Making the wing ball from the box?

Wasn't Shane breaking from the right side and making the wing ball on the left? If so, that is not the typical way to go after the wing ball regardless of what rack or break you are using. What Darren was doing is the typical way of employing the cut break to make the wing ball:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfJnGTvxECU

Darren is using the off-center hit change the timing of the force delivered through the three-ball and four-ball tracks leading to the 3-ball and 7-ball. The normal line for the wing ball is to glance off of the 7 and hit high, but by changing the break angle you can slow down the three-ball track (1/5/3, in this case) and speed up the four-ball track (1/8/9/7) - changing the timing between those two tracks can make the wing ball glance lower, into the pocket.

Hitting the balls square and from the box does not, in my experience anyway, allow you to manipulate that timing enough to make the wing ball - unless there are gaps. Regardless, if the balls are all touching, and you are trying to make the wing ball employing this technique, you will always break from the same side as the wing ball you are trying to pocket.

With the magic rack, all of this goes out the window, of course, and I wonder if it's because balls in the magic rack lean into each other rather than simply resting against each other as with a traditional rack.

Knowing that they had racking issues on that table, and seeing Shane use such an unorthodox break tells me that he developed that break based on his knowledge of that specific table, ie: gaps in certain places. If there are no problems with the rack, I think the 8-ball he was making every time is supposed to hit 6-8" above the pocket - perhaps even higher due to the speed he was hitting them (18-22MPH), and the side he was breaking from (again, if I am remembering correctly). It was a tough racking table, and Shane figured out what worked on it. Props to him for solving the puzzle and making his solution work so consistently.

Aaron
 
Aaron_S said:
Wasn't Shane breaking from the right side and making the wing ball on the left?
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Shane was breaking from the left of the head spot, and making the left wing ball (shooters left).....

The break line is on the head string just a little bit right of the diamond. The line I was breaking on is a straight line from the diamond to the head ball. So, the cue ball on the head string is just a little right of the diamond (to be on that line).

It takes a little bottom left english, hit it almost dead square on the head ball, and hit it hard. So, it's not a cut break.

When not hit hard enough, the wing ball will hit the long rail above the pocket. Hit it too hard, and the wing ball will actually hit the bottom rail. Hit it just right and straight in it goes.
 
Shane was breaking from the same side as the pocketed wing ball.

And yes every player that played on that table was likely to have dealt with the same rack and gap configuration due to some dimpling.Shane simply had all the tools to solve the problem.

Consistently hitting the rack with the right speed and angle to have the one ball track up table and to get shape after the break was the the true measure of Shane's effectiveness.
 
Shane found magic in the PRACTICE room Thursday

I posted this elsewhere...

A funny little story... I was watching Shane warm up in the practice room Thursday, practicing his break. Then Earl walks in and Shane immediately says "You gotta watch this!". He was all smiles.

Earl asks if he's using the cut break and Shane says no. He breaks once, and it was a bad break, so he re-racks. He slams it the 2nd time head on, the cue ball comes back a foot or two and then gains it's top spin traction and rolls to the middle of the table. The wing ball went straight in. Earl says "yeah, yeah, yeah, about two racks into your next match you'll go right back to the cut break like everyone else." Shane says "No way! You'll see!"

Shane sets up another rack, whereby Earl walks up, inspects the rack and says "You're cheating! You're cocking the rack or leaving a gap!". He was just busting his balls in good hearted banner.

I thought it was a funny exchange and IMO Shane thought he had just found magic in the bottle and was excited. It was a hint of what was to come!
 
KoolKat9Lives said:
I posted this elsewhere...

A funny little story... I was watching Shane warm up in the practice room Thursday, practicing his break. Then Earl walks in and Shane immediately says "You gotta watch this!". He was all smiles.

Earl asks if he's using the cut break and Shane says no. He breaks once, and it was a bad break, so he re-racks. He slams it the 2nd time head on, the cue ball comes back a foot or two and then gains it's top spin traction and rolls to the middle of the table. The wing ball went straight in. Earl says "yeah, yeah, yeah, about two racks into your next match you'll go right back to the cut break like everyone else." Shane says "No way! You'll see!"

Shane sets up another rack, whereby Earl walks up, inspects the rack and says "You're cheating! You're cocking the rack or leaving a gap!". He was just busting his balls in good hearted banner.

I thought it was a funny exchange and IMO Shane thought he had just found magic in the bottle and was excited. It was a hint of what was to come!
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Another of Shane's strengths is to do his pre match homework and to take mental notes.
 
