Interesting Carom Aiming Method

F

FeelDaShot

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Yesterday I discovered a carom aiming technique that works surprisingly well that I wanted to share with everyone. Per the picture below:

1. Draw a line between the center of the 5 ball and the contact point on the 9 ball.
(Yellow Line)

2. Aim at the point where the yellow line intersects the backside of the 5 ball.

3. Shoot with follow.

Obviously, this isn't 100% accurate since there are more factors involved but it sure gets you close and is a great starting point. Try it out and let me know what you think.

Coincidentally, if you look at the cue stick in this picture, it's aimed right along the line I drew so there must be something to this technique.
 

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Tin Man

Tin Man

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Nice find!

Robert Byrne diagrams this system in his Standard Book of Pool and Billiards. I give you major props for discovering it on your own!

Byrne tells that the actual point of aim may be ever so slightly off, and that he finds that it's better that you aim the edge of your ferrule to that point. So in the diagrammed case, you might want to aim the left side of your shaft to that point on the 5 ball. Play with that.

I use this system quite frequently. At first you might think it is rare to shoot a follow carom shot, but it turns out this is very common for safety shots. For example, how often playing 9 ball do you shoot the lowest ball up table and using a rolling ball follow up and behind a ball out in space? This shot comes up every session and it is imperative to be able to accurately roll behind that ball. There are many other variations of course. The point is I use this often on safety play, rarely to pocket a ball.
 
F

FeelDaShot

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Tin Man said:
Nice find!

Robert Byrne diagrams this system in his Standard Book of Pool and Billiards. I give you major props for discovering it on your own!

Byrne tells that the actual point of aim may be ever so slightly off, and that he finds that it's better that you aim the edge of your ferrule to that point. So in the diagrammed case, you might want to aim the left side of your shaft to that point on the 5 ball. Play with that.

I use this system quite frequently. At first you might think it is rare to shoot a follow carom shot, but it turns out this is very common for safety shots. For example, how often playing 9 ball do you shoot the lowest ball up table and using a rolling ball follow up and behind a ball out in space? This shot comes up every session and it is imperative to be able to accurately roll behind that ball. There are many other variations of course. The point is I use this often on safety play, rarely to pocket a ball.
Click to expand...

Although I would love to take credit for this discovery, I cannot. Sorry for the misleading post. I stumbled across the information in a post someone else made in an unrelated thread from years ago and then tried it at home and was surprised by the results. I had no idea it was in Byrne's book. Thanks for the additional info Tin Man. I'll try this with safeties too.
 
Last edited:
Bob Jewett

Bob Jewett

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FeelDaShot said:
Yesterday I discovered a carom aiming technique that works surprisingly well that I wanted to share with everyone. Per the picture below: ...
Click to expand...
One way to test any new system you run into is to take it to the extremes. If it obviously works well at the extremes, then you can be pretty sure it works well in the middle.

One extreme is when you want to send the cue ball straight ahead. Your system says to aim at the back of the object ball -- the farthest point from the cue ball. That's exactly the right answer.

A second extreme is when the target is straight to the side of the object ball. Then your system says to shoot exactly at the edge of the object ball. That answer gives the wrong path of the cue ball by 55 degrees.

In systems like this you can expect it to get bad gradually, not suddenly crash into a wall of error. That means that sending the cue ball off at 45 degrees of deflection from the object ball probably doesn't work real well. In fact it will be off by about 13 degrees -- you will get around 32 degrees of cue ball deflection for an aim at the 45-point on the back of the object ball.

Another system for aiming follow-shot cue ball paths is to figure that if you cut the object ball one degree to the right, the cue ball will be deflected three degrees to the left. This is the fairly well known three-to-one follow system. It depends some on the balls. It works OK for small angles but a 30-degree cut does not give a 90-degree deflection. It has the advantage of using your regular aiming procedure on the shot.

Follow systems require the cue ball to be rolling smoothly on the cloth.
 
R

rikdee

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
This technique was clearly illustrated in the book entilted, The Game of Billiards by Clive Cottingham copyright 1964. It was the first pool book I ever bought (circa early seventies) and a technique I've used since.
 
F

FeelDaShot

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Bob Jewett said:
One way to test any new system you run into is to take it to the extremes. If it obviously works well at the extremes, then you can be pretty sure it works well in the middle.

One extreme is when you want to send the cue ball straight ahead. Your system says to aim at the back of the object ball -- the farthest point from the cue ball. That's exactly the right answer.

A second extreme is when the target is straight to the side of the object ball. Then your system says to shoot exactly at the edge of the object ball. That answer gives the wrong path of the cue ball by 55 degrees.

In systems like this you can expect it to get bad gradually, not suddenly crash into a wall of error. That means that sending the cue ball off at 45 degrees of deflection from the object ball probably doesn't work real well. In fact it will be off by about 13 degrees -- you will get around 32 degrees of cue ball deflection for an aim at the 45-point on the back of the object ball.

Another system for aiming follow-shot cue ball paths is to figure that if you cut the object ball one degree to the right, the cue ball will be deflected three degrees to the left. This is the fairly well known three-to-one follow system. It depends some on the balls. It works OK for small angles but a 30-degree cut does not give a 90-degree deflection. It has the advantage of using your regular aiming procedure on the shot.

Follow systems require the cue ball to be rolling smoothly on the cloth.
Click to expand...

Good analysis Bob, thanks. My calculations came up with less of a variance than 13 degrees but it's irrelevant since the trend is the same.

As the cut angle increases, the system's accuracy decreases and you'll have to hit it a little fuller or use less follow to compensate.
 
cookie man

cookie man

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
FeelDaShot said:
Yesterday I discovered a carom aiming technique that works surprisingly well that I wanted to share with everyone. Per the picture below:

1. Draw a line between the center of the 5 ball and the contact point on the 9 ball.
(Yellow Line)

2. Aim at the point where the yellow line intersects the backside of the 5 ball.

3. Shoot with follow.

Obviously, this isn't 100% accurate since there are more factors involved but it sure gets you close and is a great starting point. Try it out and let me know what you think.

Coincidentally, if you look at the cue stick in this picture, it's aimed right along the line I drew so there must be something to this technique.
Click to expand...

It's a great system for safety play also.
 
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