Blew BIH on 3 balls/WWYD?

C Player perspective:

I tried (success rate):

The 1 rail shot (2/5)
The straight draw shot (1/5)
The follow shot (2/5)

I knew from the moment I saw this layout that it would be low probability "for me" because of where the 9 ball is. I think in almost all the trials, I got "decent" position on the 9, that a B level player would probably have made 80% of.

A comment on the follow shot, the shot itself was definitely the hardest of the opening shots (pocketing ball wise). I had to really bear down on it.

Maybe I'll try them all again tomorrow... maybe not:)

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ8013nTo-Q&feature=youtu.be
 
I tried it again. I really focused on a good angle on the 8 this time. Slight improvement on the scores.

The 1 rail shot (3/5)
The straight draw shot (3/5)
The follow shot (2/5)
 
iusedtoberich said:
I tried it again. I really focused on a good angle on the 8 this time. Slight improvement on the scores.

The 1 rail shot (3/5)
The straight draw shot (3/5)
The follow shot (2/5)
Click to expand...


Good efforts there buddy. I like the way your table is set up to enable you to learn. Keep it up and you'll be an A player in no time. I would suggest that on your first shot in these videos where you have ball in hand try placing the cue ball a little bit closer to the object ball. You also have a very long bridge and stroke which makes it a little bit harder to strike the cue ball exactly where you want but you'll get there. :thumbup:
 
I messed around with this for a little bit last night and it was a little more challenging than I thought it would be but I still had pretty good success.

I concluded that I like following this shot straight down table to the end rail -- for a couple of reasons. First, provided that you are confident you can make the shot all you have to worry about is your speed. If you aren't confident you can make this shot with ball in hand then you probably have more important things to worry about than this layout. The reason I like playing the cue ball to the end rail is because you're much less likely to get straight in when you play closer to the eight. The tradeoff is you may end up with a little bit more angle than you bargained for -- but I like that tradeoff. If you follow it into the corner by hitting the side rail first you are sending the cue ball into a pretty big zone that will leave you close to straight in.

This is a subject that I don't think I've ever seen mentioned on here before but when it comes to playing position one of the benefits to playing closer position on your next ball is increasing your odds of NOT being straight in. It's just something I've noticed. We all like being close to the object ball but we don't want to end up right on top of it. Well, when you have ball in hand you can be pretty confident that you won't end up on top of it. So in these situations I will often times play for closer position than I would otherwise just to avoid being straight in. Hope that makes sense.

I don't mind drawing this ball back but I admittedly don't have as accurate of touch with the draw as I do the follow. I think this is true for most of us.

The side rail to side rail shot didn't turn out too bad but you do have to be careful with where you hit the cue ball and you are bringing multiple rails into the equation. So for that reason I preferred the follow shot.

The main thing I took away from this layout was that you should be comfortable shooting this shot several different ways AND you really need to be comfortable shooting the nine down table since it's much easier to get position for it that way.

I'll see if I can post a video in the next day or so if anybody's still paying attention to this thread.
 
BasementDweller said:
... This is a subject that I don't think I've ever seen mentioned on here before but when it comes to playing position one of the benefits to playing closer position on your next ball is increasing your odds of NOT being straight in. It's just something I've noticed. We all like being close to the object ball but we don't want to end up right on top of it. Well, when you have ball in hand you can be pretty confident that you won't end up on top of it. So in these situations I will often times play for closer position than I would otherwise just to avoid being straight in. Hope that makes sense. ...
Click to expand...
In position play discussions, this is sometimes called "playing to the narrow end of the triangle." In the diagrams in the post by playdoubles above which show all the workable positions, the position area is a triangle with one tip at the object ball. If you draw a sub-triangle of that area that is actually good position it is a narrower triangle that excludes the straight in and the 60-degree cuts. What constitutes "good" depends on the player. Also, I would exclude the area where the cue ball would be frozen on the side rail.

If you think about giving yourself the best chance to land in the good area, I think you will conclude that putting the cue ball in the narrow end is harder than putting it in the middle, say a diamond or a diamond and a half from the object ball.

Also, theoretically, if you consider the larger triangle of all positions and you assume you manage to get the cue ball into the triangle along different lines closer and farther from the object ball, the fraction of each of those paths that is too straight is the same proportion of the path. What this means theoretically is that playing to the short end of the triangle is just as likely to leave a straight-in if you do, in fact, get reasonable position.
 
Ken_4fun said:
If I have ball in hand I play the 7 in the side with top. I would then bump the 9 out about a foot and the cue ball would end up about a diamond from the corner pocket along the same rail as where the 9 was originally.

I play the 8 in the lower corner with a little angle to hit 2 rails and then play the 9 in the side near where it was sitting.

