Aiming System Or Not?
- Thread starter Sharivari
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Depends on the OB>pocket distance. The general principle is: hitting the OB "x" distance from the perfect center pocket contact point moves the OB "x" distance times (pocket distance / OB radius) from center pocket.
For my example above (a spot shot about 35" OB>pocket) that translates to about 5/32" (a little over 1/8") outside the 1/16" OB contact patch.
pj
chgo
Okay, that makes sense, thanks for that. So over an OB-pocket distance of 40", 1/16" error in contact point is about a ball width.
And looking at the angle rather than the distance, i assume that for each 1/16" off the proper contact point on the OB equator, the change in angle followed by the OB is the same?
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If you can figure out the angular opening of the pocket in degrees as seen from the object ball, there is a very simple rule of thumb. For each degree of change in the direction of the object ball, the landing location of the center of the cue ball is different by 1mm. (That estimate is correct within 1% for pool balls, but not so good for snooker or carom balls.) That tells you the range of positions of the cue ball/ghost ball that will put the ball in the pocket.
Here is an accurate scale drawing of two cue balls landing on an object ball to get a 1 degree difference in cut angle. The two centers of the cue balls are 1mm apart. As mentioned above, for some shots you need this much accuracy and some players achieve it.
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Yes, each additional 1/16" off the ideal OB contact point changes the angle by another 3+ degrees.
pj
chgo
If you want to be really, really accurate, you need to measure the distance around the circumference of the object ball. One thing this means is that the contact points as seen from the cue ball get closer and closer together for larger cut angles. At a 60-degree cut, the view is compressed by a factor of 2, so as seen from the cue ball the target is only half as wide for the came cut error.
For older, experienced players like myself, aiming is not the issue. The issue is the stroke and the inability to consistently deliver the cue ball where one is aiming. No aiming system is going to fix that!
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boogieman
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ping.
For me, it's focus. If I have it, I play good. If I lose focus, I might as well unscrew my stick because I won't win games. Without focus I'm just hitting balls around, which is ok for social play, but now when you want to win. When I can REALLY focus, the other stuff comes natural. When I don't focus, I line up wrong, then attempt to hit the ball when in bad stance which results in bad stroke/chicken wing type play.
Would you like to start a kid off by telling them that they struck out on a 45MPH fastball - but Oh wait until they are throwing 95MPH at you? Hiding facts is very different than not jumping learners straight to the most difficult scenarios of making a ball in pool. Again, I believe the idea behind the OP's aim method was to present a method that is simple to understand and will get one off on the right track to pocketing balls consistently.
Of course, if a student really takes to the game- they might end up playing enough pool to see and hit consistently any of the 49 OB contact points that you showed us exist- the OP is starting with 8 possibilities- he is getting one to a small area on the OB first, I like that step method of learning a difficult task- I think a lot of people do too. Appreciate you giving us the true geometric facts and in-depth angle analysis - I'm sure many here do also.
And here is the plotted distance between the center to edge line and the actual shot line for a range of shots along the vertical middle of the table as those two lines exit the back of the cueball facing the shooter.
And here is this represented on the table.
Here is the diagram I created to plot the center to edge lines and the ghost ball lines on a 4.5x9' playing field with the object ball being cut into the exact corner.
It is my belief based on my discovery of the distance being at most less than half a mm that simply starting with a half ball sighting on the side of the object ball farthest from the pocket puts the player extremely close to the actual shot line. And this by itself leads to higher accuracy if the player does nothing else to aim in my opinion.
Here is the translation of what I think you are really saying, even if you don't want to see it for what it is or admit to it.
General pros: conscious use of an "objective" aiming system gives your conscious mind meaningless "busy work" to occupy itself with, which for some people better helps to free up their subconscious mind to do the actual accurate aiming calculations based on experience. The fact that the aiming system is inaccurate/gives the incorrect aiming line is mostly immaterial since its useful purpose was just giving the conscious mind busy work to keep itself occupied with so that it would be less likely to interfere with or influence the subconscious mind (or to a lesser extent to give your subconscious mind a somewhat close reference base to start from and make the necessary adjustments from there based on experience) which actually does an amazing job of calculating the correct aiming lines when it is left unimpeded.
Some people apparently experience benefit from being able to occupy their conscious mind with that mostly useless and wholly inaccurate aiming system "busy work"(or at least claim to, not sure that has been demonstrated/proven yet, particularly with the use of the more geometrically incorrect "aiming systems" such as the CTE derivatives), while for others this either simply isn't needed, or worse yet, the input from the inaccurate system ends up having a detrimental effect on their aiming/game because their conscious mind was not able to keep it simply as busy work and it was instead able to leak in some influence (and the use of bad data always leads to less accurate calculations/decisions).
