Ball overlaps with pictures

You're right. I've been reading forums here for years, just never joined until last week. This is a great place to learn about everything pool-related. Most of the people that post are very knowledgeable and entertaining. So when I finished my book there was no doubt as to where I'd introduce it. I mean, this website is the hub of the pool world. I'd be a fool not to take advantage of the opportunity. But I do apologize if I came off as overbearing. I'm not a salesman. I'm a pool player. The material will sell itself.

I really do hope that your book sells well. I'm sure there's plenty of good info in it.
I've tried using many aiming systems in the past... some good.. some gimmicks.

I don't know how you find your angles for aim points, but I think standing behind
the shot, to find your pocket angle behind OB, can be improved on. So I'll ask if
you clicked the link in post #1 and what was your take on front of the OB aiming.

To be fair to CJ and TOI, it wasn't completely magical.. tho' he made it sound so.
You can't play all shots using TOI but it certainly does have some playing merits.
(Hope this doesn't open a can of worms)

Poolology - best of luck. Carl

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"So I'll ask if
you clicked the link in post #1 and what was your take on front of the OB aiming
."

Yes I checked it out. That's what I'm doing, front of OB aiming points.
But I have a different method of determining the angle and knowing the
appropriate fractional aim point for the shot.

Any method or system that works on all shots will eventually become
embedded into a player's feel for pocketing balls. I guess, in a way, that's
sort of magical...the way your brain can be programmed, and then afterwards
the program runs automatically on startup. Doesn't matter if we're talking
about hitting a golf ball, pocket a pool ball, throwing or hitting a baseball, etc....
Eventually the program becomes self-sufficient, and that's when the magic
happens!
 
"so i'll ask if
you clicked the link in post #1 and what was your take on front of the ob aiming
."

yes i checked it out. That's what i'm doing, front of ob aiming points.
But i have a different method of determining the angle and knowing the
appropriate fractional aim point for the shot.

Any method or system that works on all shots will eventually become
embedded into a player's feel for pocketing balls. I guess, in a way, that's
sort of magical...the way your brain can be programmed, and then afterwards
the program runs automatically on startup. Doesn't matter if we're talking
about hitting a golf ball, pocket a pool ball, throwing or hitting a baseball, etc....
Eventually the program becomes self-sufficient, and that's when the magic
happens!

An angle template I made that's used to recognize all pocket angles. A 15 degree cut angle is shown with the cue aligned to the CB/OB centers. The template center line points at the pocket for cuts < 30 degrees. The template edges are used for cuts >30 degrees. The CB can be moved for different pocket angles. The CB Center then aims at known OB fractions.

Make your own angle template.... Instructions Post #27

IMG_0529.JPG
 
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That's a cool homemade tool! But you now have me addicted to 1-2-3! I've done it several times (5 racks each), and manage to screw up at least once or twice and blow 3 to 6 points! I got a 30 once.
 
That's a cool homemade tool! But you now have me addicted to 1-2-3! I've done it several times (5 racks each), and manage to screw up at least once or twice and blow 3 to 6 points! I got a 30 once.

A score of 30 is hard. Not many players can do it. It seems like a very simple game being able to pocket any 7 balls of choice.
There actually was some thought in 1-2-3. It started out as any 2 balls first, but I added 1 ball to help take care of trouble balls.

It's great practice. Glad you like it. Carl

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A score of 30 is hard. Not many players can do it. It seems like a very simple game being able to pocket any 7 balls of choice.
There actually was some thought in 1-2-3. It started out as any 2 balls first, but I added 1 ball to help take care of trouble balls.

It's great practice. Glad you like it. Carl

.

Yes it is hard! Excellent practice routine. That's how practice should be, fun and goal-oriented. Without the ball in hand after the snap it would be far to tough to score anything in the mid 20's or higher. I like the BIH because often you need to break some away from the 1.
Anyway, it is now my new warm up for about any game, seeing how it requires a mix of skills to score well. I'm going to check some more of the games you have on your site.

Thanks!
 
How about covering the angles greater than 30 degrees to 90 degrees?

LAMas - If you look at the template on Post #23 the center line points to center pocket and the edges run 30 degrees.

