Do tighter pockets favor the shotmaker?

[Guy Manges]

I agree. I think that a tighter pocket can make you more aware of poor shooting so you decide to work on your stroke and stance. Likewise, it will incentivize you to play better position. The real advantage is that when you play on a table with bigger pockets you get the confidence boost from making tough shots. Going to a tougher table from an easier one can erode your confidence just because you are missing more. If I am diligent about improving my game I don't think large pockets will hold me back.

So, back to the original question, do tight pockets favor the shotmaker? I don't know. The idea that the position player's skills help him as much as the shotmaker's skills help him is certainly plausible. The difference may come down to which player is more comfortable. If our shotmaker is used to making 90% of his shots and he's hitting 80%, he may get rattled. But our position player went from 80% to 60%. If the math holds true, his wider shot distribution means more of his balls are hitting the last 1/4" we extended the rail before the pocket so the small pockets should hurt his shooting percentage more than the shotmaker. But he may have the strategy and mental skills to cope with it. It would be interesting to see some actual data, but I'm starting to think it will come down to who has the confidence to shake off the misses and play their game more than the more measurable skills.

Yes right on the money... Thank you ...

 

[Guy Manges]

When it is no longer fun, the pockets are too small.


Jeff Livingston

Yes and also as me old, no longer fun the table is to big...

 

[tomatoshooter]

Because the position player is very adept at his position play, maybe he averages 2 foot shots, and that isn't going to change much when the pockets get tightened up and he is still going to be playing the same tight position and shooting mostly 2 foot shots

I didn't think of that aspect. If our players have similar Fargorates, they must make shots at a similar rate in the actual game, the sharpshooter through sharp shooting and the position player through lining up shots better. I was thinking they were taking similar shots.

 

[gypsy_soul]

I've played at a couple of rooms that had a table set up with itty-bitty pockets for 1pocket -- I even won a tournament at one of them.

And the thing was that it wasn't my shot making or moving that led me to success, it was my ability to adapt my strategy to the unforgiving pockets. Really small pockets require a different strategy for most mortals.

Lou Figueroa

….. Exactly

 

[jtompilot]

Mike I think a better question is.....Why are 1 pocket matches not entered in fargorate? Tournament results are available and 1 pocket is still balls sticks and pockets? Can't play position cues(jump sticks) usually don't enter into equation either

OMG, my 1P matches for the US Open showed up in my FargoRate

 

[smoochie]

Only your draw stroke causes ball to bounce out of the pocket - Why? A pool shot happens in 3 dimensions, not just 2. The draw stroke and follow stroke will have slightly different bounce aspects on both balls. The OB hit with a sharp draw stroke may be getting a bit of bounce from the collision, and when / as / if it lands just a bit on the edge of the shelf, could be just enough to let it then bounce toward and off the back of the pocket. The draw stroke (only) kick out is likely due to a bounce effect since a draw stroke is more downward. Also, the ball doesn’t spin out of that pocket, it bounces

This is utter bullshit and just wrong. OB doesn't bounce if the Cueball hits it with draw!! lol

Although I can't disagree with the bounce theory, this happens on longer shots also where the ball would have time to settle down. I'm pretty confident it has something to do with the pocket linings I installed (I'm no RKC) and dirty cloth. Something makes them bounce funny once they're in the pocket and the spin throws it out?

Not sure, I just know it's relevant to this thread because I most definitely shoot certain shots different when I have certain leaves.

No there's no bounce theory, here's why your pocket is spitting the object ball out. First and foremost this wouldn't happen on all tables, perhaps if I take you to another table you'd hit a OB with follow or draw and in both scenarios, they stay in the pocket. This concludes that your pocket rubber has an issue (either a sizing error or location error). Now if the pocket itself has a problem then why would it only spit out the draw shots, here's why.

In pool if two balls collide with each other they would reverse its spin, i.e. If one ball is rotating anti-clockwise and hits another ball, ball #2 will be rotating clockwise and vice versa. So imagine if a ball spinning backwards (the cueball) it will hit the next ball (object ball) this ball will be rotating forward. The opposite to this is also correct, if you hit your cueball with follow imagine it as a ball turning forward, thus contacting the object ball making it reverse the direction i.e. backward. You need to visualize this right now and you'd see that if you hit with follow, then the object ball will have a direction which favors it to just be taken inside the pocket after hitting the black-rubber cause of its spin. The opposite also applies which is why the pocket spat the ball out. You hit it with extreme draw thus the object ball is spinning forward and upon contact with the rubber it's like applying a force in the UPWARD direction which helps that the ball bounces off and out. You just need to imagine this otherwise I could draw & show you the effect on balls.

