Big Misunderstanding About Center Ball Strokes
Yes.......absolutely.....center ball is essential for elevating one's game......it is indispensable, and since sooooooo many players use excessive English, almost as if they were just showing off they mastered horizontal English......duh.........how dumb. One never masters the use of English. One simply becomes experienced to distinguish the amount required to successfully relocate the cue ball to a desired target area for the next shot........and of course, always remaining on the correct hemisphere side of the target object ball shot.
Hitting center ball is very simple and easy.....anyone can do it....but doing that shot without imparting unintentional horizontal spin is a little more difficult........most players can't do it two times in a row, let alone once. Doubt me..............try this.
Take all seven (7) object balls 9 thru 15 and line them up in the kitchen 6-8 inches spaced apart, or thereabout, on the head rail line (where you break) in a straight line. Position the stripes on each ball perpendicular to the table (180 degrees). Now stroke each striped ball to the bottom rail and back and try hitting the cue tip on the cue in your bridge hand. Don't strike the balls hard or you cannot get a true accurate read on the roll. Only hit the balls with medium speed, i.e., down & back, on a 9' table.
If you are really, truly hitting center ball, not only will the cue ball return to your cue tip and stop (not glance off) but the roll on every striped ball should be completely free of "all wiggle or wobble. The ball should roll totally smooth and the stripe should not move, wiggle or wobble.....it should be perfectly straight. How many attempts before you get it the first time? How long before you can get 2 balls in a row? Will you ever get all 7 balls in a row to roll without wiggle or wobble to the stripe? Probably not, unless you start cheating and hit the balls harder to use physics to disguise your otherwise imperfect hit of the cue ball.
Why is this so hard then? It's because you haven't yet distinguished in your own mind there's a big, significant difference in hitting the center of the cue ball and stroking through the center of the cue ball. So if you hit the center of the cue ball dead on but you cue stoke is hitting the ball with a 1 or 1.5 degree angle.........instead of 180 degrees, you hit the center of the cue ball but finish with a stroke direction of 179 degrees or 181 degrees instead of 180 degrees straight on, then you impart unintended horizontal spin on the ball and the further the cue ball travels, the more the spin comes into play and of course, speed is another variable as well.
I always practice by starting out with the 7 striped balls and I do this twice........by the second attempt, I have expectations about how the roll should look and when I'm done, I have a good idea whether I'm seeing my aim point clearly or my stroke is relaxed and smooth. You can't do this drill successfully with bad mechanics and the trick is in completing the stroke........You must think of the cue penetrating the cue ball and coming out the other side in a straight line (180 degrees)..........when you do this and the cue has even the slightest deviation of >0.25 degrees, the cue ball will acquire horizontal rotation in its roll path and thus be affected unlike like a cue ball that was hit with center ball and rolled 100% true.......except for crappy table rolls that we all encounter with pool hall tables.
Remember this.....all pool players have days where they shoot better than average.......we think our game is "on" or "I'm seeing the balls so clear" or "The pockets look huge today" etc. So the same applies to this simple check.........there'll be days when you stroke the 7 striped balls much better than on another occasion......those will be the days where you tend to plat better too......adopt this simple exercise which only takes 2-3 minutes at most which is which I do it twice. The first seven balls allows me to try adjusting my stroke to achieve perfection which sometimes happens with my first striped ball. The second 7 balls allows me to focus and mentally envision the stroke's straight path, veleocity of my stroke and I listen to the sound of the cue ball more closely.
That's it.....14 striped balls takes ....what......3-4-5 minutes. It will tell you if you're going to have a strong play session or more likley struggle a little, especially on long cut shots and frozen object ball shots. Try it.....ya got nothing to lose and a whole lot to learn.............Oh Yeah, most important tip is you must stay down in your shooting profile/position in order to watch the striped ball roll and do not get up until the ball stops rolling. If the ball starts wiggling/wobbling right out of the chute, you'll see it clearly just as much as you'll better appreciate a striped ball that was struck perfectly. When you hit 4-5 balls in a row and the roll is perfect, you'll feel a lot more confident in your game.......This really does work.