For angles greater than 30 degrees the template edge would line up with center pocket. The template center line then
would run at 30 degrees and the opposite edge would run at 60 degrees... I'd use either CP2CP or GB past that point.

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Block the pocket with a ball......leaving only enough room for the OB to be pocketed to go buy.

What's the degree of cut then to be used?

Or how bout caroming the OB off a ball first into the pocket? What's the degree of cut then.
 
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Block the pocket with a ball......leaving only enough room for the OB to be pocketed to go buy.

What's the degree of cut then to be used?

Or how bout caroming the OB off a ball first into the pocket? What's the degree of cut then.


This thread is for individuals who want to improve play, not those who have a mindset.

If you actually read through the whole thread, even you duckie, might learn something.

I'm not about to turn a informative thread into a debate about arrows and motorcycles.

Play well my friend, Carl

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I believe if a player uses a system to know exactly which fractional overlap/hit is needed to pocket a certain shot, and he keeps using the system on every shot, it won't take long to develop an eye/feel for the angles and their corresponding aim points. When that time comes, the player will know when to add a little spin or touch more cut when needed. That method of learning surely beats the way I had to learn, shooting thousands of balls over several years just trying to develop pocketing skills.
 
At one point in my life, I was a test engineer at a card access manufacter. My job was to design test cases to verify that products met design documents before release. Part of the testing included stress testing........how well did the systems perform at the extremes and beyond.

In addition, I had to setup and reproduce any bugs reported from the field in order to pass on to the engineers what it took to reproduce the bug so they could fix it.

Thing is........none of these engineers had any actual field experince installing, servicing or managing card access or security systems. That's what I brought to the party, my years of field experinces in the security industry. My test cases were based on real world experinces which they never thought of and therefore I broke their stuff quite easily.....at first...... I got em trained finally.

Dealing with design engineers on a daily basis over a long period of time was quite a experince. The experinces have left its marks on me as how I view and approach things. I'm one hell of a troubleshooter.

The point is this......those two shots I asked about, are real world shots that all aiming methods have to deal with. There are many more.......like CB rail first.

The real point is to show how trying to know or memorize cut angles is a useless endevour in the long run based on the amount and variety of shots that occur in the real pool playing world.

Sometimes you need to manage the angle off the OB to get better position. This means that even though it could be a center pocket shot, the angle off the OB would not give you position for the next shot......so you need to put the OB in a different part of the pocket to get that angle.

FWIW
 
The point is this......those two shots I asked about, are real world shots that all aiming methods have to deal with. There are many more.......like CB rail first.

The real point is to show how trying to know or memorize cut angles is a useless endevour in the long run based on the amount and variety of shots that occur in the real pool playing world.

Sometimes you need to manage the angle off the OB to get better position. This means that even though it could be a center pocket shot, the angle off the OB would not give you position for the next shot......so you need to put the OB in a different part of the pocket to get that angle.

FWIW

duckie - I agree with most of what you said. There is no doubt that there's a variety of shots that need to be dealt with... and many aiming systems that try to deal with them. Sometimes if the shot doesn't look right I'll look at the shot differently.

When you say you need to put the OB in a different part of the pocket to get an angle, how far from the pocket can the OB actually be? Not far away unless the pocket is wide. Unless there isn't an angle at all there's no need to cheat pockets.

If pockets are wide and the OB close.. who would need a aiming system? The further away the OB the more precise your aim needs to be. I'm saying you need to know 4 basic angles and 4 OB aim points for those angles. Aim CCB at those
4 OB points and your OB always runs 7-15-22-30 degrees.

Take a look at the pictures on Post #1.

You can see all your pocket angles better, if you find them from the front of the OB... Play well, Carl

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Sometimes you need to manage the angle off the OB to get better position. This means that even though it could be a center pocket shot, the angle off the OB would not give you position for the next shot......so you need to put the OB in a different part of the pocket to get that angle.

For the average league player, BCA or Valley or whatever, hitting the pocket is their #1 concern. They want to know where to aim in order to do this. Conventional wisdom says experience (trial and error) is the best way to learn how to do this. But most of these players only put 2 or 3 hours of table time in per week. At that rate, many of them never become any better than average. They spend years trying to develop some sort of instinct for cut shots, and still find themselves struggling to be better.

