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Congrats to Raymond for his 2nd national title this year! He's been training hard on the mental, physical and technical aspects of the game, and it's showing in his results. Here's a writeup and picture of the win from the US Amateur's site...

Here's a claim from the 1997 post by Hal that PJ quoted above: Robert

It's a misprint that's supposed to be 15 degrees instead of 45, as you can deduce from the numerology in later sentence "3 angles total 90 degrees, the same angles formed by table corners." He apparently found special meaning in the fact that 15+30+45=90. As has been pointed out many times over...

I should've added some extra context. He's describing the case where z-spin stays on the ball and the ball rolls to a stop, whereas you're thinking of the case where the ball rolls continuously and the z-spin decays to zero. In other words, you're both right :) I really just wanted an excuse to...

I would also mention that the cylinder/barrel/canister analogy was first published in the 1994 book The Physics of Pocket Billiards by Wayland Marlow. I've attached a scan of page 92 of my edition. In figure 35, there's an interesting stereoscopic image pair that gives a 3D effect to makes it...

Sometimes I prefer to just hear the click of the balls along with the room noise and not be distracted by the commentary (including my own :eek:) regardless of its quality. I'd love it if video and stream producers could provide an alternate audio track that simply had the table mic without any...

According to Wikipedia, "The league batting average in Major League Baseball for 2004 was just higher than .266, and the all-time league average is between .260 and .275." Considering that the pros fail to hit the ball successfully on over 70% of their batting attempts, it would seem that they...

Hi Bob, do you also intend to post a link to illegal scans of Bill Smith's book when you find one? If not, then how do you decide where to draw the line when it comes to supporting and encouraging piracy? Robert

I sympathize with JoeyA in the situation he describes, but this part about the orca is just plain wrong. Orcas prey on defenseless creatures whenever they can, just like the gambler JoeyA describes (as well as thugs mugging grandmothers, and pretty much every other predator in the natural world...

Great shooting, Ray! Of course, it takes more than playing good pool to come from behind and win like that. It also takes physical stamina and a strong mental game. I know you've trained hard in all of those areas, and it shows. Congratulations on a well-earned victory! Robert

Gotcha...I think. So you programmed for aiming 'through' the diamonds, and you considered the center of the corner pockets to be where a ball would be tangent to extensions of both cushions into an imaginary corner (like a ball wedged in a corner on a carom table). Darn, I should've guessed...

You're right, my mistake! I was analyzing it as posted in terms of all shots without considering your mention that it was incomplete. There was obviously enough thought and technical understanding behind it that I should've assumed you'd account for further details in a longer exposition. I...

I assume the HP calculator already had a tangent function, so what did the programming involve beyond that? Robert

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Dead Crab's method as stated measures using the line from the cue ball through the center of the object ball, not the ghost ball as you describe when measuring cuts, so his error depends on CB-OB distance (which he doesn't account for). Even if it did use the ghost ball line, wouldn't you be...

Absolutely! That's why I teach and am publishing the material ;) I'd love to have you as a technical reviewer, so let me know if you're interested. The method itself is confidential, however, until it's publicly released. Robert

Actually, I (and my students) can do better and measure any shot with 1 degree accuracy with hardly more than a glance. It can be very helpful in all kinds of ways beyond simple precision aiming, especially if you also play other games like 3-cushion that require precise caroms and spin control...

That's great - I'm glad you found it helpful! Accepting the complexities of reality and having a good memory for principles gained through experience is important to being a good player, but it's also nice when there's a theory that helps weave things together into a coherent whole. It doesn't...

Saying the spin "reverses" when it hits the rail is misleading, since it suggests that if the ball didn't have spin going in it won't have any coming out because there's nothing to reverse. But a ball clearly has induced spin after hitting a cushion at any angle except 90 degrees even if you...

Eyeglass prescriptions don't work that way. Normal eyeglass lenses don't magnify, they correct vision by decreasing blur. They simply bend light to shift the image focal point to land exactly on your retina (nearsighted people naturally focus in front of the retina, and farsighted people focus...