TOI CJ Wiley
- Thread starter Gman***
- Start date
Where most players go wrong is that they apply english starting from the center ball path to the impact area at the ghost ball location.
That flares the cue line away from the target area. I call that a divergent line.
The cue line needs to converge at the impact zone, I define that as a convergent line.
With TOI, the bridge isn’t on that center ball line. In fact the bridge location isn’t set by simply offsetting from the contact point of the center ball line.
English is measured by how close the cue line comes to the core center of the cue ball. English doesn’t care if you are aiming at a ball or rail, it just cares about the lever that turns the ball.
In CJ’s multitude of comments on the forum here it was finally disclosed that he considered a “touch” was about an eighth of a tip. Using a 12 mm tip for easy math, that’s about 1.5 mm. That means that the cue line would pass the cue ball core center about the edge of a dime distance away. That tells us one point on the cue line so where is another?
The answer is simple, all cueing and aiming systems are trying to get to the same location, the impact zone that sends the ball into the pocket. Find the center of the ghost ball in that zone and point your cue at it. Now that is a second point on the line.
The ghost ball center ball to a point about 1.5mm adjacent to the inside side of the cue ball is the cue line.
Stroke straight through on that line.
The test of your cueing is simple. The cue ball will not have any side spin after contact with the object ball. Use a striped ball so you can see the cue ball travel vertically on its circumference.
I now use this to replace center ball cueing unless position requires english on the ball. I call the cueing technique convergent english.
CJ used a “touch“ as a measure relative to the center ball ghost ball tip location.
Convergent english defines its english relative to the cue ball core, and the impact zone.
There are only two types of throw, cut induced or spin induced. Spin induced uses friction from a chalked tip and is much stronger than the slippery ball to ball cut induced throw.
Cut induced throw, is by definition, center ball. It creates a wide variety of throw effects differing based on cut angle, vertical spin, and shot speed.
Those effects no longer apply once you put english on the cue ball.
Dr. Dave discovered that with a firm stroke and a non-skidding ball that uses maximum throw inside english, 50%, he got no more than 1° of throw across all angles tested.
The small amount of english, 1.5 mm adjacent to cue ball core center, has very little throw, insignificant deflection and the cue line using this method compensates automatically for the throw effect.
Hope this helps.
I saw that bbb was commenting so I reformatted into snippets for his benefit.
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Hi, thanks for your advice. I was using approximately a quarter to half tip of inside english depending on the angle of the shot. I dont use a very firm stroke at all because I'm shooting on bar boxes. I'm not giving up on TOI! I'm all for simplifying shot issues! Also I was experimenting with a different grip. I was using the back 3 fingers to hold the cue instead of the traditional index and middle finger grip. I'll message you next time I try TOI and go from there if that's ok? Thanks again, Justin.
Works for me. Grip pressure at the back usually means a sense of pulling the cue. My overall sense is that of feeding the cue through contact. The overall sense is somewhere between a push and a drive, powered from the front by a triggered forefinger and center finger in a pinched position on the shaft, flexing forward and down through impact.
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Wow... we're two peas in a pod Sparkle...lol
Funny you mention using the back fingers grip for a shot... I had an old timer show me to use that grip when shooting a cue very close or froze to the rail. It helped me for close shots, long shots, not so much. I guess because of the force needed for longer shots and it affected my accuracy. Maybe it is/was all in my head too, I donno. Thanks for the memories though. RIP Rusty!
If I'm not mistaken, if you watch the CJ Wiley videos on u tube. He uses the back 3 fingers of his grip hand too. I've noticed when I used it, the sound the balls made on contact was more pronounced and went more in the center of the pocket than when I used the classic grip. If you wanted to start using that rear 3 fingered grip again, just choke up on your cue stick an inch or 2 for a more powerful stroke for long shots. It still feels weird to me cuz I've only used it once in a quick practice session.