I never used a system to learn how to pocket balls. I used countless hours of table time -- experience. A few years ago a kid (teen) asked "how do you aim?" Hell, I didn't have an answer. I should've told him the same thing I was told when I was 16...you gotta hit about a million balls, then you'll know. But instead I told him I didn't really know how to aim. But I have kids, and I started thinking that if they ever want to learn how to play pool, I'd like to have better advice than "hit a million balls" or "I don't know".

I'm an electronic/electrical technician, which means I don't do a lot of guess work. I do specific troubleshooting methods that get quick and accurate results. So I applied this mentality to pool and discovered a simple method of looking at the CB and OB for any open shot, and knowing exactly where to aim in order to pocket the ball. Basically, I troubleshot aiming methods and decided that fractional ball aim would be a great system for developing pocketing skills. But it's not enough just to show aspiring players the shot angles and appropriate fractional hits needed for each angle. This info would really be great if you could KNOW the angle of the shot without having to depend on inexperienced guesswork or falty instinct. As a learning system, that has always been the downfall of fractional aiming -- the aim points don't automatically appear. It takes countless hours of table time to learn them. So I took my troubleshooting skills one step further and solved that problem.

All of that just to say that now I'm a believer in aiming systems. Well, in my system anyway. It's more of a method than a system.
 
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I did this drawing several years ago. Basically, it is the top view of the ball overlap one. It shows other aspects of a shot plus what is really happening when the aim point changes.

From the top view, the balls direction of travel lines, path, can be illustrated. The CB to OB and OB to pocket or where ever.

Notice that when the CB is in the GB position that the end point of the OB line, the center of the OB and the center of the CB are all on the same line. This means that the start point for the OB line starts at the center of the CB when in the GB position.

What does this all mean?

Well, in the ball overlap view, when the aim points change, it appears as a disc moving across another disc. Whereas, in the top view, a change in aim point illustrated in the front view, ball overlap, will show that the GB position rotates around the OB making the OB center the pivot point for the change of direction of the OB line to the pocket.

The OB line end point moves in the opposite direction when a change in GB position occurs. If the GB position change is to the left, the OB line end point moves right.

The distance to the the pocket controls how much the OB end point will move as the GB position moves around the aiming arc. The only time there is a 1 to 1 ratio in movement is when the OB line end point is a 1/2 a ball width way from the OB...........the same about the CB center is away from the OB.

So now here is concept to use as a reference in order to make adjustments whereas just the front view, ball overlap does not provide.

This is true no matter what. This applies, this occurs in all systems. This is the geometry of a shot.
 

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I did this drawing several years ago. Basically, it is the top view of the ball overlap one. It shows other aspects of a shot plus what is really happening when the aim point changes.

From the top view, the balls direction of travel lines, path, can be illustrated. The CB to OB and OB to pocket or where ever.

Notice that when the CB is in the GB position that the end point of the OB line, the center of the OB and the center of the CB are all on the same line. This means that the start point for the OB line starts at the center of the CB when in the GB position.

What does this all mean?

Well, in the ball overlap view, when the aim points change, it appears as a disc moving across another disc. Whereas, in the top view, a change in aim point illustrated in the front view, ball overlap, will show that the GB position rotates around the OB making the OB center the pivot point for the change of direction of the OB line to the pocket.

The OB line end point moves in the opposite direction when a change in GB position occurs. If the GB position change is to the left, the OB line end point moves right.

The distance to the the pocket controls how much the OB end point will move as the GB position moves around the aiming arc. The only time there is a 1 to 1 ratio in movement is when the OB line end point is a 1/2 a ball width way from the OB...........the same about the CB center is away from the OB.

So now here is concept to use as a reference in order to make adjustments whereas just the front view, ball overlap does not provide.

This is true no matter what. This applies, this occurs in all systems. This is the geometry of a shot.



Very nice! This looks like a 1/4 ball shot from A, and a 3/4 shot from B. Standing behind the CB, using face-of--the-ball aim points on or near the OB is the old fractional aiming method. What I've done, using the OB position on the table (which relates to distance (from the pocket) and the natural straight-on path from the CB to the OB, is figure out how to know which fractional aim point to use for any shot, instead of relying on instinct. The table is divided into 3 zones for corner pocket aiming and 1 zone for side pockets.
 
