Thoughts on players who seemingly take Zero practice strokes, before shooting / final follow through?

[Jaden]

Is the L bracket on each ball functional to aiming?

They can be. Really most aiming systems are just ways of visualizing the key geometric concept of two spheres joining together, There are two contact points, not just one.

Everybody tends to focus on the contact point on the object ball. There's also the contact point on the cueball. Most people tend to skip past that.

Most aiming systems attempt to successfully join those two contact points together. it's easy to find the contact point on the object ball.

Just get right behind the ball in line with the pocket and the center of the ball both vertically and horizontally on the back of the ball relative to the pocket is your cp.

On the cueball the cp is on the front of the cueball (cb) on the centerline of the cb on a line that is parallel to the line for the object ball (ob).

The line between those two points is the travel line. If you can make the cb travel along that line, the ob will go in the pocket (all things being equal).

It gives you a starting point for a center ball strike on rhe cb. Whatever way visualizing that and joining those two spots together works for you is what you should use.

You can use an L shape visualization que on both balls, another one I use is what I call join the T's.

Draw an imaginary line from the pocket (or desired destination) through the center of the ob relative to that desired destination. Then draw a line on the back of the ball on the tangent line. forming the shape of the letter T.

Draw a parallel line to that line starting at the front of the cb back and draw a line on the tangent line on the front of the cb relative to that line also forming the shape of the letter T and then imagine those two T's joining, that's the line of the path of the cb that will make the shot (again, all things being equal)

That's why I call that one joining the T's.

 

[straightline]

Ok. You should the indicate the shot line by paralleling the contact line from center ball.

 

[Jaden]

Ok. You should the indicate the shot line by paralleling the contact line from center ball.

Yeah if you take a parallel line through center cue ball to the red line. That's the aim line. You can also imagine parallel lines to the red line on the two edges of the cue ball to see its path.

The sharper the angle of the shot the further off center the shown red line will be.

 

[Mensabum]

They can be. Really most aiming systems are just ways of visualizing the key geometric concept of two spheres joining together, There are two contact points, not just one.

Everybody tends to focus on the contact point on the object ball. There's also the contact point on the cueball. Most people tend to skip past that.

Most aiming systems attempt to successfully join those two contact points together. it's easy to find the contact point on the object ball.

Just get right behind the ball in line with the pocket and the center of the ball both vertically and horizontally on the back of the ball relative to the pocket is your cp.

On the cueball the cp is on the front of the cueball (cb) on the centerline of the cb on a line that is parallel to the line for the object ball (ob).

The line between those two points is the travel line. If you can make the cb travel along that line, the ob will go in the pocket (all things being equal).

It gives you a starting point for a center ball strike on rhe cb. Whatever way visualizing that and joining those two spots together works for you is what you should use.

You can use an L shape visualization que on both balls, another one I use is what I call join the T's.

Draw an imaginary line from the pocket (or desired destination) through the center of the ob relative to that desired destination. Then draw a line on the back of the ball on the tangent line. forming the shape of the letter T.

View attachment 930338

Draw a parallel line to that line starting at the front of the cb back and draw a line on the tangent line on the front of the cb relative to that line also forming the shape of the letter T and then imagine those two T's joining, that's the line of the path of the cb that will make the shot (again, all things being equal)

That's why I call that one joining the T's.

If you'll draw a diagonal from the pocket center to the CB you get the exact same point!! One less line. I like simple shit that works!!
Thank you for validating contact points once and for all Jaden. I now rest my oft criticized case.
Took a class in college called Spherical Collision and Rotation for the engineering curriculum that got me started in pool.
The professor was a very good player and oft used billiard balls as a teaching aid.
Wish I could go back and never take that class!!

 

[Jaden]

If you'll draw a diagonal from the pocket center to the CB you get the exact same point!! One less line. I like simple shit that works!!
Thank you for validating contact points once and for all Jaden. I now rest my oft criticized case.
Took a class in college called Spherical Collision and Rotation for the engineering curriculum that got me started in pool.
The professor was a very good player and oft used billiard balls as a teaching aid.
Wish I could go back and never take that class!!

Be careful there, it'll appear to work for some angles but it won't for others, A parallel line from the ob to the pocket line through the cb is the only way to get the correct cps on both the ob and the cb for every possible shot.

As long as the method you use for visualization is a consequence of that concept of parallel lines off of the pocket through the ob line, it will be accurate.

Joe Tucker came up with a numbering system that works well for people. Based on the same concept.

 

[Mensabum]

Be careful there, it'll appear to work for some angles but it won't for others, A parallel line from the ob to the pocket line through the cb is the only way to get the correct cps on both the ob and the cb for every possible shot.

As long as the method you use for visualization is a consequence of that concept of parallel lines off of the pocket through the ob line, it will be accurate.