It just goes to show you that there is a break for every player, every table, every day, and every set of conditions. The guy who can get it figured out is a step or two ahead playing 9-ball. It's frustrating as hell sometimes, though. A break that works one one table doesn't work on the one next to it; the break that works at 30% humidity doesn't work at 60% humidity; one only works with clean balls; the other only works when M.A.S.H. reruns are playing on the tube, etc., etc., ad inifinitum.

Aaron
 
JMuck said:
Don't you think Jay and Alex may have snuck a peak at the 2-ball gap beings it was only 2.25 inches away.I don't think at that moment anything was going to get past those two guys.
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Ummm, Alex did spot the gap and made a huge stink out of it. I'm not sure if the conversation was shown on the stream, but Alex eventually made Jay rack the balls. He still wasn't happy with the rack at that point, but not much you can say after you get your way.

Alex even told Shane, and said "you're not supposed to make that ball when you're breaking from there."
 
Jay inspected the rack but never actually racked.

Shane had to re-rack after Alex brought it up.

You couldn't hear what Alex and Jay were saying to each other on the stream. But, it looked like Jay was supporting that it was a good rack.....

After the match was over, Alex and Jay had a long discussion at the table about it. But, again, you could not hear what they were saying. But, it did not look like Jay was supporting Alex's argument.
 
jt1 said:
Jay inspected the rack but never actually racked.

Shane had to re-rack after Alex brought it up.

You couldn't hear what Alex and Jay were saying to each other on the stream. But, it looked like Jay was supporting that it was a good rack.....

After the match was over, Alex and Jay had a long discussion at the table about it. But, again, you could not hear what they were saying. But, it did not look like Jay was supporting Alex's argument.
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This is what I saw also.
 
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Here’s my thoughts and they are just that, thoughts. First off I really don’t want any of this rack stuff to take away from Shane’s sweet victory. He is a person that I like, respect and has many championship qualities, especially his work ethic that is 2nd to none. I do not believe that he intentionally created any gaps in the rack that helped him make the corner ball. I watched him pretty closely as he racked and to me it just looks like he is trying to freeze’em up as good as possible and the man knows how to give himself a good rack. That sounds simple but many of you would be amazed at how many people have to get lucky to give themselves a good rack, I have watched more than 1 player of championship level continually slug themselves.

I watched almost all the streamed matches all week long, can’t help it, I’m a pool junkie and really miss being at these events. Of course I sit here 1,000 miles away and try to read the racks, lol that’s what I do.

With a good rack on that table the cut break would definitely help make the corner ball, as it should. There were times that players would cut it and it would even go low but most misses were on the high side as usually. The match with Dennis and Niels is of particular importance because I know that Niels knows how to read a rack, he is a very good student of all areas of the game. During that match at the beginning Dennis was able to hit the rack full from his left and watch the corner ball fly right in just as Shane did in the finals. Niels watched it twice I believe before he got up to inspect it and when he did he saw the 2 ball loose on the right side of the rack as you stand in the rackers position and asked Dennis to freeze it. Now I’m 99.9% sure (in other words you don’t know, lol) that Dennis did not intentionally leave that ball off. You can tell by his reaction AND by how he racks other times for himself, lol. Dennis didn’t think it was a big deal at all, he’s like sure freeze it. This is while Niels specifically asked Ken Schuman to freeze the back ball, which Ken did and guess what happened after that with the same break? Corner ball hit high.

Now when Alex was playing Shane he had Jay Helfert check the rack and from what I saw there (from here) was Jay looking at the corner ball only and assure Alex it was frozen, which I believe it was. I did not see Jay look at the 2 ball (back ball) AND when Alex was racking for himself I saw him actually try to tap the 2 ball in place with the rack, this tells me (from here) that there was a good chance the 2 ball was racking a little loose on the table as it probably had been all week. And on RS2 I show everyone what a hanger the corner ball is when this happens.

What I think happened is exactly what happens when I rack for myself and exactly what I tell other players to do when they ask me about rack your own. I simply rack the balls until I see a rack that I like. I do not intentionally create spaces, I simply try to get an acceptable rack and if it does have spaces that I believe I can take advantage of then I will try to do that. I feel this is using knowledge as opposed to intentionally creating spaces which I consider cheating and I do not want to lay on my pillow thinking how well I cheated today. Some may say well that’s not fair either and my answer to you is you try to stand there and freeze everything without the use of a template or trained table, we might still be waiting for the 1st rack to be broke in the finals.