I did this drawing several years ago. Basically, it is the top view of the ball overlap one. It shows other aspects of a shot plus what is really happening when the aim point changes.

From the top view, the balls direction of travel lines, path, can be illustrated. The CB to OB and OB to pocket or where ever.

Notice that when the CB is in the GB position that the end point of the OB line, the center of the OB and the center of the CB are all on the same line. This means that the start point for the OB line starts at the center of the CB when in the GB position.

What does this all mean?

Well, in the ball overlap view, when the aim points change, it appears as a disc moving across another disc. Whereas, in the top view, a change in aim point illustrated in the front view, ball overlap, will show that the GB position rotates around the OB making the OB center the pivot point for the change of direction of the OB line to the pocket.

The OB line end point moves in the opposite direction when a change in GB position occurs. If the GB position change is to the left, the OB line end point moves right.

The distance to the the pocket controls how much the OB end point will move as the GB position moves around the aiming arc. The only time there is a 1 to 1 ratio in movement is when the OB line end point is a 1/2 a ball width way from the OB...........the same about the CB center is away from the OB.

So now here is concept to use as a reference in order to make adjustments whereas just the front view, ball overlap does not provide.

This is true no matter what. This applies, this occurs in all systems. This is the geometry of a shot.

duckie - Thanks for the geometry lesson. I'm glad to see how it all works, but how do you get CB/OB contact points to collide for the pocket angle?.. Don't tell me to find the contact patch! The OB will always appear to be smaller at greater distances.

What I'm saying is to connect the dots. The CB center is always aimed at one point on the OB. I'll call those points.. dots. Center CB front dot aimed at the Center OB dot.. OB goes straight.. CB front dot aimed at the OB edge dot.. OB goes 30 degrees.

If you always aim your CB front dot at one single OB dot, to make both ball contact points collide on two completely different points, the OB travels down the same pocket angle every time.. No guess work. Your drawing shows the how & why it works.

Play well, Carl

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By putting the CB in the right spot on the table to make the OB go to the pocket. In other words practice.

These drawing are not, repeat, not about how to aim. They are not for aiming but just general info about a shot from a another view point.

Here is a drawing that illustrates the CB and OB contact points lines and how the CB contact point moves around the CB as the cut angle increases and the OB contact point never moves.

The only time all the points are ever on same line to the pocket is a straight in shot. This means you are looking are where the CB needs to be.

Here comes the ole looking at the OB question. For a high cut angle, the OB is offset from where the CB needs to be. This means if one is truely focusing on the OB, they are not looking where the CB needs to be but offset from that point.

Same using contact points. You are trying to align two, make believe contact points that are offset from the line the CB will take to the OB which is also offset from where you really need to be looking.......the place the CB needs to be.

See, there really is no aiming, in my little pool playing world.. So , I never aim......just place the CB where it needs to be. I know this is not the standard, accepted practice......but I like being a heretic.

This is why I state that all shots, when using the direction of travel line concept, are straight shots. Once where to CB placement is determined, is just a straight shot with the CB to that point. There is no need to know any cut angle, which is truely impossible to do without the proper equipment. It is just a guess at best.

I did a bit of land surveying........before GPS.

This is also why being able to hit on the center, vertical line of the CB is important. Is the only time the cue center line is on the same line as the CB to the spot on the table that, in this case, pockets the ball.

Once side spin is use, the cue center line only has two options. Move parallel to the CB line to OB or across that line.

Anyway.....FWIW.
 

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Ok Duckie since years I follow all what you are saying- and you are telling nothing else but Ghostball is the only way pool can be played- I have developped two aiming methods and I do know that this game can be played in several ways- may it be with using 90/90 CTE or with the SEE-System or with SAMBA for pool which I develloped. There may be even more ways...that I don't even know about... I will play you any game (you can choose 8/9/10 ball straight pool or bank pool) and I will announce any shot with my method for any amount of money ( just choose the amount of money and we will both transfer the money to an account that the winner will be able to take it from) just to finally proove you that there are other ways to play this game at a professional level and to finally stop you from negating any other method but ghost ball- Think about it - and pm me here on AZB or just... whatever...
I will even fly to the US on my own expenses if the money will be worth it


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