Shooting Hard vs Shooting Soft

ThinSlice

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I was just talking about this with some people when I played some on Sunday.



There was a young guy and an older lady who both came over to ask me some questions and I went to their tables for a little while to help them out.



I told both of them that the first thing I would do if I ever were to try to teach them is to have them spend an hour or so of setting up simple shots and hitting them HARD, over and over and over.



Everybody today has a tendency to "baby" the balls and they don't have a stroke. When it comes time to "let the dogs out", they don't have stroke enough to do it.



I play with TOI and I hit the balls firmer than most people. When I hit the balls you can hear it and you can hear it when it hits the back of the pocket. The tables at Brian's don't have the fastest cloth or rails, either, so you have to put some "ooomph" in the shot in order to drive the cue ball 4 or 5 rails without a spinning cue ball. My cue ball is usually travelling "flat".



Most of the people I see at the other tables have a "jab-type" stroke with little, if any, follow through. They hit the balls at a speed that they barely reach the pockets and they don't have enough "sauce" on the cue ball to ever get any kind of position.



I think everybody would benefit from spending some time actually "banging" the balls around the table in order to get the feel of how to let your stroke out. If you are bunting all the time, it's hard to hit a line drive or a home run when you get up to bat.



Man....I rarely agree with you on things but, on this one I TOTALLY agree. Nothing beats trying to watch a slow rolling player try and do a force follow up 7’ on a 9’ table trying to get shape on an end rail shot. They struggle to the point of shame. Because they have no stroke. As long as they keep the angles and the shots within reach they can play. But, past that forget about it.


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Patrick Johnson

Fish of the Day
Silver Member
Set up a dead on combo to the corner pocket at the head spot.
....put the cue ball in the center of the table.....
...hit the first ball dead on...the cue ball would go to the center of the end rail if no balls were there....
.....roll the combo pocket weight...
...if you were accurate, the combo should hit the end rail...
...it misses by 2 to 8 inches depending on the weight and cleanliness of the cloth.

Now set up the same combo...hit it straight on, like before....
....but hit it hard....
...the ball will go straight into the pocket.

That’s why shooting above a certain speed gives you more accuracy....
....the ball goes where your logical mind thinks it will go....
...the speed eliminates cling.

Not sure how the CTE guys handle that
A frozen combo simulates a stun hit, which maximizes the throw you’re seeing. A rolling CB would throw less.

pj
chgo
 

philly

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Some shots call for hitting the ball softly with a lot of english and some softly with center ball.
The same can be said for shots hit hard.
The speed of the shot is determined by the shape you want to get.
 
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lfigueroa

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Why is it easier to make a ball shooting it hard instead of soft? What is it about shooting soft that reduces accuracy? And what does it mean when they say a ball will "roll off" if you hit it soft?

I've watched a lot of Accu-Stats videos from the Sands Regency tournament in Reno and the US Open and rarely do you see a top pro just slow roll a shot. Buddy Hall even talked about a certain soft shot once and said....."This is one that I would roll"...….

r/DCP


Some setups produce a more accurate stroke for soft stokes, others for faster strokes -- the trick is to find the setup that works at all speeds.

Beyond that, there is also the knowledge issue. Hitting balls at different speeds produces different effects which you have to be aware of and know how to execute. It's one of the reasons guys have difficulty switching from one game to another, like say 9ball to 14.1, or 14.1 to 1pocket -- the shots, while appearing basically the same, often have to be hit at different speeds that the player may be unfamiliar with.

As to balls "rolling off" I believe that just means that if you hit a shot softly, and the table is not perfectly level, and the balls and cloth reasonably clean, the path of the ball could be affected by any or all of those factors and not make it to it's assigned destination, having rolled off.

Lou Figueroa
 
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rikdee

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
For a beautiful example of blending both soft and firm strokes in a complete game, watch some vids of Little Ko. What a player.
 

DrCue'sProtege

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Set up a dead on combo to the corner pocket at the head spot.
....put the cue ball in the center of the table.....
...hit the first ball dead on...the cue ball would go to the center of the end rail if no balls were there....
.....roll the combo pocket weight...
...if you were accurate, the combo should hit the end rail...
...it misses by 2 to 8 inches depending on the weight and cleanliness of the cloth.

