Bert - Secrets of shotmaking

mfoolb

mfoolb

Registered
Hi,

someone please help me with this.

I've been watching the first 15 minutes of this tape and after five minutes self commercial words he started talking about shooting a long ball straight when it is not if you want to pocket it in the corner corner pocket.

He is showing a guy shooting tens of balls this way saying "you see? He shot straight instead of cutting the ball and it was pocketed".

But it is obvious that the guy cut the ball (tangent line speaks for itself).

What is he trying to teach to the viewer? You must shoot while taking in consideration you will make a mistake so it is better to shot long corner ball straight because considering the error margin you can pocket it easily by missing it long than short? (because of the angles in the pocket?).

Is he a good pool teacher? Couldn't be better to just tell to aim a long ball to the 'open' side of the pocket?
 
Yes

I consider Bert to know his stuff, and he's sure passed a lot onto me mostly by video, and a few phone calls. I do not own that video.

Over time, like us all, we adopt and experiment with new techniques, so see if they will work well for us. So, in this regard, Bert's material has swayed over time.

I think I have seen something like this mentioned on one of the videos I have. I know the shotmakers workout contains the long shot to the opening, but what I am talking about is when he spoke of not trying to cut on a long shot that is nearly parallel to the rail, when the OB has to travel a long distance.
 
continued

As I think about this more, I remembered that it might have been a tip for folks,
using the minds subconscious abilities.

Before I ever heard of Bert, I found many of these typed of "things" on my own, but
they are the type of thing, that will be VERY useful to experiment with, (AND GIVE
IT TIME), and may work WELL and be POWERFUL to those folks.
 
Bert

Just stay with it I have a large collection of his stuff and there is a lot to discover in his work. I know the presentation is not top notch but the information is great. Some of the stuff I have seen I just don't need and other stuff is a golden nugget which we all seem to be searching for.
 
mfoolb said:
Hi,

someone please help me with this.

I've been watching the first 15 minutes of this tape and after five minutes self commercial words he started talking about shooting a long ball straight when it is not if you want to pocket it in the corner corner pocket.

He is showing a guy shooting tens of balls this way saying "you see? He shot straight instead of cutting the ball and it was pocketed".

But it is obvious that the guy cut the ball (tangent line speaks for itself).

What is he trying to teach to the viewer? You must shoot while taking in consideration you will make a mistake so it is better to shot long corner ball straight because considering the error margin you can pocket it easily by missing it long than short? (because of the angles in the pocket?).

Is he a good pool teacher? Couldn't be better to just tell to aim a long ball to the 'open' side of the pocket?
Click to expand...

That tape helped me a LOT. If you watch player that miss those shots, they miss in the exact way he talks about. I did the same thing untill I practiced for just a few sold days what he showed. It worked. I hit 3-4 of the off the rail shots in a row from each side, where I'd normally go 1 hit, 1 miss, 1 hit , 1 miss. Look as some people shooting, the will hit the rail an inch or 2 to the right. Anyone at D or C level will do that a lot, a B will be 50-50, and A will fire it in pretty well though.
He did cut the ball sure, but he was aiming at what he "thought" was straight in. In another tape he talks about when you aim for the center of the pocket, people aim for the back of the pocket not for the center of the opening. I think this is a reason why people overcut the shots he shows you. Like he tells you on the tape, he does not know why it works or expain why it works, but it works. I may not be the best person on here to listen to for advice, but can tell you it helped my huge with these shots. Now.. on one of the blogs here, I think there is a blog that expains why this may be in a scientific way, talks about how our eyes and brains work to see certain things, but may end up fooling us when we look at pool shots as to what the true angle is. Between Bert's tape and that blog it explains quite a bit.

He's also interesting to listen to if you can get used to him saying everything twice everything twice.
 
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He is showing a guy shooting tens of balls this way saying "you see? He shot straight instead of cutting the ball and it was pocketed".

But it is obvious that the guy cut the ball (tangent line speaks for itself).

What is he trying to teach to the viewer?
Click to expand...

The old saying, "every shot is a straight shot" means no matter how difficult the cut angle or how complicated the shot or the shape, it all boils down to hitting the OB with the CB (and the CB with the cue stick). It's both encouragement (you can only control the cue stick and CB, so just focus on that and do the best you can) and admonition (you can only control the cue stick and CB, so you need to do that very well).

