Aiming System Or Not?

[lfigueroa]

We did speed pool at one of the fury booths and what was apparent is that when a person was on then they could run around and pop balls in but if they missed an easy shot they seemed to get flustered and missed more easy shots in the rack.

It is possible to play speed pool with an aiming system. CTE has "disguised pivoting" where the pivot happens in the air for example and no one would have any idea how the user was aiming. But for the most part I would say that speed pool is easy shots without precision shape and that most players are shooting mostly by feel.

I am confident that there are extremely few players who can perform as well playing super fast if they are playing by regular rules where precision shape is required. Not saying there aren't any but I am comfortable betting real high against the majority of pool players if they are playing the ghost and required to finish every rack inside of 60-90 seconds. Especially if the players are around my speed.

If anyone reading this is between 550 and 650 Fargo and wants to try and bust me on this proposition you have action in OKC for up to $5000. I put my money where my mouth is

Disguised pivoting = not really using CTE but want to claim I am.

Lou Figueroa

 

[lfigueroa]

Don't be obtuse. Practice strokes are not adjustments. They are a form of settling down and getting ready to shoot and are not part of aiming, which this thread is about.

Standing up is the right thing to do, even ten times. If Dennis were playing as you claim he would never stand back up.

I also didn't say that people don't make adjustments just that it is not something everyone does when down as you claimed. Nor is it really great practice to be fidgeting when down and searching for an aim or a spin position. Often players will complain that they should have gotten up when they stayed down despite not feeling sure. Other times players will say that they changed their mind mid stroke as a reason given for a miss.

This topic is about aiming systems and while your opinion is noted it certainly isn't backed by any data. I would bet on any proficient aiming system user to score higher on the various shot making tests out there if the requirement is that the shooter one stroke every shot taken.

In fact I would bet even more on the good player who uses a good aiming system against any player of comparable speed who fidgets for aiming purposes when down as you claim they do.

But like I said I could be wrong so show us.

Here is a random match I found on you tube. Feel free to point out these aiming adjustments when they are down on the ball.

wow.

Lou Figueroa

 

[BobN]

Disguised pivoting = not really using CTE but want to claim I am.

Lou Figueroa

Lmao. Okey dokey.

 

[JB Cases]

Disguised pivoting = not really using CTE but want to claim I am.

Lou Figueroa

Public Relations Officer Manual 1.1 - Disguised honesty = Not really telling the truth but want to claim you are. As a PRO you will want to master this technique. Every great PRO has mastered the technique of appearing to be honest while feeding the public a steaming pile. Master this and your career will have no bounds.

 

[The_JV]

I love these aiming threads. I have so many bad practices and misconceptions on how to play this game, it's a miracle I have even dropped a single shot.

 

[cookie man]

I love these aiming threads. I have so many bad practices and misconceptions on how to play this game, it's a miracle I have even dropped a single shot.

In the spirit of the aiming forum " I think what you are doing" is doing it wrong. I mean i've never aimed like you do and in fact don't even know how to aim like that but I still think .............. lol

 

[Get_A_Grip]

Of course, when the player has to account for playing position, using spin, etc....it all becomes subjective.

This quote right here is the "rub" with all aiming systems that are said to be "objective". When Dennis Orcollo was asked about how often he uses english on the cue ball, he responded with something like, "on almost every shot".

My aiming system is simply a system to ensure that I hit the contact point on the object ball that I'm aiming at. But choosing the contact point on the object ball that you need to hit is the tricky and subjective part.

It only comes with experience to know how far to move the contact point over to the right or the left on the object ball from your standard medium hard, center ball hit. Depending upon how much english you're going to use, accounting for swerve, throw, and deflection, or the extra cut produced on the object ball if you hit the shot hard, will all contribute to how much you move the contact point on the object ball over from your standard medium hard, center ball hit.

 

[BC21]

This quote right here is the "rub" with all aiming systems that are said to be "objective". When Dennis Orcollo was asked about how often he uses english on the cue ball, he responded with something like, "on almost every shot".

My aiming system is simply a system to ensure that I hit the contact point on the object ball that I'm aiming at. But choosing the contact point on the object ball that you need to hit is the tricky and subjective part.

It only comes with experience to know how far to move the contact point over to the right or the left on the object ball from your standard medium hard, center ball hit. Depending upon how much english you're going to use, accounting for swerve, throw, and deflection, or the extra cut produced on the object ball if you hit the shot hard, will all contribute to how much you move the contact point on the object ball over from your standard medium hard, center ball hit.

And for ghostball users or fractional users, all they have to do is adjust left or right of their aiming reference. After doing enough times, it becomes subconscious adjustments for most shots.