Now set up the same combo...hit it straight on, like before....
....but hit it hard....
...the ball will go straight into the pocket.

That’s why shooting above a certain speed gives you more accuracy....
....the ball goes where your logical mind thinks it will go....
...the speed eliminates cling.

Not sure how the CTE guys handle that


I hit it soft. It went right into the corner pocket.
 

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Gold Member
Silver Member
caroms and some banks

Generally I see very little reason for shooting hard. If I had nice heavy leather pockets to shoot into I might just because I miss that solid thunk of hitting a big mass of leather. Caroms I find easier to play if the cue ball is still sliding when it hits the second ball, the angles are "honest". Certain banks I jack the back of the cue up and skip the balls around on the table. Shooting hard and the balls barely touching cloth takes the effects of spin out of the shot, once again keeping the angles "honest".

I have to say that when shots or shape is missed due to speed it is probably ten to one due to shooting too hard rather than too soft though.

It is simple to find if you can shoot balls straight and hard. Basically a Joe Tucker drill modified a bit. We learn to adjust for slight accuracy problems so hitting a ball to the rail and back isn't proof of a straight stroke and good aim. If we put the cue ball on the head spot, the object ball on the foot spot, and then use two balls to set up a gate for the object ball to go through one diamond out from the foot rail then we have a tough test.

Shoot the cue ball into the object ball with a stop shot. Go through the gate and have the object ball come back and hit the cue ball driving it to the head rail. perfect would be to hit the center diamond but if you can hit the head rail within the with of paper money, about five inches or so, it is a good prop bet.

This is tough. Start with the gate maybe a ball and a half wide or so. Joe Tucker can do this pretty easily it seems when he is in stroke. He may have the straightest stroke in pool though so most of us aren't going to be like Joe!

Hu
 

ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I was just talking about this with some people when I played some on Sunday.

There was a young guy and an older lady who both came over to ask me some questions and I went to their tables for a little while to help them out.

I told both of them that the first thing I would do if I ever were to try to teach them is to have them spend an hour or so of setting up simple shots and hitting them HARD, over and over and over.

Everybody today has a tendency to "baby" the balls and they don't have a stroke. When it comes time to "let the dogs out", they don't have stroke enough to do it.

I play with TOI and I hit the balls firmer than most people. When I hit the balls you can hear it and you can hear it when it hits the back of the pocket. The tables at Brian's don't have the fastest cloth or rails, either, so you have to put some "ooomph" in the shot in order to drive the cue ball 4 or 5 rails without a spinning cue ball. My cue ball is usually travelling "flat".

Most of the people I see at the other tables have a "jab-type" stroke with little, if any, follow through. They hit the balls at a speed that they barely reach the pockets and they don't have enough "sauce" on the cue ball to ever get any kind of position.

I think everybody would benefit from spending some time actually "banging" the balls around the table in order to get the feel of how to let your stroke out. If you are bunting all the time, it's hard to hit a line drive or a home run when you get up to bat.
To play really strong 9-ball, you have to have confidence in all speeds of stroke/shots, for shotmaking and for positioning. In an ideal world, if you played the perfect positioning angles and are playing on a perfectly level table, you would rarely have to let out your stroke, but that's not realistic. In the course of playing the game, you're often leaving too much angle or too little angle, and you have to be able to adjust your stroke speed accordingly, with confidence, in order to stay in line or get back in line for your next ball. The soft touch stroke is obviously most important in 1-pocket, but is really important 9-ball, to be able to play successful defensive safety shots as well as kick safeties.
 

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Gold Member
Silver Member
distance

To play really strong 9-ball, you have to have confidence in all speeds of stroke/shots, for shotmaking and for positioning. In an ideal world, if you played the perfect positioning angles and are playing on a perfectly level table, you would rarely have to let out your stroke, but that's not realistic. In the course of playing the game, you're often leaving too much angle or too little angle, and you have to be able to adjust your stroke speed accordingly, with confidence, in order to stay in line or get back in line for your next ball. The soft touch stroke is obviously most important in 1-pocket, but is really important 9-ball, to be able to play successful defensive safety shots as well as kick safeties.