I don't know if this is what Bert meant, but it's how I've understood it.

pj
chgo
 
i can't remember for sure but i think the idea he was trying to get across was that the mind subconsciously aims for the back of the pocket. now if the object ball is further down the rail as opposed to in the middle of the table if you draw a line from it to the back of the pocket the near jaw/point blocks the hole.

It was a good tape from what i remember. I like bert.
 
I don't have that particular tape but most of what Bert teaches is really good stuff.

I would be interested in seeing a diagram of the type of long shot he is referring to.

He may be referring to the difference between what I call the "actual" pocket and the "available" pocket.

Except for shots where the line of approach is perpendicular to the pocket opening, one point or the other will invade the actual pocket opening and make the entire "actual" pocket unavailable...i.e. you can't hit the back center of the pocket.

On shots where the OB is, say, a little below the centerline and 1 diamond from the long rail and the CB is on the head spot, the the RIGHT point will very substantially invade the actual pocket and the play is to aim for the left facing pad.

The vast majority of such shots are missed to the right...where the OB contacts the right point and jaws out at anything other than pocket speed.

If that is not what Bert is getting at...i.e. to "cheat" away from the side most shots are missed on, then I don't think I could agree with him on shooting "straight" on a cut shot.

But SO much depends on the speed of the shot and english used, if any, that will involve squirt, the need to offset collision-induced throw, swerve etc., it is unwise to adopt any one single "default" aiming technique.

Again, not having seen that tape, if he is saying to ALWAYS aim straight in on long shots with small cut angles into the corner, I wouldn't agree with that and doubt that is what he was trying to get at.

Regards,
Jim
 
av84fun said:
I don't have that particular tape but most of what Bert teaches is really good stuff.

I would be interested in seeing a diagram of the type of long shot he is referring to.

He may be referring to the difference between what I call the "actual" pocket and the "available" pocket.

Except for shots where the line of approach is perpendicular to the pocket opening, one point or the other will invade the actual pocket opening and make the entire "actual" pocket unavailable...i.e. you can't hit the back center of the pocket.

On shots where the OB is, say, a little below the centerline and 1 diamond from the long rail and the CB is on the head spot, the the RIGHT point will very substantially invade the actual pocket and the play is to aim for the left facing pad.

The vast majority of such shots are missed to the right...where the OB contacts the right point and jaws out at anything other than pocket speed.

If that is not what Bert is getting at...i.e. to "cheat" away from the side most shots are missed on, then I don't think I could agree with him on shooting "straight" on a cut shot.

But SO much depends on the speed of the shot and english used, if any, that will involve squirt, the need to offset collision-induced throw, swerve etc., it is unwise to adopt any one single "default" aiming technique.

Again, not having seen that tape, if he is saying to ALWAYS aim straight in on long shots with small cut angles into the corner, I wouldn't agree with that and doubt that is what he was trying to get at.

Regards,
Jim
Click to expand...

You are correct in what he is talking about. He is referring the tendancy of players to aim for the back of the pocket and not the center of the hole. Which would make a cut shot miss to the rail before the hole by a few inches. He refers to this in at least one other tape. He was aiming no english and a firm hit, aiming the cue ball almost off the end rail, with the object ball past the middle pockets.
 
av84fun said:
Again, not having seen that tape, if he is saying to ALWAYS aim straight in on long shots with small cut angles into the corner, I wouldn't agree with that and doubt that is what he was trying to get at.
Click to expand...


I have the DVD and can tell you that is what he is saying. On long shots he claims the shot should be aimed "straight in" from where he has the shot lined up and a 2 1/2 CB variance either left or right of the original CB position.
 
Well that was my point.. you have all said in two lines what he repeats in a different way (worst in my opinion) for 90 minutes.

But I remember watching a 10 min video of his on youtube where he said the same thing loud and clear.
 
asbani said:
is it on youtube? if so could you pls kindly link the webadress
Click to expand...

The video on the first post isn't on youtube. But you can watch some other videos. Just go searching for "bert kinister" on youtube.
 
asbani said:
is it on youtube? if so could you pls kindly link the webadress
Click to expand...