 

[eg9327]

I became interested in aiming systems after CTE came out. At first I decided that CTE couldn't possibly work. After trying it for a while I concluded that "as described" it actually does not work. It doesn't. So I studied it further, looking for what these wide range of people were actually doing, since something was obviously working for them. There is a lot of talk about the center to edge aiming line. It is not an aimimg line, it is a perception line. Line up your shot CTE, then "make minor adjustments for your shot", then shoot. CTE gets you started, that is all. Perhaps a refinement to the "shoot it a thousand times and then you can repeat it" aiming system. I did find value, however. I refined it to 8 different "perception" lines, namely 10, 20, 30, 40, 45, 50, 60, and 70 degree lines. I can "see" these angles fairly easily after practice. I estimate the angle and line up to the closest line, putting me fairly close. Then I switch to a target based visualization, making minor adjustments as my eyes see the shot. If my visualization forces far me off my original line I start over. When I get congruence pull the trigger. When I first started it took a lot of effort. After learning the angles and shot lines it became much easier. There is a system similar to this already which relates to half ball, quarter ball, eighth ball, etc., but I found that more difficult.

 

[cookie man]

I became interested in aiming systems after CTE came out. At first I decided that CTE couldn't possibly work. After trying it for a while I concluded that "as described" it actually does not work. It doesn't. So I studied it further, looking for what these wide range of people were actually doing, since something was obviously working for them. There is a lot of talk about the center to edge aiming line. It is not an aimimg line, it is a perception line. Line up your shot CTE, then "make minor adjustments for your shot", then shoot. CTE gets you started, that is all. Perhaps a refinement to the "shoot it a thousand times and then you can repeat it" aiming system. I did find value, however. I refined it to 8 different "perception" lines, namely 10, 20, 30, 40, 45, 50, 60, and 70 degree lines. I can "see" these angles fairly easily after practice. I estimate the angle and line up to the closest line, putting me fairly close. Then I switch to a target based visualization, making minor adjustments as my eyes see the shot. If my visualization forces far me off my original line I start over. When I get congruence pull the trigger. When I first started it took a lot of effort. After learning the angles and shot lines it became much easier. There is a system similar to this already which relates to half ball, quarter ball, eighth ball, etc., but I found that more difficult.

Sounds like CTE is a lot more refined since you gave it a try. But it also sounds like you have got your own system so that's great.

 

[boogieman]

You and every other anon here are nothing to me other than occasional entertainment when I choose to spend some time here.

JB, say it ain't so! I never gave two thoughts to my screen name here. I've used it or a close variation of it since about 1996 so it was just a natural one for me to use. If I were to know it was somehow considered "less" I may have used my real name but probably not. Internet culture in general doesn't rely on using your real name unless we're talking facebook or something. My real name would benefit no one. I'm not a pro and I don't sell anything so why would I want to open myself to scams and forum stalkers?

Oh, and it's nothing to do with this song, but a story me and a friend used to tell my niece when she was little. It was a story of how the boogieman lived in the bushes in front of our house. We even put a little bird house in there lol. The story went that the boogieman would look at you with his big red eyes and big long sharp teeth, then shrink you and pull you into his house. Sounds scary right? Well the punchline was that he would feed you cake and ice cream. We would try to make him sound more scary every time we told the story, but it was always just red eyes and big sharp teeth. She absolutely loved the story and would just get cackling with laughter. She even had "boogieman powers." She would fall off the swings or something that kids do and say it didn't hurt because she had "boogieman powers." To me this little memory is worth thinking of whenever I'm online.

 

[JB Cases]

JB, say it ain't so! I never gave two thoughts to my screen name here. I've used it or a close variation of it since about 1996 so it was just a natural one for me to use. If I were to know it was somehow considered "less" I may have used my real name but probably not. Internet culture in general doesn't rely on using your real name unless we're talking facebook or something. My real name would benefit no one. I'm not a pro and I don't sell anything so why would I want to open myself to scams and forum stalkers?

Oh, and it's nothing to do with this song, but a story me and a friend used to tell my niece when she was little. It was a story of how the boogieman lived in the bushes in front of our house. We even put a little bird house in there lol. The story went that the boogieman would look at you with his big red eyes and big long sharp teeth, then shrink you and pull you into his house. Sounds scary right? Well the punchline was that he would feed you cake and ice cream. We would try to make him sound more scary every time we told the story, but it was always just red eyes and big sharp teeth. She absolutely loved the story and would just get cackling with laughter. She even had "boogieman powers." She would fall off the swings or something that kids do and say it didn't hurt because she had "boogieman powers." To me this little memory is worth thinking of whenever I'm online.

What I mean is that I take pleasure in the content that pleases me and don't really care about the person behind the words. I just respond to the content. When anons get negative I just give my opinion of what they wrote. I care about the content and not the person behind it. I used to care a lot more about the person and try to imagine them and so on. Now not so much and that comes in part from understanding my own unimportance in the world.