The fact of the matter is, hitting exact center ball is hard. The harder you hit the ball, the harder it is to hit the ball perfectly in the center. So you hit the ball a little to the left, a little to the right, and for most pool shots, it's ok. You have a full pocket, close distance, it doesn't matter if you're very slightly off. But then, maybe you have to slam a ball into a tight pocket, close to the rail and any rail contact or wide shot in the jawas will rattle. Now, it matters. Some of the time you're going to hit center, but all the other times, you'll miss the pocket, because you don't really have a large margin of error. Now, there are some things that can help you, like bridging on the cues pivot point (especially at high speeds), but disregarding that trying to hit center is going to be a hit or miss proposition.
The difference between a very slightly off center hit and a little more off center is much less profound than trying for center ball and hitting off center. That's the basic idea of TOI. By moving your aimpoint on the cueball to the side, you are at the very least not going to hit the opposite side of intended. At the worst you'll hit center and slop the ball in or maybe rattle it, but you won't be miles out. The pocket won't be larger, but you'll at least take control over where you hit the cueball. If you play with TOI, it works best to lean towards hitting the ball firmer.
At slow speed, things look a little bit different. In general, for pocketing purposes, it's better to hit slow cut shots with outside spin. This is for two related reasons: cling/kicks and object ball curve. When you slow cut a ball, the object ball is going to curve away from the straight path to the pocket in the same direction as the cut for a large range of cuts. When you cut with outside, you are removing this effect and the ball is allowed to travel on a straight line. Likewise, a center or inside spin will make it more likely to get a skid or a kick at slow speeds. You hear the argument all the time, that no english is more accurate than english, but then why do so many pros prefer outside spin in so many circumstances? They know that hitting the ball more accurately with center (if that was even true) is not always the same as getting consistent results. The object ball can kick and curve out. They can't afford to take that chance. They can control what the cueball does as far as swerve/deflection, but they can't really know exactly what the object ball is going to do with a slow center ball cut. It depends on the condition of the balls etc. We're not playing in a sterile laboratory, the conditions of the balls, the cloth and the rails are ever changing. The longer you play each session, the more you'll notice. If you play many different places, that too will show this to be true. Hitting with outside on cut shots in the slow range, tends to be more consistent across various conditions and especially past the first half hour of play, when the polish is breaking down.
As far as positioning, TOI does what it's advertised to do. It allows you to let the cueball float without collision induced english. It tends to take some movement out of the ball and make the rail rebounds more true.
When you're trying to run many racks etc, you don't always have the luxury to hit the ball in the optimal way as far as pocketing, because position may demand a different hit. What learning TOI will do for you is to show another way to hit shots in a high percentage way, that maybe some people wouldn't think about otherwise. It will also show you just how difficult it is to hit an absolute true center ball at speed.
The difference between a very slightly off center hit and a little more off center is much less profound than trying for center ball and hitting off center. That's the basic idea of TOI. By moving your aimpoint on the cueball to the side, you are at the very least not going to hit the opposite side of intended. At the worst you'll hit center and slop the ball in or maybe rattle it, but you won't be miles out. The pocket won't be larger, but you'll at least take control over where you hit the cueball. If you play with TOI, it works best to lean towards hitting the ball firmer.
At slow speed, things look a little bit different. In general, for pocketing purposes, it's better to hit slow cut shots with outside spin. This is for two related reasons: cling/kicks and object ball curve. When you slow cut a ball, the object ball is going to curve away from the straight path to the pocket in the same direction as the cut for a large range of cuts. When you cut with outside, you are removing this effect and the ball is allowed to travel on a straight line. Likewise, a center or inside spin will make it more likely to get a skid or a kick at slow speeds. You hear the argument all the time, that no english is more accurate than english, but then why do so many pros prefer outside spin in so many circumstances? They know that hitting the ball more accurately with center (if that was even true) is not always the same as getting consistent results. The object ball can kick and curve out. They can't afford to take that chance. They can control what the cueball does as far as swerve/deflection, but they can't really know exactly what the object ball is going to do with a slow center ball cut. It depends on the condition of the balls etc. We're not playing in a sterile laboratory, the conditions of the balls, the cloth and the rails are ever changing. The longer you play each session, the more you'll notice. If you play many different places, that too will show this to be true. Hitting with outside on cut shots in the slow range, tends to be more consistent across various conditions and especially past the first half hour of play, when the polish is breaking down.
