Learning to Aim - Child vs Adult

Patrick Johnson

Fish of the Day
Silver Member
If you have trouble looking at a simple object or shape (like a square or a rectangle or circle) and visualizing a vertical line down the center, then you have poor spacial skills and would not do well in anything that requires good spacial skills.
Even if you can very precisely estimate fractions on the balls, and can very precisely aim at and hit them, that covers only a fraction of the cut angles needed to play pool. All the rest are varying degrees of less "defined" and more "estimated".

pj
chgo
 

BC21

https://www.playpoolbetter.com
Gold Member
Silver Member
Learning to do anything well, and become a constant ant winner is not easy.

If it was anyone could go to some sporting good store, and buy a set of Golf Clubs, and play like Tiger, or Phil.

Most people who are great at anything, put a lot of effort, and time into the thing they are great at.

Babe Ruth was the home run king, but he also struck out a lot.

Yes sir....research has shown that about 10,000 hours of quality practice is needed to reach worldclass skill levels. On the average that's about 10 years. Tiger Woods had those hours in before he turned 13. The majority of the world's greatest athletes, gamesmen, musicians, etc... started when they were very young, and through dedication and hard work they were experts in what they were doing by the time they were teenagers.

Typically separates future champions from just average players is the opportunities that parents or communities can provide for kids. Jack Nicklaus said that he was fortunate to have opportunities that other kids in his neighborhood didn't have, and he took advantage of those opportunities and stuck with it through hard work and dedication. He also said something like, 'I wonder how many future champions lived on my street when I was growing up, only they didn't have the opportunities I had.'

I love that mentality. Jack Nicklaus knew he had become the greatest golfer in history due to opportunities that were afforded to him as a child, in addition to a ton of hard work he put into those opportunities. Opportunity alone doesn't amount to much if you aren't willing to dedicate your time and sweat to it.
 

BC21

https://www.playpoolbetter.com
Gold Member
Silver Member
Even if you can very precisely estimate fractions on the balls, and can very precisely aim at and hit them, that covers only a fraction of the cut angles needed to play pool. All the rest are varying degrees of less "defined" and more "estimated".

pj
chgo

Using a +/- 1° margin for error at center pocket, which covers the vast majority of shots that come up on a pool table with 4.5" pockets, only 28 shot lines are needed to cover any shot between a straight in and an 80° cut. Most players aren't shooting many 80° cut shots, so honestly we can get by quite sporty with only knowing the shots that fall between 0 and a little more than 60°. That reduces the number of shot lines to 22. That's not very many.

Granted, this is using a +/- 1° margin of error, which covers about any shot where the ob is little more than 5 feet or closer to the pocket. For longer distances or rail shots we'd have to be a little more accurate. For closer shots we wouldn't need to be more accurate. So 22 different shot lines is a good number that covers more than 60 shot angles within the bulk of the table.

Each shot line covers a shot angle span of 3°, which is a 3mm aiming difference on the ob. In other words, if you have a known 1/2 ball shot, you have a 3mm wide window to aim at on the ob. You can hit the perfect halfball aim and make the shot, or you can hit 1mm thinner or 1mm thicker. Beyond that you'll miss it. On a straight in shot you can hit dead center or 1mm left or right of dead center. This equates to 1/20 fractional aim lines, which is probably tough to imagine or estimate. But with a good feel for speed and spin, you can use the nearest 16th fractional aim line and do very well. With enough practice you'll find yourself just seeing where the cb needs to be in relation to the ob and you'll just know how to hit it. From within 2 or 3 feet of the pocket the nearest 16th or 8th fractional aim works great.

My point is, pocketing balls doesn't have to be looked at as if there are 90 different shot angles that must be mastered before you can play the game well.
 

duckie

GregH
Silver Member
The notation standard for for angles is deg.minute.sec.

Example 14 degrees, 25 minutes and 30 seconds.

Which means there is

00 degree, 00 minute, 00 seconds - straight in

00 degree, 00 minute, 01 seconds

00 degree, 00 minute, 02 seconds

And so on to as the cut angle increases to

78 degree, 58 minutes, 39 seconds

78 degrees, 58 minutes 40 seconds

All they way to

80 degrees, 00 minutes, 00 seconds or rather 80 degrees- very thin cut.