 

[alphadog]

This is utter bullshit and just wrong. OB doesn't bounce if the Cueball hits it with draw!! lol

No there's no bounce theory, here's why your pocket is spitting the object ball out. First and foremost this wouldn't happen on all tables, perhaps if I take you to another table you'd hit a OB with follow or draw and in both scenarios, they stay in the pocket. This concludes that your pocket rubber has an issue (either a sizing error or location error). Now if the pocket itself has a problem then why would it only spit out the draw shots, here's why.

In pool if two balls collide with each other they would reverse its spin, i.e. If one ball is rotating anti-clockwise and hits another ball, ball #2 will be rotating clockwise and vice versa. So imagine if a ball spinning backwards (the cueball) it will hit the next ball (object ball) this ball will be rotating forward. The opposite to this is also correct, if you hit your cueball with follow imagine it as a ball turning forward, thus contacting the object ball making it reverse the direction i.e. backward. You need to visualize this right now and you'd see that if you hit with follow, then the object ball will have a direction which favors it to just be taken inside the pocket after hitting the black-rubber cause of its spin. The opposite also applies which is why the pocket spat the ball out. You hit it with extreme draw thus the object ball is spinning forward and upon contact with the rubber it's like applying a force in the UPWARD direction which helps that the ball bounces off and out. You just need to imagine this otherwise I could draw & show you the effect on balls.

You typed all that and you are WRONG

Often times when shooters apply draw they hit down on the ball. What happens when you strike down....it bounces. It then hits the object ball on the fly and....it also bounces into the ridge in the back of the pocket and it bounces out.

Also leather drop pockets are bad about drooping and causing the same problem.


Also to the OP I think shotmakers make shots regardless of the pocket size. If they don't they are no longer shotmakers.

 

[smoochie]

You typed all that and you are WRONG

Often times when shooters apply draw they hit down on the ball. What happens when you strike down....it bounces. It then hits the object ball on the fly and....it also bounces into the ridge in the back of the pocket and it bounces out.

Also leather drop pockets are bad about drooping and causing the same problem.


Also to the OP I think shotmakers make shots regardless of the pocket size. If they don't they are no longer shotmakers.

You typed very little but what you said isn't very wrong. Cueball sometimes does bounce as you shoot hard not necceserly as you draw but it could happen, we see the breakshots in slow-motion and the cueball just moves a little bit in-air as it goes to break the rack but the breaker didn't strike it low. So striking the cueball low as in "Draw" isn't what causes it to bounce a little. its just the angle of attack with the cue-stick if you have your bridge arm a little bit elevated it causes the cueball to bounce a bit, it happens regardless if the shot is draw or stun or whatever.

Also what I typed earlier is not wrong as you said lol, its physics. If you don't know physics then try to experiment. Go ahead a spin a ball into another ball see what spin the 2nd ball will have. It will show you exactly what I said.

If you have a left spin on a ball then it hits a 2nd ball, this 2nd ball will have a right spin. Similar to draw and follow, which also can be used to your advantage in certain conditions.

Let me give you another example of how this can be useful. Lets say there is a combination shown in the diagram below and they are aligned straight with the cueball. What would you do in order to have the 2ball (blue) going in after the 3ball (red), this will only be possible if you hit the cueball low with draw. And do you know why that is? because of what I said above. If you hit the cueball with draw the blue ball will have a forward momentum which will help that it keeps moving forward after striking the 3ball (red) it will act similarly as if you would have played the 2ball with follow.

Try it yourself, its physics.

 

[Chili Palmer]

This is utter bullshit and just wrong. OB doesn't bounce if the Cueball hits it with draw!! lol

No there's no bounce theory, here's why your pocket is spitting the object ball out. First and foremost this wouldn't happen on all tables, perhaps if I take you to another table you'd hit a OB with follow or draw and in both scenarios, they stay in the pocket. This concludes that your pocket rubber has an issue (either a sizing error or location error). Now if the pocket itself has a problem then why would it only spit out the draw shots, here's why.

