Another Typical Hosed Runout

RRfireblade said:
Like another poster said , (according to the diagram) I probably would have just killed the CB off the 2and stayed for straight on the 3 and just followed down to the 4 from there.
Click to expand...

i wish i could see the diagram, to see what it looks like!

PLEASE note the 3-Ball is off to the left side of the side pocket and you couldnt get straight in on it. you had to leave yourself a somewhat thin cut, but NOT TOO THIN, on the 3-Ball to drift down towards the 4-Ball so you didnt have to hit it way too hard just to pocket the 3-Ball.

DCP
 
DrCue'sProtege said:
did i read some of these posts correctly? right english??? i cant see the diagram, wont load right this moment, but right english would take you into the 5-Ball i believe. that wouldnt be good.

center ball? are you not seeing the close proximity of the 3-Ball to the side pocket? you have to get the proper shot on the 3-Ball so you can float down towards the 4-Ball. with some of you guys ideas you'd have a very, very thin cut on the 3-Ball, and thus lose control of the cue ball. the left english was to lengthen out the shot so you could get the proper position on the 3-Ball and not have the ultra-thin cut.

DCP
Click to expand...

Yes right english with a firm stroke to get the cue to slide. Because it's not your only option here, you might want to play the safer shot, which is center ball with speed control.

It's really about how comfortable you are playing this particular shot. It's something to add to your arsenal and you definitely need to play this shot yourself to get a feel for it. But it works...
 
Last edited:
DrCue'sProtege said:
did i read some of these posts correctly? right english??? i cant see the diagram, wont load right this moment, but right english would take you into the 5-Ball i believe. that wouldnt be good.

center ball? are you not seeing the close proximity of the 3-Ball to the side pocket? you have to get the proper shot on the 3-Ball so you can float down towards the 4-Ball. with some of you guys ideas you'd have a very, very thin cut on the 3-Ball, and thus lose control of the cue ball. the left english was to lengthen out the shot so you could get the proper position on the 3-Ball and not have the ultra-thin cut.

DCP
Click to expand...

My answer was center or right. By the carom angle you drew off the two you can't hit the 5. All your doing is making the angle a little shorter to avoid the 7.

All I can do is tell what I see. Exact conditions are not possible. It's up to you to at least try credible suggestions before there condemned. If not why ask?

Rod
 
oh nevermind. :)

I had something written out but ... whatever ... you just hit it bad. You had plenty of room to take your route but you hit it too hard. You could have used English to try to hold it up, but you had a huge margin for error so I don't even know if that was necessary. From the diagram, you could have ended up as short as where the 6 is and still had a shot. Your speed was just off.
 
Last edited:

CueTable Help



Here is a test on the new version of CueTable specially made for AZ forum posting. It shows the best shape zones for 3 ball and 4 ball :)
 
I can't believe this!

No matter what you do, everyone on AZ thinks that they could do it better.

Bottom line, you played the right shot. Lag the ball into the hole with a half a tip of left to avoid skid and widen the angle slightly so that you miss the 5 and achieve makeable shape on the 3 (don't want to be so thin that you can't get shape on the 4).

When Efren hooks himself he doesn't always assume that he must have played the wrong shot. Nobody is perfect, and hooks will happen.

Now, as for why it is the right shot. Let's consider the alternatives:

1. Playing to zig zag through traffic trying to get on the wrong side of the 3 ball. Need I say more.

2. Using draw instead of left to lengthen out the angle. Possible, but I believe that the extra speed required to draw the cueball makes the shot a little tougher, definately makes the speed tougher.

3. Right english. This is rotation, so playing shape for a ball other than the 3 is not very practicle.

4. Banks the ball and play shape to freeze on the rail. Why, are there good looking women watching or something???


OK, look, everyone here would play it the way that you did. You should have posted that you played it differently, watch how quick everyone would be to tell you to shoot it the way you did.

There is only one reasonable alternative. If you couldn't hold the ball enough the way you played it, you could use low right. Draw to lenthen the angle, low to kill the speed. This is only to be considered if your shot is unavailable. Obviously it wasn't, or you wouldn't have tried it!

