Shane: "Every shot is different -- every spin, every aim. I do not have the same aiming system for every shot."
Archer: uses HAMB, "I've hit a million balls, so..."
Archer says that Moore loves CTE Pro1 and the most important thing is that CTE has caused his confidence to be high.
snip
Well then we're on two different universes. Technically, yes, EVERYTHING is an aiming system, including HAMB. But that's not what we're talking about. I know you are aware of the Billiards Digest article on aiming from years back where they asked a lot of pros (who were not selling anything) how they aimed. The vast majority of them said they just knew where to hit it after playing so long (HAMB). Efren did say something about aiming in some way similar to CTE. There was a lot of discussion on this in this forum.
If you think about it, it is kind of silly to think that pro players need some 1,2,3 sequence of steps to tell them where to aim the cue ball. Maybe on some difficult situations they have a trick here or there, but for the most part they just know. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that things like what Shane does are an afterthought. Meaning, when he gets down on the shot he already knows what it looks like then the shot is on. Whatever he does with his ferrule is an afterthought. Kind of like he is putting the left edge of the ferrule on the shot line that he already knows is correct. He is NOT FINDING the correct aim line by using the ferrule and some part of the object ball. Maybe it is part of his pre-shot routine, rather than necessary for finding the aim line.
I think aiming systems are good for speeding up the end goal, which ironically is to not need to use the aiming system at all. You just see the cue ball, the object ball and the pocket and your subconscious makes aiming automatic.
Good post, and very factual. I have that Billiards Digest article. It's funny that some people actually believe these pro players were lying about how they aim, and that the article is total bs.
I've listened to SVB talk about aiming, and how every shot is different so he doesn't use the same method on every ball. And that makes sense, because using the shaft edge in conjunction with the contact point only works on certain angles.
The exact OB contact point is always halfway between center OB (from the CB perspective) and the exact fractional hit needed to create the appropriate shot angle. Aiming your shaft edge at the contact point while stroking center CB would be perfect for about a 15° cut, give or take a tenth of a degree due to varying shaft diameters. But if the shot angle needs to be 7°, using the shaft edge will cause a slightly thicker hit than needed. If the shot needs to be struck at 30°, the same method would slighty over-cut the ball. But it's probably very workable on shots that are less than 30°. It must be if Shane does it. Either that or he has mastered the tweaks to make it work for him. Interesting stuff.