Joe Tucker came up with a numbering system that works well for people. Based on the same concept.

No it works on all angles. You shift the line from the pocket as the angle changes. Center pocket may not be where the diagonal needs to come from in order to make the ball. Esp on side pockets. The line can be way off center, but the contact point is the same.
Hope that makes sense.

 

[Jaden]

No it works on all angles. You shift the line from the pocket as the angle changes. Center pocket may not be where the diagonal needs to come from in order to make the ball. Esp on side pockets. The line can be way off center, but the contact point is the same.
Hope that makes sense.

That was the reason that I included that the line you draw through the ob should be from where you want the ball to go, rather than center pocket. With safeties, banks, etc, you won't always want the ball to go to center pocket, or a pocket at all.

 

[Fore Rail]

For all that agree with the ghost ball concept you could just look at the lines created from the cue ball to the object ball & figure out how to aim.

Saves quite a bit of trouble.

 

[Jaden]

No it works on all angles. You shift the line from the pocket as the angle changes. Center pocket may not be where the diagonal needs to come from in order to make the ball. Esp on side pockets. The line can be way off center, but the contact point is the same.
Hope that makes sense.

One other thing to consider is that what works for a person won't always work out on paper. There are definitely instances of where subconscious adjustment is a real thing. Hell that's why I rejected BHE for 3 years after Efren taught it to me without even trying because I figured that's what he had to be doing.

That's why fractional aiming works for people even though it logically can't possibly work.

 

[Jaden]

For all that agree with the ghost ball concept you could just look at the lines created from the cue ball to the object ball & figure out how to aim.

Saves quite a bit of trouble.

Yes, but it's limited. It's limited by the players ability to visualize. Not everyone's visual acuity is created equal and the tighter the pockets get, the more accurate your visual spatial acuity has to be.

One of the advantages to some of these visualization techniques is that it allows you to align yourself based on points on the table really close to the cueball so that you don't necessarily have to have good or perfect visual/spatial acuity.

 

[sparkle84]

So much for the '1st Amendment'!

Well, that's ok. Once things devolve into name calling and proclamations such as "I promise you I'm right" and "I don't give a shit what you think"
you've reached a point where further discussion is fruitless.
I could have mentioned other things that were clearly wrong but stuck to the LD/PP/BHE stuff. No great loss.

 

[Fore Rail]

Yes, but it's limited. It's limited by the players ability to visualize. Not everyone's visual acuity is created equal and the tighter the pockets get, the more accurate your visual spatial acuity has to be.

One of the advantages to some of these visualization techniques is that it allows you to align yourself based on points on that table really close to the cueball so that you don't necessarily have to have good or perfect visual/spatial acuity.

Say you put two balls together, one object ball & one ghost ball. Take another ball & hit that ghost ball on the top - creating a mark on the cloth beneath. Put a hole punch sticker on that spot. If a player can't find that point / line then there isn't much hope. One can even create a little fudge factor for collision induce throw.

It doesn't get any simpler than that & is 100% effective.

Human error is the cause of all difficulty in this game.

Believe it or not it's not the equipment being played with or on either.

 

[Tennesseejoe]

If you'll draw a diagonal from the pocket center to the CB you get the exact same point!! One less line. I like simple shit that works!!
Thank you for validating contact points once and for all Jaden. I now rest my oft criticized case.
Took a class in college called Spherical Collision and Rotation for the engineering curriculum that got me started in pool.
The professor was a very good player and oft used billiard balls as a teaching aid.
Wish I could go back and never take that class!!

You may want to rethink this. Your thought may work on straighter shots but with more angle there is more deviation.

 

[Jaden]

Say you put two balls together, one object ball & one ghost ball. Take another ball & hit that ghost ball on the top - creating a mark on the cloth beneath. Put a hole punch sticker on that spot. If a player can't find that point / line then there isn't much hope. One can even create a little fudge factor for collision induce throw.

It doesn't get any simpler than that & is 100% effective.

Human error is the cause of all difficulty in this game & others. Believe it or not it's not the equipment being played with or on either.

Yes, another thing is picking a point to aim at exactly half a ball behind the object ball in line with the destination. Again though, it takes visual spatial acuity to do that successfully.

Some people used to mark the table at that spot by over chalking their cue and placing at that point while apparently lining up the shot or by placing a piece of chalk on the rail in line with that.

 

[Fore Rail]

Yes, another thing is picking a point to aim at exactly half a ball behind the object ball in line with the destination. Again though, it takes visual spatial acuity to do that successfully.

Some people used to mark the table at that spot by over chalking their cue and placing at that point while apparently lining up the shot or by placing a piece of chalk on the rail in line with that.

By using my method in practice - a player can quickly visualize the relationship between the object ball & cue ball. Once that is done, there is no more guess work anytime anywhere.