In pool if two balls collide with each other they would reverse its spin, i.e. If one ball is rotating anti-clockwise and hits another ball, ball #2 will be rotating clockwise and vice versa. So imagine if a ball spinning backwards (the cueball) it will hit the next ball (object ball) this ball will be rotating forward. The opposite to this is also correct, if you hit your cueball with follow imagine it as a ball turning forward, thus contacting the object ball making it reverse the direction i.e. backward. You need to visualize this right now and you'd see that if you hit with follow, then the object ball will have a direction which favors it to just be taken inside the pocket after hitting the black-rubber cause of its spin. The opposite also applies which is why the pocket spat the ball out. You hit it with extreme draw thus the object ball is spinning forward and upon contact with the rubber it's like applying a force in the UPWARD direction which helps that the ball bounces off and out. You just need to imagine this otherwise I could draw & show you the effect on balls.

That’s my theory as well. A combination of bad pocket geometry and spin of the ball. When I follow it never happens.

 

[straightline]

Almost any way of hitting a shot can result in catastrophic failure. Ball bites the lining, jumps/climbs/bounces back out/ dives in rolls out the front... The Global I practice on has vertically shallow linings. It wont take a firm center pocket draw shot straight in. Conversely, I find draw to work on other pockets because of the forward roll and for me, confidence when aiming at the bottom of the cue ball.

 

[Will Maynard]

One way to try to model and analyze this problem is to say that playing only involves two skills: shot making and position play.

Shot making can be characterized by the player's "spread" or the distribution of errors in where they send the object ball. Better shot makers have a smaller/tighter spread. Usually this is assumed to be a bell-shaped curve (gaussian) where most shots are pretty close to the target and large errors are rare.

Position play can be characterized by the length/difficulty of the shots a player leaves for himself. You can assign a difficulty number to each shot by noting the two distances of the shot -- CB to OB and OB to pocket in diamonds -- and multiplying them together. If you make either length twice as long, the shot allows only half the spread. Cut angle adds to the difficulty in a fairly simple way.

In this analysis I'm going to ignore strategy and just look at those two factors. I don't know how to put a number on strategy and various other factors.

Suppose you have two players who are equal with 5-inch pockets but one -- call him SaM -- is a shot maker and one -- PoP -- is a position player. Let's say that they are each 95% to make their shots and Pop has, on average, shots that are only half as hard as Sam's. Sam must have half the spread (twice the accuracy) on where he sends the object ball measured as an angle.

In the end, the spread for each of them measured at the pocket has to be the same. Each of them misses 5% of their shots which are out on the "tails" of the bell curve.

Now, make the pockets tighter. How do the misses change for the two players? The change will be exactly the same because the spread measured at the pocket is the same. If Sam is missing 10% of the time, Pop will also be missing 10% of the time.

Ignoring strategy might bother some, but I don't see how to include it. Note that Sam, the shot maker, may have figured out a good set of strategies for his abilities, like leaving tough shots when he pushes out. Pop may have a set of strategies that is only equal in usefulness -- we don't know. And maybe Sam jumps well.

As far as the shot difficulty measurement, I did the stats on some top players in the 1970s (14.1) in tournaments. Among the ones I clocked, Irving Crane consistently had the easiest shots at somewhere around 3. The other players were like 4 or more on average. Crane was a pretty good shotmaker as well.

Bob,
I like your quantitative approach to shot difficulty.

How do you adjust your difficulty number for long easy shots? E.g., CB to OB = 7, OB to pocket = 1 (difficulty =7x1 = 7). How does your computation change based on angles?

Thanks.

 

[Bob Jewett]

Bob,
I like your quantitative approach to shot difficulty.

How do you adjust your difficulty number for long easy shots? E.g., CB to OB = 7, OB to pocket = 1 (difficulty =7x1 = 7). How does your computation change based on angles?

Thanks.

The basic calculation of shot difficulty doesn't care which distance in a long shot is shorter. If the OB is close to the pocket, you have to worry about roll-off or unintended swerve and if the CB is close to the OB you have worry about throw and aiming on a close ball which is hard for some people. I think it's better not to get into those weeds, usually.

The difficulty of a shot increases for increasing cut angle (distances remaining constant) because the allowed landing patch on the OB looks smaller from more cut angle. It turns out that you divide by the cosine of the cut angle to find that increase. It is easier on the table to "construct" the increase visually. That is explained in a 1994 Billiards Digest article that is the first item in this PDF: http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/1994.pdf

A cut angle of 60 degrees doubles the difficulty of a shot compared to a straight-in.