Just a bit off topic comment for this thread but I have noticed that a lot of angle issues are more distance issues, people wanting to get too close to their work. We often aren't able to approach our area for position play exactly along the shot line creating the angle issues. Getting too close to the next object ball compounds even small angle issues.

In terms of pocketing a ball it rarely matters if we are one foot or three feet away but the cue ball very close to the object ball sometimes causes us to need far more spin. Each shot of the run gets a little further off until we are in a mess sometimes. The last shot might have been the final straw but the root of the mess was three or four shots back. Of course sometimes we recover along the run, sometimes not. More of a beginner to intermediate issue but I think considering the value of a proper distance from the object ball is often ignored.

Hu
 

goettlicher

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
1. Shooting soft makes it more likely that an unlevel table will distort the path of the ball.
2. Shooting soft also makes throw more likely, and a kick or skid from a dirty ball more likely.
3. But shooting hard can also make the pocket play smaller because it might get bounced out of the pocket by the points.



Great answer!

randyg
 

goettlicher

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Most of us mortals probably have small errors in our stroke.
Those small errors are not very noticable at a softer speed.
At a higher speed the error gets magnified.


randyg
 

Patrick Johnson

Fish of the Day
Silver Member
Most of us mortals probably have small errors in our stroke.
Those small errors are not very noticable at a softer speed.
At a higher speed the error gets magnified.


randyg
Yes, but I think there's more to it than that. Faster strokes are also simply harder to control.

pj
chgo
 

ThinSlice

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Most of us mortals probably have small errors in our stroke.

Those small errors are not very noticable at a softer speed.

At a higher speed the error gets magnified.





randyg



It’s only magnified because the miss is amplified by the speed. Meaning a miss rattles the pocket more dramatically or comes of the rails faster. A miss is a miss no matter what speed.


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ChrisinNC

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Just a bit off topic comment for this thread but I have noticed that a lot of angle issues are more distance issues, people wanting to get too close to their work. We often aren't able to approach our area for position play exactly along the shot line creating the angle issues. Getting too close to the next object ball compounds even small angle issues.

In terms of pocketing a ball it rarely matters if we are one foot or three feet away but the cue ball very close to the object ball sometimes causes us to need far more spin. Each shot of the run gets a little further off until we are in a mess sometimes. The last shot might have been the final straw but the root of the mess was three or four shots back. Of course sometimes we recover along the run, sometimes not. More of a beginner to intermediate issue but I think considering the value of a proper distance from the object ball is often ignored.

Hu
Good points. Generally speaking for many of us, when you are playing on a big table with tight pockets, particularly as you get up in years, you'd prefer to get as close to your work as possible. The tradeoff however, as you correctly stated, is that the closer you get, the more you risk losing your desired angle.
 

Joqpub4

AZB GOLD
Silver Member
how you learned

Interesting thread... i agree with a whole bunch of what has been said.

For me personally, one of the drills i did continuously when i was first learning was pocket speed... now i took that to mean just dropping the ball into the pocket. Oh, how i wish i had taken that to mean just getting to the back of the pocket... i got pretty darn good at just dropping them in (still am today). As i transitioned to playing on tables that were more felt-like/uneven/barboxes/etc as compared to the 9' gold crowns i learned on... i found that those really slow shots were rolling off and i was missing. I had to learn to hit the balls more firmly. Additionally as i was learning more advanced positions... again, more firmly. My stroke has a tendency to not be a good, smooth stroke. I can at the drop of a hat, drop a ball just into a pocket, but playing firmly can be an adventure...

I have a few friends who are the exact opposite. They grew up playing 9-ball, smacking the ball around and really letting their stroke out... when they have to play a touchy/delicate shots... they have problems.

My point in this is, just like other athletes... people have fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers and you have to work to educate/train yourself to use them appropriately. Yes, both can have advantages / uses, but to be a good well rounded player, you need to be able to do both...

The grass is always greener, but both have pros and cons. Learning how to play well in all conditions and all manner of strokes has its own rewards...

-Joe
 

DrCue'sProtege

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
How soft?....pocket weight?
Where did the cue ball end up?

I tried this again. Tapped the balls to make sure they were frozen. The soft speed the ball hit the short rail about two inches from the pocket. At a harder speed the ball went into the pocket but just barely, it almost caught the point by the short rail.

r/DCP
 
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