Ken
Click to expand...

For the life of me, I can't figure out why THIS is the out you see when you have this layout.
 
branpureza said:
The 2 shots I liked best were mine and the one I think Bob Jewitt posted. They were the most effortless ones to perform.

My shot is the 1st one in the video which I do 5 times I think and Bob's was the second.

The absolute worst shot in the thread was playing the 7 in the side with follow and attempting to knock the 9 off the rail on the way to the 8 ball. I don't know why anyone would choose such a goofy/risky shot when the layout is this easy. I only tried it twice and quit because it was so ridiculous.

The second worst shot was playing the 7 ball in the corner by the 8 ball. There are a few things wrong with this shot. Firstly don't like playing the 7 in the pocket farthest away. Why play a 7 foot shot vs a 1 foot shot? Also I've never been a fan of those almost straight in but not quite shots. I can tell you that as soon as I got down on this shot I didn't like it and you definitely have to shoot this ball with some speed to get the cue ball all the way down there as well. Pocket speed might get you to the middle of the table. I probably had to hit it about 10mph which isn't optimal ball pocketing speed. I'd like to be able to hit it at about half that speed to make the pocket as big as possible.
Click to expand...
After setting up the balls at home, I think I have to agree with you on playing off the 7 into the side rail. All I had to do was pick the point on the second side rail to hit and I always had about the same angle on the 8. Incidentally, this was the shot that first popped into my head when I saw the table layout for real (instead of a top-down drawing), and I'd like to think that my subconscious is telling me the right shot.

When I got into position to shoot the follow shot that I said I preferred earlier in this thread, I had the same negative initial reaction. I think some part of that is just that it's rare to play for that kind of position, so shooting all the way down the table with follow just isn't something that we do very often.

Thanks for taking that time to put the video together. Nobody wants to watch me rattle balls, so we'll just pretend that I shoot as straight as you do. :smile:
 
Matt said:
After setting up the balls at home, I think I have to agree with you on playing off the 7 into the side rail. All I had to do was pick the point on the second side rail to hit and I always had about the same angle on the 8. Incidentally, this was the shot that first popped into my head when I saw the table layout for real (instead of a top-down drawing), and I'd like to think that my subconscious is telling me the right shot.

When I got into position to shoot the follow shot that I said I preferred earlier in this thread, I had the same negative initial reaction. I think some part of that is just that it's rare to play for that kind of position, so shooting all the way down the table with follow just isn't something that we do very often.

Thanks for taking that time to put the video together. Nobody wants to watch me rattle balls, so we'll just pretend that I shoot as straight as you do. :smile:
Click to expand...
We are all pretending we play like Brandon!
 
Black-Balled said:
We are all pretending we play like Brandon!
Click to expand...


Ha:) I'm probably the weakest player in this thread, but in my mind this is NOT an easy out unless you are an A player. The spot the 9 ball is in is IMO one of the toughest spots a ball can be in on the whole table. Maybe the only tougher spot would be the same location but frozen to the rail.

Just making the 9 alone given "reasonable" position is not a gimmie for many of us.
 
Bob Jewett said:
In position play discussions, this is sometimes called "playing to the narrow end of the triangle." In the diagrams in the post by playdoubles above which show all the workable positions, the position area is a triangle with one tip at the object ball. If you draw a sub-triangle of that area that is actually good position it is a narrower triangle that excludes the straight in and the 60-degree cuts. What constitutes "good" depends on the player. Also, I would exclude the area where the cue ball would be frozen on the side rail.

If you think about giving yourself the best chance to land in the good area, I think you will conclude that putting the cue ball in the narrow end is harder than putting it in the middle, say a diamond or a diamond and a half from the object ball.

Also, theoretically, if you consider the larger triangle of all positions and you assume you manage to get the cue ball into the triangle along different lines closer and farther from the object ball, the fraction of each of those paths that is too straight is the same proportion of the path. What this means theoretically is that playing to the short end of the triangle is just as likely to leave a straight-in if you do, in fact, get reasonable position.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response Bob.

Maybe I'm perceiving something on the table that is not based in reality. :confused: Or maybe this is an instance where the math doesn't exactly jive with reality. Either way I need to think about it a bit more.

Just looking at your last paragraph, I understand what you are saying on paper but I don't think it plays out that way on the table. I think the reason this is - is because when you are closer to the object ball and you land anywhere but dead straight it's much easier to work with the cue ball because you are more confident that you can hit the ball accurately. Whereas, if you are several diamonds away from the object ball and you are in this "too straight" zone -- you are going to be limited with how much you can juice up the cue ball to get back inline. I don't think these diagrams ever take that into account. Taken to the extreme if you get really close to the object ball but dead straight you can even shoot a masse shot to get you out of trouble. You would never do this if you were farther away.

