This has what to do with seeing properly?What a bunchvof bullshit this thread has turned into
Im guessing most of you are under 500FR
Seeing the contact point on the object ball.
- Thread starter jimstone
- Start date
That's what I thought
And that would be?
Had similar student, Colorado School of minds. When I told him hitting the contact point harder and harder cut the ball more, he was amazed.The amazing part to me was that they were a graduate student in a technical field. And then there was the student who was about to enter college in computer science and was unclear on what an angle was. Not a particular angle, but any angle, as in the opening between two crossing lines.
I’m not sure how many players do this, but the contact point on the object ball is meaningless to me and I never look at it at any point before the shot. I see the shot, I see the angle required to make the shot, then I aim to hit whatever portion of the object ball I need to hit to pocket it, or aim completely full if it’s a straight shot.
For a considerable cut, I might initially go down in my aim with a half ball hit, aiming at the edge of the object ball, and then make fine-tuning adjustments, more or less than a half ball hit depending on the severity of the cut. On a shot that has a smaller cut angle , I likely initially start with close to a full ball hit, and then make the aiming adjustments off of full ball, depending on the angle.
After many years of playing, you subconsciously know the angles you have to aim the cue ball at to send the object ball towards the pocket. Of course it gets a lot more complicated once you are applying spin (calculating deflection and swerve) but that’s also learned over years, from trial and error.
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And then Chris, a storm moves in and it gets Real Humid.... 
I do this with many shots, and have tried to teach it to "learning" players. At the very least, I think they should master 'seeing' the resulting angle of the half-ball hit, because it's one of the most reliable/repeatable shots to aim and execute. My thought is that they should easily learn to adjust from the half-ball, once they have it down.
For moving off the full-ball aim/hit, I get people to shoot parallel to a rail, just off the cushion a bit, and then show how the aim and path changes as the target ball moves farther from the cushion--at first, only the target ball, and later both balls (staying parallel to the rail). What I try to pass on with this, is that they can look at where the full-hit will send the target ball, and then adjust for the angle towards the pocket. Note, that the contact point is there, it's just mostly lost in the idea of sending the cue ball straight at the other ball. It's still there for small angle cuts, but it's basically ignored, in favor of simply aiming off-straight.
Paul Bell
Well-known member
Cutshots' and Straightline’s methods to determine the aiming line differ in two ways.
Straightline uses a step Cutshots doesn’t: Straightline uses the midpoint between object and cue balls while Cutshots does not. Likewise, Cutshots uses a step Straightline doesn’t: CueShot uses the concept of equal and opposite areas of overlap between the object and cue balls at contact to determine the aiming line while Straightline recognizes that geometry but it is not needed to determine the aiming line (the line before parallel adjustment).
Straightline and CutShots’ methods determine the aiming line by first finding the object-ball contact point. CutShots’ method then has the player looking at the object-ball contact point and noting how there are equal areas from the contact point to ball edge on each side of the contact point.
CutShots then has the player shifting his view to now looking at the object-ball contact point from behind the cue ball. With this new view, CutShots notes how the visible area on one side of the object-ball contact point now has shrunk. Utilizing the equal and opposite concept, the shrunken area corresponds to the overlap area during the balls contact. CutShots instructs player to make a line from the object-ball contact point to the cue ball so as to make the same amount of overlap on the cue ball as on the object ball — an area opposite to and equal to the shrunken area on the object ball.
Straightline’s method is much easier to explain. It starts with two points: the object-ball contact point and the midpoint between the object and cue balls. The player connects those points. That is the aiming line.
Both methods then move the aiming line parallel toward the cue-ball center doing a Straightline “center point roll” to make the cue-stick aiming line.
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Couple things about straightline's method. First, it's Wei table's revelation to me. Other posters used it sans chronology or credit so I'll call it the AZBE. E for epiphany. Previous to that I was the proud independent discoverer of reciprocal section overlap. Or overlaps as PJ calls 'em. Water...
The center point roll IIRC is some poster here I never refound his post or the thread(s) containing this mystical artifact. I find the, absence very odd - it's a fundamental set of truths. I'm not FBI eesnomyjob. So that.
Biggest effort required of CPR (lol) is finding the mid point. Went though various stages of standing off to the side and estimating with aerial hand spans until I could estimate accurately from the cue ball. Suddenly...
lol After many months of CPR it occurs to me that EAO gives you the midpoint; no guess work. I've come to consider this crossing wait for it...
THE MIGHTY X
taddahhh...
Take that Feijen.
Wonder if that's why he cycles so much.
Paul Bell
Well-known member
Shocking huh...
You needed an editor on that post. You drifted into unintelligibility and abbreviationosis.
AZBE AZB Epiphany
CPR Center Point Roll
EAO Equal Angle Opposites
"Opposites" is Jimmy Reid's word I believe. Says it in his video IIRC. I say reciprocal sections but who's counting.
I phrase differently sometimes. Play a little music where it's part of the genre. See the legend back a few lines? Klunks for me. Many who don't get it ask and hopefully learn.
Except @bbb . We been posting at each other for a couple years now and he should know what I'm talking about.
cpg= contact point geometry....yes?Except @bbb . We been posting at each other for a couple years now and he should know what I'm talking about.
cbl=?
btw
i went back and looked at some old conversations and some old postings of yours
i think i better understand it now....
Yes
CBL cue ball last.
btw by the way?,,,,,YES
and good….
Wondering why these methods get brushed aside. Even Joe Tucker went to the duck side. I know, more ducks but still...
dquarasr
Registered
I've read all 9 pages so far. I dunno, I'm perplexed. While I understand the various methods to aim, with my brain and my perceptions, I can't imagine a simpler way to aim then to visualize the ghost ball, and aim the center (bottom, if you will) of the CB to the center of the imaginary GB.
When I was first learning how to aim, on some shots on which I simply could not visualize the GB consistently, I'd ID the contact points, then link them together, then from that determine the position of the GB, then aim at that. From that Reid/straightline diagram, I aim using the black line where it intersects with the yellow line. If I was a little unsure, I'd visualize the red line, then translate that to the black line, then shoot.
I understand everyone learns and perceives things differently, but for me, "see it, shoot it" works. I just picture the GB in my head, and aim the CB to it, even on shots where the center of the GB is well off the boundaries of the OB. And this is from someone who can manage to overcomplicate *anything*. Luckily, GB and aiming work for me.
When I was first learning how to aim, on some shots on which I simply could not visualize the GB consistently, I'd ID the contact points, then link them together, then from that determine the position of the GB, then aim at that. From that Reid/straightline diagram, I aim using the black line where it intersects with the yellow line. If I was a little unsure, I'd visualize the red line, then translate that to the black line, then shoot.
I understand everyone learns and perceives things differently, but for me, "see it, shoot it" works. I just picture the GB in my head, and aim the CB to it, even on shots where the center of the GB is well off the boundaries of the OB. And this is from someone who can manage to overcomplicate *anything*. Luckily, GB and aiming work for me.