I believe Shane was trying to give himself a frozen rack and might not have even noticed the 2 ball was a lil loose. I do know that he was sweating Dennis during the Niels match and that may have just to see what break was working on the feature table, a table that he planned on playing. If so he may have learned that breaking from the left may be the way to go on that table, I do believe that breaking from the left was much more consistent during the entire week, I cringed when someone moved over to their right. I believe Dennis had the same opportunity as Shane in the finals and made a couple of mistakes. Mistake #1 and I could be wrong (bad memory) I think Dennis started with a cut break from the left and because the corner ball was already wired when he cut it it actually went slow and low to the end rail. After that I believe he tried racking them better and found a different spot which was not as good as where Shane had them breaking well from.

The real reason I believe the back ball or perhaps another ball was loose is because how full the balls could get hit and the corner ball would fly in. Shane was breaking from his left and I do not believe the cue ball went left off the rack more than once if it did once at all. He had the 1 ball going straight back to the corner pocket to his right just like his 10 Ball break and what was more amazing was that he actually crossed over the 1 ball occasionally sending the cb to the right side of the table and the corner ball still went dead in. That is like breaking from the head spot and hitting the 1 ball full and watching the corner ball go in, not gonna happen with everything nice nice.


I really didn’t want to talk about this as I said at the beginning because I don’t want it to take away from the victory and it shouldn’t. I’m talking about it because I believe Shane was trying to give himself a fair legal rack on that table and it just so happened that’s the way the table was racking. I also believe that Dennis (AND many more professional players) do not know how to read a rack so they do not know how to adjust and then some of them accuse others of cheating, they should know how to read a freakin rack, this is there profession, a huge part of it and it ain’t brain surgery. Book has only been out since 1999 so I understand, all good things take time.

On a last note I would like many players who have always accuse our Filipino friends of slugging others while giving outrageous spots to apologize to them now because if they knew what a bad rack was and how to give it I don’t think they would give it to themselves, lol

On a last, last note Congratulations to Shane Van Boening, you’re a gentleman, a true Champion and now a 2 Time U.S Open Champion :smile:
 
Joe T said:
That sounds simple but many of you would be amazed at how many people have to get lucky to give themselves a good rack, I have watched more than 1 player of championship level continually slug themselves.
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To support this statement, all you have to do is look at the racks that Efren was giving himself.
 
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Thanks for your input Joe.Congratulations Shane,you broke well AND you played great.
 
I had trouble

playing a guy. He kept making the 1 ball in the side pocket (and making other balls too), so I inspected the rack, and he was racking them high on the spot, actually a little over the spot. I made him move them back, and guess what, he no longer made the 1 in the side, or hardly any other ball on the break after that.
 
jt1 said:
Jay inspected the rack but never actually racked.

Shane had to re-rack after Alex brought it up.

You couldn't hear what Alex and Jay were saying to each other on the stream. But, it looked like Jay was supporting that it was a good rack.....

After the match was over, Alex and Jay had a long discussion at the table about it. But, again, you could not hear what they were saying. But, it did not look like Jay was supporting Alex's argument.
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Hrm, I'd have to check the video to be certain, but I think Jay actually did rack one (in the SVB v Alex match). Whether he did or didn't really doesn't matter. I think it's obvious that the table was racking loose all week long.

I think Jay did a good job of being impartial. What he was actually saying is that Alex could only ask for 1 re-rack. Alex then said something along the lines of could he just do the same thing then?

I do know that they had been tapping that part of the rack all week, trying to get it to freeze. Obviously it was not racking tight. I paid very special attention when Shane was racking, and he was simply throwing the balls up there. He wasn't trying overly hard to freeze the rack, which I think makes it obvious that he was exploiting the gap the table was giving him. Nothing wrong with that, as I said earlier.

Like others have said on the thread, the wing ball DOES NOT GO when you hit it dead on from 1.25 diamonds in. If it did, everyone would've been hitting the rack like that since before Mosconi's time. Shane's definitely not the first person to try that break over the last 100 or so years that 9-ball has been around.
 
I agree that it does not matter whether Jay racked or not. And I definitely agree that Jay (and everyone else) handled it well.

And I certainly can't argue against whether or not the rack was loose or tight, I wasn't there, I only saw it on the stream.

I don't know why Alex would even ask if he could do the same thing. It's either illegal or not, for both of them.

I just got home from work and set it all up again and I just got it on my 7th attempt.

If I can do it in 7 attempts, there is certainly no surprise that Shane can do it every time.

It's not at 1.25 diamonds, it's more like 1.025 diamonds. You have to get the speed and the english right.

I'm not going to offer any reason why other pros haven't figured it out before. I don't know.

Maybe Shane is just smarter than everyone else.....
 
jt1 said:
It's not at 1.25 diamonds, it's more like 1.025 diamonds.
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Then you weren't in the box, right? And were you hitting it square in the face of the 1, and hard, like Shane was? His CB was coming either straight back up the table on the center line, or a little towards the right side of the kitchen.
 
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