Each one of those above is a possible cut angle meaning there are more angles into the pocket than stated.
 

Boxcar

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
We hold these truths to be self evident;

If you get good poz, you don't need to concern yourself with extreme cut angles.

If you keep the ball in the fairway, you don't need to worry about trees.

There endeth the lesson.

(paying a lot of money for a ridiculously expensive pool table never made anybody a better player)
 

BC21

https://www.playpoolbetter.com
Gold Member
Silver Member
The notation standard for for angles is deg.minute.sec.

Example 14 degrees, 25 minutes and 30 seconds.

Which means there is

00 degree, 00 minute, 00 seconds - straight in

00 degree, 00 minute, 01 seconds

00 degree, 00 minute, 02 seconds

And so on to as the cut angle increases to

78 degree, 58 minutes, 39 seconds

78 degrees, 58 minutes 40 seconds

All they way to

80 degrees, 00 minutes, 00 seconds or rather 80 degrees- very thin cut.

Each one of those above is a possible cut angle meaning there are more angles into the pocket than stated.

Not in any pool world do we ever have to be concerned with or think about angles that accurately. At our most extreme accuracy, we only need to be within about half a degree (0.5°), not 1/60 of a degree (0.017°), and certainly not 1/60 of that (0.00028°).

The reason minutes and seconds aren't used in pool is because no shot ever has to be that precise, or at least 99.999% of shots don't have to be that precise. If you could consistently shoot every shot with an accuracy of +/- 0.5° from center pocket, you would have remarkable aiming skills, greater than any player alive today or any player dead and gone. There are plenty that can do this from close range, when the cb is within a couple of feet from the ob, like when you have to shoot a ball precisely by a ball blocking half the pocket, but that's far from a common shot that every player needs to have in their shot bag.

Most players just want to play good pool. They might want to be better than the guys they play with, but they don't have grand notions of playing on the pro tour or quiting their job to play pool full time. So just being more consistent at pocketing balls and getting good position is want they want, which doesn't require extreme accuracy into the minutes and seconds of any shot angle. Just keeping it real.
 
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Vorpal Cue

Just galumping back
Silver Member
The notation standard for for angles is deg.minute.sec.

Example 14 degrees, 25 minutes and 30 seconds.

Which means there is

00 degree, 00 minute, 00 seconds - straight in

00 degree, 00 minute, 01 seconds

00 degree, 00 minute, 02 seconds

And so on to as the cut angle increases to

78 degree, 58 minutes, 39 seconds

78 degrees, 58 minutes 40 seconds

All they way to

80 degrees, 00 minutes, 00 seconds or rather 80 degrees- very thin cut.

Each one of those above is a possible cut angle meaning there are more angles into the pocket than stated.


Ahhh, the old molecule to molecule aiming system. Most leagues won't allow you set up a tunneling electron microscope unfortunately..

But really, it's not needed for tables less than 100 feet. It works fine for 80-90 degrees cuts too.
 

BC21

https://www.playpoolbetter.com
Gold Member
Silver Member
Thoughts on Shot Angles

When a newbie player looks at a cut shot, I don't think they have a problem with getting a rough estimate of where the cb needs to be in order to send the ob toward the pocket. At worse I believe at this skill level most players can narrow it down to an approximate angle range within 15 to 20°, which of course isn't good enough and many shots will miss the pocket by a diamond or more. The player is guessing or poorly estimating the exact aim line needed, and sometimes they guess right and the ob hits the pocket.

Let's say a 37° degree cut is needed to pocket a certain ball. The newbie narrows in on a rough estimate that'll create a shot angle anywhere between something like 25° and 45°, or maybe even a tighter window depending on how much time they've invested in the game so far. Regardless, they are working within a small range of angles, not 90 different angles, and certainly not thousands or millions.

Within a range of 15 to 20 degrees, and depending on how close the ob is to the pocket, there might be 2 or 3 shot lines that will send the ob into some portion of the pocket. If the ob is around 3ft or closer to the pocket then a 15 to 20 degree span can be completely covered with just 3 or 4 aiming choices. Choosing the correct one can either be a trial and error process or a system process. Trial and error will require more table time before accurate estimations become consistent. Aiming systems can speed up the learning process by putting you dead on the correct line or so close that you are able to pick up on it quicker.
 
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