General cons: because of the fact that the conscious aiming system is giving inaccurate aiming lines, during those times when the aiming system is able to have some influence on your aiming decisions rather than just being busy work that occupied your conscious mind (or just being the reference base your subconscious starts from), it is going to have a detrimental effect on your aiming and game. Some people are more prone than others to allowing the incorrect data from the aiming system to creep in and influence their decisions/calculations rather than it just being busy work for their conscious mind so the subconscious can more perfectly do its thing without impediment, but even those that are not especially prone to this and who feel that they generally derive benefit from aiming systems will at times find that the aiming system is able to have some influence on their calculations/decisions and their game will suffer during those times until they can get back to letting the subconscious truly do all the decision making by feel. This is why aiming systems never work when done literally without allowing enough latitude for "feel" (the subconscious and experience) to be able to take over and do its thing.
I disagree about characterizing the process as "busy work".
I am confident that if we could create a study to see whether those with a process achieve better results and if so then which processes are better.
Then when we find processes that lead to the right outcomes we then can explore the mechanics and figure out why.
I don't believe that the subconscious mind is amazing in figuring out things. I believe that people here like to believe that but in fact there is no one here who didn't learn basic ghost ball to train the mind how to aim in the correct direction for the task of connecting two spheres. And how well the mind takes to that training is what informs the subconscious.
In other words just because I can drive to the store without being 100% consciously making every driving choice doesn't mean that you can put me into an Indy car and expect my subconscious mind to figure out how to drive at 180 miles an hour.
So I believe that there is a way to access higher level pocketing skills that starts with higher level aiming skills. I believe that there are good aiming systems that guide the mind to a mechanically sound and narrow focus. The ghost ball template does that by way of a physical template placed on the table. The mind has a fully clear target.
But take that guide away and the subconscious doesn't just replace it with an accurate imagined projection. If it did then we wouldn't be here right now discussion sinking systems because the ghost ball method would have been enough to train the subconscious mind.
No, I believe that some aiming systems, including the most controversial one, are mechanically sound and do indeed train the subconscious by narrowing down choice mechanically until the only thing left is the right shot line. This happens in a matter of seconds for the trained user.
I have had many many conversations with professional players and what emerges is that they employ some form of systematic aiming based on objective referencing. But, I had to get into an actual one on one conversation because initially the answer was often I don't know I just see it. If one can get past that then it was often revealed that someone somewhere taught them some form of some system like light reflections, ball portions/fractions, equal/opposite etc....
I would say that many pros do just see it in that they are not making the same extra-conscious effort to go through the steps in whatever aiming method they ended up with but that they have put in enough time to where most shots are like cruising at 180 mph for them. But until we have some way to gather data on this we won't have anything much better than anecdotal stories.
The op here said in his video that he spoke with some pros who said they don't use aiming systems. I would bet that deeper conversation would reveal the usage of systematic aiming but likely not any "branded/labeled" aiming system per se.
But even if the pros he is thinking of said nope, just see it nothing systematic about it, it would still be only a tiny sliver of pros and couldn't reasonably be extrapolated into the larger pro population without more data to back it up.
For me personally I think that there is a there there when it comes to aiming systems. I think that as an industry it is incredibly unlikely that there will ever be the kinds of studies that I am thinking of which could give us the type of data that would answer some of the opinionated conclusions that have been made about aiming systems.
I think both sides are likely to be wrong about some assertions and likely to be right about others. But like they say in advertising I know that half of my marketing budget is wasted but I don't know which half.
And I think it would be worth knowing because to me we all really want pool to flourish and endless mocking and bickering in speculative nerdiness doesn't make pool attractive in my opinion. It poisons and divides players into factions to the detriment of all imo.
100% true.
If talking about the systems that are geometrically correct (prior to the introduction of the various error inducing variables such as squirt, swerve, collision induced throw, spin induced throw, various differences in equipment and conditions etc of course) such as the ghost ball and fractional/overlap aiming systems, perhaps, because they offer a correct and repeatable baseline reference point to adjust from, but if talking about the systems that find incorrect aiming lines even prior to the introduction of the other variables such as all the CTE variations and edge of the shaft aiming methods etc, then I've yet to see compelling evidence that they are on net universally or even generally beneficial to players.
I think the best arguments for the geometrically incorrect aiming systems such as CTE having a chance for actually being legitimately long term beneficial would be for a very, very small subset of players who might truly need something structured to occupy their conscious mind in order for their subconscious to be able to do its job properly, but I can't say I've seen any compelling evidence for that either although I don't think it can be ruled out yet either. In short I think the jury is still out on whether geometrically incorrect aiming systems can ever truly be beneficial for long term use by anyone even in niche cases.
