The closer to dead-center that the cue ball strikes the object ball, the more of its

evergruven said:

energy gets transferred."

may be old, but quick, fun read here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/15/science/sciencespecial/the-physics-of-billiards.html

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Buddy Hall was the master of the center ball hit. When he hit the cue ball, there was a different sound to the contact. You "knew" he hit it good just by hearing that clean sound.

Gotta love Center Ball.

Bill S.

jay helfert said:

Buddy Hall was the master of the center ball hit. When he hit the cue ball, there was a different sound to the contact. You "knew" he hit it good just by hearing that clean sound.

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Got that right Jay. I've been lucky enough to watch Buddy play quite a bit and his use of center cueball always impressed me. He'd get on the correct side of an early ball and just move whitey around staying on the center axis. While MORE than capable using spin he'd always take the center-ball route if possible. Even when he did spin it he didn't get too far from center as in load-it-up and turn-it-loose kinda spin.

garczar said:

Got that right Jay. I've been lucky enough to watch Buddy play quite a bit and his use of center cueball always impressed me. He'd get on the correct side of an early ball and just move whitey around staying on the center axis. While MORE than capable using spin he'd always take the center-ball route if possible. Even when he did spin it he didn't get too far from center as in load-it-up and turn-it-loose kinda spin.

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Most players use just a hint of outside english to prevent skid on cut shots. Some advocate against that. Did Buddy play like that as well, or did he really shot dead on the vertical axis?

Dan White said:

Most players use just a hint of outside english to prevent skid on cut shots. Some advocate against that. Did Buddy play like that as well, or did he really shot dead on the vertical axis?

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Well, i wasn't right behind every shot so i couldn't say exactly his tip placement but he seemed to stay as close to center as any top-notch player i've watched. The thing about BH was his outs were so methodical and routine-looking he tended to just mentally beat the s^*t out of his opponents. Kinda like the old statement about Jack Nicklaus, " Jack knew he was gonna beat you, you knew he was gonna beat you, and Jack knew that you knew he was gonna beat you." Pretty well sums up Buddy in his prime.

garczar said:

Well, i wasn't right behind every shot so i couldn't say exactly his tip placement but he seemed to stay as close to center as any top-notch player i've watched. The thing about BH was his outs were so methodical and routine-looking he tended to just mentally beat the s^*t out of his opponents. Kinda like the old statement about Jack Nicklaus, " Jack knew he was gonna beat you, you knew he was gonna beat you, and Jack knew that you knew he was gonna beat you." Pretty well sums up Buddy in his prime.

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LOL. But what I want to know is whether you (the opponent) knew that Buddy knew that you knew that Buddy knew he was going to beat you.

Most everyone I know of, and a couple of HOF players have told me directly, that you should put just a hint, like 1/10 of a tip, of outside on cut shots to keep the ob from skidding or "turning over." Respected instructors like Mark Wilson advocate against that, so I'm always curious to see who does what when it comes to that. I've always kind of thought it wasn't necessary under perfect playing conditions, but with slightly dirty balls/chalk and whatnot that it would be a good thing to do.

Not to hijack the thread.

Dan White said:

LOL. But what I want to know is whether you (the opponent) knew that Buddy knew that you knew that Buddy knew he was going to beat you.

Most everyone I know of, and a couple of HOF players have told me directly, that you should put just a hint, like 1/10 of a tip, of outside on cut shots to keep the ob from skidding or "turning over." Respected instructors like Mark Wilson advocate against that, so I'm always curious to see who does what when it comes to that. I've always kind of thought it wasn't necessary under perfect playing conditions, but with slightly dirty balls/chalk and whatnot that it would be a good thing to do.

Not to hijack the thread.

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Good point(s). BH could have been doing that, putting a "bit" of outside on. It just always looked like he was dead-center a lot. I really feel lucky to know the guy pretty well and to have seen him when he was "the guy" to beat.

You spend a lot of time learning spin then learn you don't need it

You spend a lot of time learning side spin along with controlling deflection and squirt, then learn you rarely need much side spin. Granted, the first shot after the break or after the other player's turn you may occasionally need a lot of spin on a longer shot but this is rare and you are almost always better off pocketing the ball and taking a harder second shot than using extreme spin on a long shot.

