of Morro Paez, Louie Ulrich, and a bunch of other tough players.

Having developed and worked on VP for the last 20 years, I don't think anybody knows more about the physics of pool than Steve. His specialty was developing machines and software to generate high speed graphics in simulators, and he worked for Lockheed before leaving to start his own company, Celeris, in 1988. Plus being a player, he has a keen sense of the calibration needed for the game.

Funny thing is, I don't play VP. The few times I've played it, I thought it was an absolutely amazing simulation. I've seen gamers who play pool like pros who play really bad in real life. I came to the conclusion there are two facets to pool, the mental perception, and the physicial execution. Both aspects are required to play the game well.

Steve doesn't have the time to participate in message boards, plus he would be speaking a different language than us anyway. He's very smart and an avid learner. I once sent him the link to Dr. Dave's site, and the same day he bought everything Dr. Dave had. He loves those little film clips.


Chris

I think he's done a great job of coding the physics. The problems mentioned by folks in this thread are just as applicable to shot diagrams in books and magazines, and things shown on DVDs. Every road player and travelling trickshot artist knows stuff has to be adjusted for table conditions.

VP is also great for illustrating shots--I hope your buddy doesn't mind my use of it here. I've been working up some demos of proposition shots which I'll post to this thread if anyone is interested.

If Tall Steve is looking for beta testers for a new version.... ( Hint. Hint. :grin-square

 

[justnum]

um, ok. I am not sure but I think that there are tons of physics based games already out there using all sorts of objects. I guess I wasn't really following your logic and thought you were saying VP is not any good for a person to use as a learning tool for playing pool.

Thanks for not jumping to conclusions. I guess this means you have opened up to a new perspective.

PS: My logic isn't interesting to follow, and it isn't profitable either.

 

[TATE]

I think he's done a great job of coding the physics. The problems mentioned by folks in this thread are just as applicable to shot diagrams in books and magazines, and things shown on DVDs. Every road player and travelling trickshot artist knows stuff has to be adjusted for table conditions.

VP is also great for illustrating shots--I hope your buddy doesn't mind my use of it here. I've been working up some demos of proposition shots which I'll post to this thread if anyone is interested.

If Tall Steve is looking for beta testers for a new version.... ( Hint. Hint. :grin-square

Not at all Bob. I had sent him the link to the thread a few days ago. He enjoyed reading it. He likes to use his screenshots too to demonstrate shots.

I'll let him know you might like to test the VP4 Beta.

Chris

 

[justnum]

This is mildly related to VP and more related to using the computer to learn to play better pool.

In the existing software packages modeling a pool table and collisions the physics was accurate however there was other information that was left out.

The formula cutout for most of the billiard programs are detailed and demonstrate different behavior for different situations providing the appearance of a realistic pool animation. The piece that could be added are the formulas or ideas representing "randomness". Possible ideas to work with are Steiner's formula because the cue stick has well known properties and the Q ball is a perfect Euclidean unit-ball as are the remaining balls on the table. The point of collision between Qball and Qstick could be modeled better with a valuation which needs to developed and then the physics might follow if some type of analog to Fisher information could be determined. (To the prof I didn't sign up for the class to teach it, I actually needed someone that could read and translate the text for me, the other students were not paid to do that.)

In short the formula for the sim is good but can be generalized with German/Austria math developments that few people have applied to existing problems. Those developments are well discussed in a math, convex geometry and information theory, class.

I'll post when I work out more details.

If those formulas can be worked out it will help players that own the simulator practice with realistic randomness. Forced randomness on today's simulators would just be dealing with a nonstandard table condition, once you learn it then you can beat it. Realistic randomness isn't something that should be learned.