 

[alphadog]

The basic calculation of shot difficulty doesn't care which distance in a long shot is shorter. If the OB is close to the pocket, you have to worry about roll-off or unintended swerve and if the CB is close to the OB you have worry about throw and aiming on a close ball which is hard for some people. I think it's better not to get into those weeds, usually.

The difficulty of a shot increases for increasing cut angle (distances remaining constant) because the allowed landing patch on the OB looks smaller from more cut angle. It turns out that you divide by the cosine of the cut angle to find that increase. It is easier on the table to "construct" the increase visually. That is explained in a 1994 Billiards Digest article that is the first item in this PDF: http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/1994.pdf

A cut angle of 60 degrees doubles the difficulty of a shot compared to a straight-in.

Bob , the shot is the same difficulty only it looks more difficult?

 

[Will Maynard]

The basic calculation of shot difficulty doesn't care which distance in a long shot is shorter. If the OB is close to the pocket, you have to worry about roll-off or unintended swerve and if the CB is close to the OB you have worry about throw and aiming on a close ball which is hard for some people. I think it's better not to get into those weeds, usually.

The difficulty of a shot increases for increasing cut angle (distances remaining constant) because the allowed landing patch on the OB looks smaller from more cut angle. It turns out that you divide by the cosine of the cut angle to find that increase. It is easier on the table to "construct" the increase visually. That is explained in a 1994 Billiards Digest article that is the first item in this PDF: http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/1994.pdf

A cut angle of 60 degrees doubles the difficulty of a shot compared to a straight-in.

The basic calculation of shot difficulty doesn't care which distance in a long shot is shorter. If the OB is close to the pocket, you have to worry about roll-off or unintended swerve and if the CB is close to the OB you have worry about throw and aiming on a close ball which is hard for some people. I think it's better not to get into those weeds, usually.

The difficulty of a shot increases for increasing cut angle (distances remaining constant) because the allowed landing patch on the OB looks smaller from more cut angle. It turns out that you divide by the cosine of the cut angle to find that increase. It is easier on the table to "construct" the increase visually. That is explained in a 1994 Billiards Digest article that is the first item in this PDF: http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/1994.pdf

A cut angle of 60 degrees doubles the difficulty of a shot compared to a straight-in.

Thanks very much, Bob. Just what I was looking for. btw, great picture of you, You haven't changed a bit.

 

[Bob Jewett]

Bob , the shot is the same difficulty only it looks more difficult?

If you only consider the simple geometry, the cue stick line has to be equally accurate for the two shots. If you include the player's particular weaknesses and experience, one or the other might be harder for that particular player. Usually players have a lot of trouble when the cue ball is very close to the object ball because they don't have much experience with that situation.

 

[alphadog]

If you only consider the simple geometry, the cue stick line has to be equally accurate for the two shots. If you include the player's particular weaknesses and experience, one or the other might be harder for that particular player. Usually players have a lot of trouble when the cue ball is very close to the object ball because they don't have much experience with that situation.

Thanks for the reply. I rate shot difficulty by Koehler's method- distance cueball is from object ball times the distance the object ball is from the pocket. Sometimes helps in deciding if a difficult looking shot is truly difficult. As a example a ball a diamond out from a pocket and cueball a diamond away is only 1X1 so only a simple 1 degree of difficult. Approach angle to the pocket only enters into the equation in limited capacity.

 

[Bob Jewett]

... Koehler's method- distance cueball is from object ball times the distance the object ball is from the pocket. ...

That's exactly the formula I use, with distance in diamonds. Above I gave the angle correction, which in particular is a factor of 2 harder for a 60-degree shot.

 

[alphadog]

That's exactly the formula I use, with distance in diamonds. Above I gave the angle correction, which in particular is a factor of 2 harder for a 60-degree shot.

Approach angle to the object ball or to the pocket?


Did you see the old pic of you Randy G. Dr. Cue.Bill Meachem.and a couple others from BCA on 1pkt org ?

 

[Bob Jewett]

Approach angle to the object ball or to the pocket? ...

The only angle that really makes any difference is the cut angle.

 

[Poolmanis]

many don´t understand why severe cut shots are more difficult than shallow angle. It is not just perception. Your aiming line margin of freedom is a lot smaller.
0-30 degrees is first half ball. 45 degree cut is 1/4ball hit. 45 - 90 degrees are all in last quarter. So scale is a lot smaller. You actually need to be more accurate AND judge cut angle right too.
So if one have straight in shot and cue is pointing couple degrees left from "right" aiming line he might still make a ball. If cut is over 50 degrees ... forget it.