Angles are the secret to lazy man's, or in today's times lazy person's, pool. Angles modified with high or low or just a touch of side will do almost all of the work. When a shot is coming up where spin will be handy, make sure pocketing the ball itself is easy and in other than rotation games, the table is largely cleared. Whenever possible I try to avoid heavy side spin on shots with more than two feet between the cue ball and object ball and with the total distance from cue ball to pocket more than three feet. Angles makes this possible.

A lot of side spin and distance is dangerous for any player, thus the popularity of the low deflection cues which minimize the effects. As a player develops first they play a simple game. Then they complicate it. Then they make it simple again.

Hu

Absolutely True!

ShootingArts said:

You spend a lot of time learning side spin along with controlling deflection and squirt, then learn you rarely need much side spin. Granted, the first shot after the break or after the other player's turn you may occasionally need a lot of spin on a longer shot but this is rare and you are almost always better off pocketing the ball and taking a harder second shot than using extreme spin on a long shot.

Angles are the secret to lazy man's, or in today's times lazy person's, pool. Angles modified with high or low or just a touch of side will do almost all of the work. When a shot is coming up where spin will be handy, make sure pocketing the ball itself is easy and in other than rotation games, the table is largely cleared. Whenever possible I try to avoid heavy side spin on shots with more than two feet between the cue ball and object ball and with the total distance from cue ball to pocket more than three feet. Angles makes this possible.

A lot of side spin and distance is dangerous for any player, thus the popularity of the low deflection cues which minimize the effects. As a player develops first they play a simple game. Then they complicate it. Then they make it simple again.

Hu

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Well the thread certainly has had interesting responses, but did anyone actually read the linked article in the first post?

Dan White said:

..snip...Most everyone I know of, and a couple of HOF players have told me directly, that you should put just a hint, like 1/10 of a tip, of outside on cut shots to keep the ob from skidding or "turning over." ..snip....

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Buddy has a video where he runs 10 rack of 9 ball while commentating what he is thinking and doing. On one of outs he was shooting the 9, and says (paraphrasing) to apply a small amount of outside spin. He called it "helping english" on the video.

Whether he did this in real life, or it was made up for the video, who knows, but I'd bet he did it in real life.

iusedtoberich said:

Buddy has a video where he runs 10 rack of 9 ball while commentating what he is thinking and doing. On one of outs he was shooting the 9, and says (paraphrasing) to apply a small amount of outside spin. He called it "helping english" on the video.

Whether he did this in real life, or it was made up for the video, who knows, but I'd bet he did it in real life.

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That's interesting. He would be in the company of just about every great player I know in that regard.

The article you linked to is only a partial article unless I missed something. It just talks about Ron Shepard and what an object ball is.

iusedtoberich said:

Well the thread certainly has had interesting responses, but did anyone actually read the linked article in the first post?

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"Because after geometry, great billiards is all about: spin."

[Did the article really end there?]

AtLarge said:

"Because after geometry, great billiards is all about: spin."

[Did the article really end there?]

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It didn't seem like the article had any point, and it did end abruptly... But the replies in this thread seemed to be in response to only the thread title, nothing more:grin-square:

iusedtoberich said:

It didn't seem like the article had any point, and it did end abruptly... But the replies in this thread seemed to be in response to only the thread title, nothing more:grin-square:

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Apparently in response to a misreading of the title.

The title is about ball/ball contact. All the replies (including the OP's) are about tip/ball contact.

pj
chgo

Did it take them till 2002 to figure that out...

most seem to have gotten a chopped off article

iusedtoberich said:

Well the thread certainly has had interesting responses, but did anyone actually read the linked article in the first post?

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I think most got the same chopped off article I did. It never got to what seemed to be the meat of the article before it ended abruptly. I believe most of us are aware of the basics of energy retention and transfer and the chopped off article didn't even get that far. The discussion is interesting but the link to the article was little more than a red herring, unintentional by the OP I am sure. Possibly security or java settings are an issue. It doesn't really matter why, those of us that can't see the full article read what was there which wasn't much. We didn't read what we couldn't see.

Hu