Keep it simple. Avoid adding speed, draw, rails, and banks to a very simple operation and in the long run you will come out ahead. Oh, and for the suggestion that you work on your speed, my guess is that you were just a little careless and that the cueball curved a tiny bit too much causing you to overcut the ball just a hair which left the cueball with too much speed. Probably nothing to due with you speed control. If anything, you used 1/128th of a tip too much outside, FOR SHAME!!!!!

Of course, there is always the option of jacking up, bouncing off of the side rail over the 7 ball and making the nine in the corner on the fly..........
 
Aaron_S said:
Sorry, I made the assumption that you were playing on a 9' table. Your diagrammed shot, on a 9-footer, would have been at least an 18" overrun. Are you playing on a bar box?

Aaron
Click to expand...

uh, no, its a 9 foot Gold Crown IV.

now, granted from Point A to Point B its about 18 inches, but the target area was pretty much anywhere from Point A to close to Point B. i actually overran the area by only about a ball, or else i would have had a shot.

guess my point was that i hit it slightly too hard, and barely missed position, but only about 2-3 inches.

DCP
 
DrCue'sProtege said:
uh, no, its a 9 foot Gold Crown IV.

now, granted from Point A to Point B its about 18 inches, but the target area was pretty much anywhere from Point A to close to Point B. i actually overran the area by only about a ball, or else i would have had a shot.

guess my point was that i hit it slightly too hard, and barely missed position, but only about 2-3 inches.

DCP
Click to expand...

IMO, you could have come shorter than point A and still been OK. Maybe up to about 1 diamond short of point A, but of course it depends on how the cut of your side pocket is.

My point is that it would be better to come up short of point A than to overrun and end up at point B. So maybe that's something to consider for next time: is it better to error on hitting it too hard or too soft.

Just out of curiosity, have you practiced this shot again since starting the thread? If so, how did it go?
 
... honestly though, I think I'd like to spin the 2 ball in and have the cue ball come on the north side of the 7, closer to the 3.
 
I would normally close my eyes and shoot as hard and fast as I can, and then open my eyes and see what's happening.

Sometimes I get pretty good position, and once a while I actually make the ball aiming at too!
 
I can't say what english I would use until I saw that exact shot, but looking at the layout I would do something not quite by the book.

I would play the shot to slightly bump the bottom side of the 7. For whatever reason sometimes a well positioned ball on the table makes a great target.

Even if I missed my mark I am most likely going to be ok... Obviously I would make sure I err to missing on the long side of the 7.

I know everyone will tell me its the wrong shot...but oh well...that is just the way I see this particular shot.

No I am not "always" trying to run into other balls, but when they are in my way, sometimes I use them to my advantage.
 
DrCue'sProtege said:
uh, no, its a 9 foot Gold Crown IV.

now, granted from Point A to Point B its about 18 inches, but the target area was pretty much anywhere from Point A to close to Point B. i actually overran the area by only about a ball, or else i would have had a shot.

guess my point was that i hit it slightly too hard, and barely missed position, but only about 2-3 inches.

DCP
Click to expand...
Actually, Aaron is right - you missed the position by quite a bit, certainly more than "2-3 inches." One position play would have been to stay on the right of the line of the 3 in the side, so position to the 4 is academic. Looking at your diagram, as you drew it, you probably had about 5 or 6 square feet to get into, yet you got into the one place you didn't want to be.

There are tons of options on this shot - you could have played follow to end up near the six, you could have hit a little firmer and come off the bottom rail in the diagram to have a shot between the 7 and 8, you could have played draw and stayed above the 7 altogether, you could've hit it really firm and gone top rail, bottom rail, left rail for the 3 in the side or even in the same pocket as the 2. My preference would have been just to play follow and end up by the 6 (the left side of it). The 6 doesn't really come into play on that shot, and the 7 doesn't at all.