No, the Secrets of shotmaking is not on youtube. I was referring to another video of Bert that is on youtube and where he teaches the same things in just a couple of phrases.
 
I have only seen one Bert Kinnester video and it was called "The Big Bang", or something like that. This ONE video that I have seen that he was teaching the break was probably the worst instructional tape that I have ever seen. He had a large man crushing racks on a barbox and was going on and on about how this guy breaks harder than anybody, etc etc....The only thing is at least half the break shots this guy would knock the cueball off the table, all the while Bert is going on about how he "really got into that one" and marveling at how many balls passed the side pockets. I have not seen any of his other videos because of how nonsensical this first one was.............Marc
 
mfoolb said:
... shooting a long ball straight when it is not if you want to pocket it in the corner corner pocket.

He is showing a guy shooting tens of balls this way saying "you see? He shot straight instead of cutting the ball and it was pocketed". ...
Click to expand...
I haven't seen the video, but that doesn't keep me from having an opinion on it.

For me there are two aspects to this. The first is that the drill must release the mind from conscious thought. Clearly if you shoot a non-straight shot straight, the ball misses. This much is obvious even to simpletons. So you must be letting your subconscious take over and make the shot for you. In the long run, that's the way you will need to play most of your shots.

The second aspect is that this drill causes you to form false visualizations. I think that's really, really bad in the long run. Form a true image of the shot in your mind and then make it real. I would never recommend this drill to a student unless they needed some kind of quick fix that couldn't be achieved in any other way, but then we would have to repair the damage. This drill has all the marks of the wrong band-aid.
 
I agree wholeheartedly Bob...

Bob Jewett said:
I haven't seen the video, but that doesn't keep me from having an opinion on it.

For me there are two aspects to this. The first is that the drill must release the mind from conscious thought. Clearly if you shoot a non-straight shot straight, the ball misses. This much is obvious even to simpletons. So you must be letting your subconscious take over and make the shot for you. In the long run, that's the way you will need to play most of your shots.

The second aspect is that this drill causes you to form false visualizations. I think that's really, really bad in the long run. Form a true image of the shot in your mind and then make it real. I would never recommend this drill to a student unless they needed some kind of quick fix that couldn't be achieved in any other way, but then we would have to repair the damage. This drill has all the marks of the wrong band-aid.
Click to expand...

Any time that you teach someone to do something that is contrary to reality, whether it works or not, it is not going to be good in the long run. It is better to force someone to develop the patience to take the time to learn the right way for all shots so that they can make the long shots as well than to give them "a quick fix" for one shot that might come up one in a hundred.
 
Playsome said:
I have only seen one Bert Kinnester video and it was called "The Big Bang", or something like that. This ONE video that I have seen that he was teaching the break was probably the worst instructional tape that I have ever seen. He had a large man crushing racks on a barbox and was going on and on about how this guy breaks harder than anybody, etc etc....The only thing is at least half the break shots this guy would knock the cueball off the table, all the while Bert is going on about how he "really got into that one" and marveling at how many balls passed the side pockets. I have not seen any of his other videos because of how nonsensical this first one was.............Marc
Click to expand...


In a later tape Bert warns people not to follow the advice in the Big Bang tape because players were breaking their hand by slamming it into the edge of the table. It was one of his worst tapes.
 
Scottster said:
I have the DVD and can tell you that is what he is saying. On long shots he claims the shot should be aimed "straight in" from where he has the shot lined up and a 2 1/2 CB variance either left or right of the original CB position.
Click to expand...

Still, I'd have to see a diagram of the shot to determine what he means by "straight in" and from what position.

If he means straight in toward the back center of the physical pocket, then, of course, he is mistaken.

If, on the other hand (as another poster confirmed) he means that if there is a small cut that would direct the OB to the back center of the pocket, you cannot shoot it as a cut from many places on the table due to the intrusion of a point into the path toward the back center and therefore, you need to shoot straight toward the available facing pad.

Regards,
Jim
 
There's a lot of useful knowledge in Bert's tapes, but you have to wade through hours of repetition and unnecessary babble to pick out the diamonds in the rough. His 70+ tapes could be compressed into 5-10.
 
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