 

[9andout]

The best aiming system EVER is PIITH! Prove me wrong.

 

[fanderso3]

I swear the method I'm going to describe has dramatically improved my shot making to the point I'm shocked at the shots I'm making. I'm sure it's not new, but it sure works for me. My problem is, and I can't believe I'm alone on this, is that I can't "feel" or "sense" where to shoot if I'm not making the shots in the first place. If I'm missing all the time, I'm only going to teach my muscle memory to miss. I need a method or formula or system to put me on the right path to making shots, then I'll get to the feeling and sensing portion.

I didn't really try to learn how to shoot till mid 2019. That's when I joined a league and found out I couldn't shoot and I couldn't aim. I got so frustrated at all the shots that looked so easy but missed. That's when I started searching youtube for how to aim just like probably everyone else new to pool recently. There were all sorts of magic tricks and I tried most of them. But the problem I found even with the best of them from well-known and respected experts is they weren't helping me actually learn how to aim. I finally realized my biggest problem was I couldn't visualize a straight line. My brain couldn't draw a straight line and keep that image while I moved from the object-ball-to-pocket view over to the cue-ball-to-object-ball view. It wasn't till just recently...nearly two years later...about a month ago...that I figured out a way to teach my brain how to visualize straight lines and find the aim spot. My shot making suddenly jumped up dramatically. I'm actually shocked at the shots I'm now able to make. And there's really no trick. It's just me learning to visualize straight lines as well as visualize in 3D. I found a way to teach my brain. So here's what I do now and I'm telling you honestly, it's made a dramatic improvement in my shot making. And sure, anybody can poopoo my method but it works for me.

What I do is align my cue over the object ball pointing it at the pocket. I draw the cue stick back and forth many times watching it intently to burn it into my brain. I alternately stop the cue tip near the ball to identify the contact point. I do this several times watching intently. Then, I finally keep the cue near the contact point and stare at it. From this view I see 3 things: the line from OB to pocket, the contact point, and the aim point. The aim point is along the line from contact point to the joint where the ferule meets the wood. I found that, on my cue stick at least, the distance from tip of cue to edge of ferule to be half a ball diameter. So if I put the cue tip near the OB, the aim point is the end of the ferule.

Now I keep my eye on that image as I move over behind the cue ball. I see the image of the cue stick, the line, the contact point and aim point. I align and aim at that aim point very carefully, follow the setup routine, stroke several times and shoot. It's worked fabulously. I practiced like this quite a bit. The surprising part is I'm aiming at an aim point that doesn't look correct. I'm having to force myself to shoot at that spot that doesn't look right. The goal for me is to get my eyes and brain to eventually learn that's it's indeed right. Then I try to do the same on a new shot without using the cue stick...just using my eyes and brain and visualizing the cue stick drawing the line and finding the contact and aim point. Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't. When it's not working I go back to using the cue stick for alignment over and over again till I "calibrate" my eyes and brain and work on my muscle memory. It's really working for me. Sometimes I get so excited about my shot making that I miss all my following shots. I have to calm down, relax, focus and start over. Then I'm back to making shots again.

I trying to get the "feel", but it's not there yet. But my method is getting me to make shots and teaching me to shoot correctly. If you try it and it's not working, then see how you're missing and adjust the distance of the aim point relative to the ferule. I hope you'll give it a try and I hope it works for you.

So, bottom line...I use an aiming system that works very well for me and I believe it will make me a better player and it will help me get to the point of feeling and sensing each shot through visualization, which I believe the method trains the eyes and brain to see.

 

[PoolBoy1]

Still use the ghost ball system. Basically a center ball player top to bottom. If I can't find an angle to work with some side spin is necessary. Just draw a visual line pocket to object ball, place right foot on that line and am rewarded. At times I fraction off the OB if the angle is flattish. Lighting is my thing. I like cool not warm LED lights.

 

[PoolBoy1]

actually sharivari you do have a system
you look at the line from the object ball to the pocket
then you get behind the cue ball and have learned if you hit it "there" the object ball goes in
you then line up to let the cue ball "hit it there"
thats a preshot routine and system to me

Hear hear...my system for 60 years has not failed me. If clever it can be done without anyone recognizing it. Just imagine hitting that spot with paint gun and fling the QB at it. Top to bottom center spin to avoid throw.

 

[Scott Lee]

Aiming systems don't address force distribution issues.

This is a mainly a 14.1 issue.

When breaking clusters no strong system really exists that can diagram the distribution of forces on a break shot.

If I aim to a hit a cluster, none of the aiming systems allows me to estimate anything after the first hit.

Aiming systems should be phased out and I can give you a preview of whats ahead but its off topic.

You are what should be phased out...again, your lack of real pool knowledge is astonishing

Scott Lee.