I think you tried to get perfect for a ball which didn't need perfect shape. Anywhere in the middle 1/3rd of the table not behind the 6 or the 7 would have been good enough to enable shape to the 4. Your real position zone was pretty big, minus the 7 as a blocker. You played a shot which put a ball you wanted to avoid at all costs into play. There are times when you have to play tight position, but this was not one of them.

You didn't miss position by 2-3 inches, you just happened to go that much farther outside your position zone to get hooked and bring a ball into play you knew you should've avoided. You could've, and should've, been at least a foot away from that 7.

-djb <-- making up for Jimmy's short-but-sweet post....
 
Roy Steffensen said:
I would normally close my eyes and shoot as hard and fast as I can, and then open my eyes and see what's happening.

Sometimes I get pretty good position, and once a while I actually make the ball aiming at too!
Click to expand...

Tonight I attended a free clinic. The instructor told me to line up for the backwards cut shot, then close my eyes and shoot the ball. :rolleyes: It almost went in too. :eek:

I think the idea is to learn to trust your instincts. :)
 
Last edited:
Us bottom with a touch of right and get righ in front of the 7 and 8, game over. As long as you are in front of the 7 and 8 you have a shot on the 3. I guess it also depends on what table/conditions and the cue ball you were using as to how I would have played it.

Eric.
 
I rack balls said:
Us bottom with a touch of right and get righ in front of the 7 and 8, game over. As long as you are in front of the 7 and 8 you have a shot on the 3. I guess it also depends on what table/conditions and the cue ball you were using as to how I would have played it.

Eric.
Click to expand...

^ my thoughts exactly.
 
!

Maybe Dr. Cue's Protege needs a new mentor :rolleyes: :eek:

Then again after seeing another one of these posts for the 100th time, maybe it's time to take up bowling :confused:

Brian
 
The shot here is you use extreme bottom, with just a little outside to slightly thicken the hit on the 2ball. You hit it soft, but your priority is to make sure the cueball still has draw when it contacts the 2, which is why you are aiming as low as you can without miscueing. This will take you closer to the 3, and worst case scenario is you go into the 7, but you aren't gonna get hooked unless you are real unlucky. I don't know why, but for me this shot is easier on a fast table than a slower one. I'm not guesstimating, I had a shot similar to this when I was playing about 8 hours ago.
 
DoomCue said:
You didn't miss position by 2-3 inches, you just happened to go that much farther outside your position zone to get hooked and bring a ball into play you knew you should've avoided.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Your response, DCP, was the one I was afraid of, albeit the one I was anticipating. The fact that you think you only missed your position by 2"-3" doesn't surprise me, as a lot of players approach position play in this manner, but you have to get out of that mindset if you want to improve. If you mark out some huge zone on the table and play position to simply be in that zone somewhere, anywhere, then you are not striving for the correct level of accuracy when it comes to cueball placement. It's ok to figure out a zone that is acceptable, but you still need to focus on a particular spot, like maybe a 6" or 8" diameter circle for starters, for the cb. If you don't land in that circle, then you cannot count it as a successful shot, even if you do still have a shot on the next ball. You can't improve by ignoring the fact that you missed your spot by a foot; many times you will have to land in a zone smaller than 1 foot.

It's not the most fun thing in the world to scrutinize every shot this way, but if you don't get to that level of specificity, and you simply count it as a positional success every time you land the cb in your gargantuan "ok" zone, then you will be standing there scratching your head each time you try, and fail, to play position in a tighter space. Also, you will most likely never learn the precise cb control necessary for certain games that require it, like straight pool, one-pocket, and 15-ball rotation.

This is why I don't think 9-ball is the best game for beginners. It's too easy to get to the point where you can consistently run well-spread racks of 9-ball, because it's not a demanding enough game with regard to cb placement. You need to mix in some other games that require great cb control.

Good luck,
Aaron
 
Last edited:
One more thing. If you had trouble getting on the 3, then you're probably going to have more trouble getting on the 5. There are some big balls out there. I'd prefer going forward off the 4 two rails to come into the angle of the 5, but you might have to thread the needle if you don't get close enough.

No guaranteed out for us non-world-beaters, plenty more could go wrong, lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top