As far as positioning, TOI does what it's advertised to do. It allows you to let the cueball float without collision induced english. It tends to take some movement out of the ball and make the rail rebounds more true.
When you're trying to run many racks etc, you don't always have the luxury to hit the ball in the optimal way as far as pocketing, because position may demand a different hit. What learning TOI will do for you is to show another way to hit shots in a high percentage way, that maybe some people wouldn't think about otherwise. It will also show you just how difficult it is to hit an absolute true center ball at speed.
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Also its basic fallacy. The effect of stroke errors is basically the same either way.
pj <- as has been pointed out before
chgo
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Pat I respect your opinion. That said, there must be something you are missing in the context and looking for it can only help your knowledge level. Part of the problem is likely labeling the inside path to pocketing balls is the start. Assuming that “a touch” is meant as a measure, in fact a small measure. It needs to be measured from somewhere. In this case CJ referenced it from the center ball ghost ball line to the undercut side of the pocket. He described his determination of how to arrive at the correct cue line as a parallel shift. He then set conditions for the ”parallel shift”. The butt moves first then the tip. That guarantees that the cue line never flares away from the center line, in fact the opposite. The shift measure was stated as about an eighth of a tip. Following the instructions the tip is moved laterally by that much but the handle slightly more. The cue line will not be parallel, it will be toed slightly back to the original center ball line. In order to get to the impact area he developed a stroke, he called a hammerstroke. He jarred the cue ball towards the impact area. In some cases the slight toe back to the impact area was all that was needed but as distance between balls became less, a slight toe in needed help. Shorter distances were more forgiving and inside english reduced throw problems. It was highly distance sensitive.and as distance varied so did the complexity of making this work, description changed to vaguely developing a connection to the object ball impact area.
Here is what I found and use. The measurement of side has nothing to do with the center ball line it has to do with how close the line is from the cue ball core. I adopted and use CJ’s eighth of a tip measure for the closeness to the core. I used his center ball line to the undercut part of the pocket. Using the cue ball center as the offset location for finding the cue line, I switch attention to the impact area. The cue line must point there, but how do you get to a consistent location? Distance is a factor. However, a simple reality exists if you compare the original undercut center ball line to the impact area. The new line crosses that line and ends up in an overcut position relatively. If you choose to cross that line at its midpoint, the amount of offset in the impact area is the same regardless of shot length.
The off center hit starting from the center ball line is not an issue related to side or deflection. Misses are related to the change in subsequent cue lines. Distance is now crucial, a slight deviation on a close shot is likely forgiven at the pocket. But, over a half table away, that cue line deviation becomes larger. Beyond that any mishit to the inside from the center ball line is likely doomed, while throw at 1° or less is unlikely to doom the shot, the subsequent cue line to a fat hit, is likely fatal.
For the most part misses are due to the subsequent cue line created by the off center hits. By starting off the center line and pointing the cue back towards the impact area, is always going to be an inside english hit. This process automatically adjusts for throw and deflection is negligible. Even a slight mishit left or right is calibrated into the equation. But center ball throw is not an issue if you miss the center.
By ignoring the “touch” measure as a surface measure between the center ball line and an eighth of a tip parallel shift, I came to a method that works. Moving the “touch“ measure to the cue ball center, the cue line could simply be pointed back towards the impact area without “hammering” it there. I need only focus on the center ball line from there not the surface.
Technically this is not TOI. Its roots started there and with Dr Dave research on inside english, small english throw effects, and deflection studies. I call it convergent english because it doesn’t flare (diverge) from the center ball line, it converges back to that line.
Yours respectfully, to digest.
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I'm sure that'll be interesting some day when I take the time to read it - but I only commented on TOI's supposed ability to "increase the margin of error" by adding a little inside instead of hitting centerball. That still doesn't work - in fact, it increases the likelihood of errors by adding estimated squirt/throw to the equation.
pj
chgo