My pleasure.
The more students I work with the more I am a believer in Bert Kinister's work out. It's not for everyone. Advanced players that already know these shots won't gain as much out of it. But I've been very surprised at how many players come to my bootcamps that don't have all of these tools in their toolbox.
As I've done my bootcamps I've seen that most players fall into one of three buckets:
1. Can't draw
2. Can't spin
3. Can't put it together.
The first category of players have switched from recreational play to taking the game more seriously, but they are still just learning. They may have patchy fundamentals and they don't have much tip accuracy. Up until now they have focused mostly on the object ball contact point and don't have much precision with the cue ball contact point. Maybe they can stop the ball or force it back with a low whack, but they don't have a good concept of positional options with high and low. Maybe they have a general directional sense (i.e. the cue ball is going up table, or it's bouncing across table) but it's way too vague and not under their command.
The next group really surprised me as I didn't realize how many players avoided sidespin. There are so many people that talk about the negatives of sidespin and how you should stay on vertical access or stick to one tip off center that many people think they're playing the game correctly by not spinning the ball. I've had students that actually can't spin the ball. I tell them to shoot a shot with right spin and the measles aren't even turning. Or maybe they put a twist on that wears off by the time it hits the rail. They, too, might suffer from poor tip accuracy, but mostly they've just never tried seeing how far you can hit off center. Or they say they miss too much due to deflection so avoid it, instead of learning to feel the shots and adapt.
Finally there are the advanced students. They know all the shots. They've seen all the videos. They have good fundamentals. There isn't much I can set up on the table they don't know how to execute. And they can sometimes run 2-3 racks of 9 ball when it's going right for them. But yet when I have them play the 6 ball ghost on my 9' Diamond (or even the 5 ball ghost) they often break even at best. What in the world?!? These, my friends, are the people that haven't figured out how to put it together. They have huge, huge, huge, enormous holes in their pattern play, but they think they are playing great because it works sometimes. Their biggest problem is they don't see the problem. They are constantly getting funny on balls and having to resort to 'recovery shots'. On their good days they make them and most of the time they don't, so they decide the issue is consistency or fundamentals. They don't realize that the only way to be consistent is to play superior patterns that allow them to avoid shots no one can make consistently. Instead they roll the dice on every shot and wonder why they crap out so often.
That's it. That's what I've seen.
For people in the first bucket they need instruction from guys like Scott Lee, Randy, or Dr. Dave. They should be working on wagon wheel drills that teach tip accuracy and vertical access position play. The middle bucket needs Bert Kinister (Dr. Dave would benefit all students as well). Learn how to spin the ball around. Forget about that one tip off center. If you're going to play rotation games you'd better forget about center ball and learn to love the edge of the ball. All top players are comfortable with extreme spin on routine shots, they only avoid it with distance and speed.
As for the group at the bottom, these are the guys that I really think should come bootcamp it up. If you can't draw or spin the ball you don't need to come to MN for me to show you how to lower your tip. But if you have all the tools, have seen all the videos, and can run tables some of the time, then it's time to learn the differences between how pros and amateurs move the cue ball around the table and stack the deck in their favor from shot to shot. How to build their run around the key transition and then make the entire thing fool proof. So if you're in the 550-650 Fargo Rate range and think you know it all and that the only reason you aren't playing pro speed is you don't have enough hours, you're wrong. You have the right tools but need to put them together the right way.
Anyway, Ray, it seems like you're towards the strong end of the first category. I think Bert Kinister is a great resource for anyone from your level through the 'non-spinners'. He was really on to something. There is more I can say about why I like his approach but I'll leave that for another thread. Good luck!