While I disagree about "by intuition" when using an aiming system I do agree that conscious usage and training informs and "trains" the subconscious which manifests itself as intuition when the subconscious directs the choices we make. Intuition also serves to inform the conscious mind to lurking dangers or opportunities.
Anecdotally I will say that the use of aiming systems consciously has in fact at times led to the development of a generally higher subconscious awareness of possibilities due to the baseline aim being established and the subsequent ability to fairly accurately "see"what happens if I choose to deviate from that baseline shot line.
For example I can more accurately choose to miss a shot in order to play safe. Not in a hustling sense but in a control sense.
You mentioned that there are about 49 actual angles to a spot shot. Knowing that you like to plot these things diagrammatically I don't doubt you. However what good is this information? I don't mean it negatively. I mean what usefulness is there to know that there are 49 angles that will make a spot shot? To me it is useful to know because of margin of error but also to know that there are 49 pathways for the cueball to travel. So if I use a system that reliably brings me to the center pocket shot line then I can know that I am in the middle of whatever vectors are in the margin of error position and I can adjust consciously to a choice outside of the allowable vectors when my intuition kicks in to inform me of other possibilities that might be stronger than simply making the ball.
And when it comes to making the ball that baseline aim allows my intuitive subconscious to look at the various combinations of aim, spin and speed to achieve the needed shape after pocketing. So much good flows from having an aiming system where the conscious process resolves to a correct center pocket baseline shot line that I find the positive benefits of making deliberate choices to be way more than just shot making.
Tommy Kennedy once said that he always starts at center to center and then moves in the direction of the cut until it feels right and he stops. That is to me a good example of an objective reference leading to an intuitive choice. Without having to codify the action or label/brand this method of aiming Tommy figured out a way to have a consistent starting point where the brain knows that it only needs to focus on one half of the object ball and that a full hit is too much and an edge to edge hit is too little and so the right hit is somewhere in between. That somewhere is what tommy finds intuitively based on establishing the range objectively.
Another user might have a way to narrow that range considerably so that reliance on intuition is diminished even further. To the point in some cases where the shot line becomes clear to the shooter by way of a fully conscious process. Whatever part intuitive subconscious calculation might play in that process is likely to be so small that the user can take great comfort in labeling the process as objective and consistent. Because to that user that's exactly how it feels from shot to shoot.
I believe that aiming systems are all useful but none of them are exact. Every single one of them require a certain level of guesswork.
That's because for the same amount of spin and speed, the result on table A in the attic is not the same as it is on table B in a muggy basement.
Thus, I mostly use the systems to speed up the guesswork. And maybe use another system to fine-tune the initial "guess". But in the end, if the result from a particular system feels off, I'd go for my guts feeling.
On the other hand, starting out with blind guess or guts feeling first is tiring. I want to conserve my mental capacity as much as I can.
That's because for the same amount of spin and speed, the result on table A in the attic is not the same as it is on table B in a muggy basement.
Thus, I mostly use the systems to speed up the guesswork. And maybe use another system to fine-tune the initial "guess". But in the end, if the result from a particular system feels off, I'd go for my guts feeling.
On the other hand, starting out with blind guess or guts feeling first is tiring. I want to conserve my mental capacity as much as I can.
Cte doesn't have incorrect aiming lines. Since the lines used in cte are sighting lines intended to place the body into position to go into ball address the lines used are not aiming in terms of lines that are used to put the cue down on. That line, the shot line is the aiming line that controls the hit. All of the other lines are reference lines for body orientation leading to the emergence of a last line which is in fact the correct shot line which, when adopted, is the aiming line in the sense that the cue is aiming at the cueball with the cueball being the target.
As for the speculation that an assuming system like CTE being only beneficial to a small amount of players deemed to be somehow "deficient" according to some undefined standard of cognition, I fully disagree with that.
It could be said that such methods could be actually amazing for the bulk of players and that a small subset of players already possess above average cognition (just see it) abilities and therefore don't "need" the guidance that such systems provide for the users.
I mean we don't know because we can't get beyond the opinion stage and that stage contains some highly charged poison that infects the minds of people into believing that aiming systems are a crutch for the deficient and that players who use them are somehow "less-than" those who claim that they don't use any sort of aiming system.
In other words both the sample sizes and data are insufficient to draw hard conclusions at this point. Personally, through a long long span of experience with players at all levels, I have found systems like cte to be beneficial to the players who use them.
Around that many, depending on table and pocket size.
It's info, so I'll take it even without obvious direct benefit - in this case it's at least useful for reminding me of the importance of precision and for teaching the fundamental truth that aiming systems, like all aiming methods, must ultimately rely on the well-trained subconscious to "know it when you see it".
pj
chgo