I think this idea of mine is better observed when playing for a ball on the side rail. Say you have the eight ball two diamonds up and one ball width away from the rail. If you were to draw a triangle that included the area where you would be "too straight" wouldn't this area increase the farther you were from the object ball? Certainly it will, as will the shot difficulty. So, I don't think the generic position zone triangles always tell the whole story -- especially when you have ball in hand and you really need to avoid landing too straight because in the 3 ball layout that we have been discussing -- landing in the too straight zone on the eight is what is going to kill you.

Having said all that, there's still the possibility that I'm just looking at this wrong or not quite seeing the whole picture for some reason. It's been known to happen a time or two.

Lastly and on a different note, in this 3 ball layout if we removed the 7 ball how would you (anybody) lag the cue ball into position for the 8? Would any of you shoot the zigzat shot? I might just need to do this little exercise myself to see where the real landing zone is.:scratchhead:
 
Low rights drawing off both long rails may have gotten you decent position on the 8


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
iusedtoberich said:
C Player perspective:

I tried (success rate):

The 1 rail shot (2/5)
The straight draw shot (1/5)
The follow shot (2/5)

I knew from the moment I saw this layout that it would be low probability "for me" because of where the 9 ball is. I think in almost all the trials, I got "decent" position on the 9, that a B level player would probably have made 80% of.

A comment on the follow shot, the shot itself was definitely the hardest of the opening shots (pocketing ball wise). I had to really bear down on it.

Maybe I'll try them all again tomorrow... maybe not:)

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ8013nTo-Q&feature=youtu.be
Click to expand...

Nice work on the vid. Liked the camera angle you chose. Keep it up every day for at least a half hour every day.
 
j_zippel said:
Low rights drawing off both long rails may have gotten you decent position on the 8


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...



That's what started this thread in the first place..:eek:

Except, I used low left and drifted straight in on the 8 on the wrong side. Yours puts you on the correct side of the 8.

....thanks for the support:thumbup:

..at least there are two of us that appreciate an uphill challenge.;);)
 
Hits 'em Hard said:
Gouging? What the hell you saying? Shooting the 7 in either pocket on the end where the 8 is leads to an easier leave. Putting top on the cue ball and having a slight angle to ensure you don't follow the 7 in leads to the easiest 8->9 possible. No matter where the cue ball lands after it hits the end rail you'll have an angle to get to the 9. Whether you choose to use top and play to the side rail and below/above the 9, or draw back out to above the 9. You have a higher guaranteed out when ensuring easier 7->8 position by going basically zero rails.



Any day if you think taking to cue ball a few rails for position off ball in hand with this layout is best.
Click to expand...

The shot going two rails with follow is natural with 1.5 cue tips of english. That has the cueball landing on the 2nd rail and then moving towards the 8. You are in line the whole way after hitting the second rail so the margin of error is really large...basically the whole second rail to the third rail. You may not be comfortable with just how much right english to use, but for those that are, this shot is high percentage pool.
 
victorl said:
Personally, I would place the cue ball about 3 inches to the left of where it is in the picture and shoot the 7 into the top left corner with high and maybe a touch of right, aiming to hit the bottom rail about 2 diamonds from the bottom right pocket. Then make the 8 with follow (maybe a touch of left again) for shape on the 9 in the top right corner. (If I get very straight on the 8, I'd follow forward for shape on the 9 in the top left corner instead.)

On second thought, 7 in the bottom left corner with running english going three rails for shape is pretty reliable as well, and harder to mess up.
Click to expand...

This guy hit it on the head, I would do it either way.
 
victorl said:
Personally, I would place the cue ball about 3 inches to the left of where it is in the picture and shoot the 7 into the top left corner with high and maybe a touch of right, aiming to hit the bottom rail about 2 diamonds from the bottom right pocket. Then make the 8 with follow (maybe a touch of left again) for shape on the 9 in the top right corner. (If I get very straight on the 8, I'd follow forward for shape on the 9 in the top left corner instead.)

On second thought, 7 in the bottom left corner with running english going three rails for shape is pretty reliable as well, and harder to mess up.
Click to expand...

center pocket said:
This guy hit it on the head, I would do it either way.
Click to expand...

You would do it more often with his 2nd choice but it's not very popular here. The players (the ones who have cared enough to post an opinion) have decreed it not very useful. Maybe Mr. TOI will bless us all with his opinion.
Old Nine Baller said:
I would get from the 7 to the 8 like this. How you get on the 9 depends on how you get on the 8 but if it ended up like this I would go two rails up and back down for the 9.



3 ball out.jpg

ONB
Click to expand...
 
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