Can you make 15 perfect stop shots from 5 diamonds away?

J

judochoke

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I mean a perfect stop shot. No wobble, no spin, no movement. When sklyer shot a stop shot against Jason Shaw in a gambling match at a expo on you tube, it was like the cue ball was shot from a gun. BOOM. no movement at all on the cue ball. Nothing.

as for me, I can get 7 balls perfect. The other 8 balls have some type of spin or movement. I always make all 15 balls, but trying to get 15 out of 15 is hard. Starting to hit 100 a day, see if a can get to 15/15.

how do you do on this drill?😎
 
Try this......take 3 object balls and space them 3” apart.
Now take the cue ball and shoot the middle object ball.

Just a simple straight line arrangement with OBs 3” apart.
Shoot the middle OB and make the cue ball replace the OB.

Start 1 Diamond away, then 2 and so on progressively moving
the CB another diamond away without struggling to do the drill.

The goal is to replace the middle OB and not touch the other OBs
or go beyond the line of OBs. You want the CB to stop dead in place.

Why do this drill? Because there are times when your stop shot must
be like Velcro and stop dead in order to avoid getting hooked on next OB.

Even the slightest drift or movement on the CB can result in another OB
interfering your shape for the next intended shot so make the CB stop dead.
 
judochoke said:
I mean a perfect stop shot. No wobble, no spin, no movement. When sklyer shot a stop shot against Jason Shaw in a gambling match at a expo on you tube, it was like the cue ball was shot from a gun. BOOM. no movement at all on the cue ball. Nothing.

as for me, I can get 7 balls perfect. The other 8 balls have some type of spin or movement. I always make all 15 balls, but trying to get 15 out of 15 is hard. Starting to hit 100 a day, see if a can get to 15/15.

how do you do on this drill?😎
Click to expand...
I do it close to the rail, couple of inches. I think its a harder shot. If you make the ball, you probably also will get no movement on the cueball.
 
judochoke said:
I mean a perfect stop shot. No wobble, no spin, no movement. When sklyer shot a stop shot against Jason Shaw in a gambling match at a expo on you tube, it was like the cue ball was shot from a gun. BOOM. no movement at all on the cue ball. Nothing.

as for me, I can get 7 balls perfect. The other 8 balls have some type of spin or movement. I always make all 15 balls, but trying to get 15 out of 15 is hard. Starting to hit 100 a day, see if a can get to 15/15.

how do you do on this drill?😎
Click to expand...
I like to use a striped ball for a "cue ball" with the stripe vertical and facing me - then any slight off center hit is obvious even if the shot works.

pj
chgo
 
When I practice, I use the Elephant Red Stripe Training Cue Ball.

It immediately reveals any deviation or wiggle on a stroked cue ball.

Before I even start doing a drill or before a match, I use this same CB.

I hit it from the kitchen down and back trying to make it totally motionless.

I do this until I can achieve that at least 3x in a row. Why 3x and not twice?

Well, once could be lucky, twice could be a coincidence but 3x says I got it.

The speed of the CB should be just a soft medium stroke, a little more than lag.

If you stroke the CB harder, it disguises any movement that a slower speed reveals.
 
sjm said:
Fifteen in a row is borderline inconceivable. I think you have to be quite a shooter to do five in a row from that far away.
Click to expand...
Correct. I would bet against anyone in the world making 15 stop shots without the cue ball turning upon impact.

I don't believe shooting 100 a day is an optimal investment of our table time. There are many times when our perfectionism steers us down dead end roads. It's easy to do. We miss a shot. We feel frustrated. We decide "I'm going to lock myself in a room and only shoot this shot until it's perfect". That is a very appealing emotional reaction, but is it effective?

Now I'm going to get a huge mob of people talking about how they made major improvements in certain parts of their game by doing something like that. But here's the thing. I'm not saying fanatical desire and effort don't lead to results. I'm talking about getting the most out of our desire and effort as we can, and long stop shots exclusively isn't the best mix in my opinion.
 
judochoke said:
I mean a perfect stop shot. No wobble, no spin, no movement. When sklyer shot a stop shot against Jason Shaw in a gambling match at a expo on you tube, it was like the cue ball was shot from a gun. BOOM. no movement at all on the cue ball. Nothing.

as for me, I can get 7 balls perfect. The other 8 balls have some type of spin or movement. I always make all 15 balls, but trying to get 15 out of 15 is hard. Starting to hit 100 a day, see if a can get to 15/15.

how do you do on this drill?😎
Click to expand...
If you can do it only half the time, the odds against 15 in a row for a given attempt is more than 65,000 to 1. At twenty five times attempted a day, you could expect to achieve this feat about once every seven years. Tough action!
 
From two diamonds away, yes. From five, no way, about three out of fifteen. I agree with above. If I wanted to accomplish this, it would take all my table time, and I'd never get there.
 
So as I was very lucky to start learning this game in the National university of physical education and sports of Ukraine with the best teacher/mentor I ever had Jorgen Sandman who was invited to prepare a group of coaches so to help in promoting pool in our country.
I studied billiards in our university for two and a half years and we had classes with Jorgen five times a week, 3 practice and two theory. Every now and then we had exams like in other subjects and again they were both practice (where we performed different kinds of drills) and theory (where we were asked questions on different aspects of billiards - history, rules, regulations and so on).
So when it comes to a practical side of the game in order to master all needed tools to play the game we were practicing a lot of different drills with scoresheets and when we had exams we could score certain amount of points in a certain drill.
When it comes to mastering those standard shots such as follow, stop, draw we had them in 4 levels. On each level there were the same five straight in shots with 5 OB placed in line with the first ball one ball off the long rail and one ball width distance between all five balls.
Level 1 - object balls on the 3rd diamond of the long rail
Level 2 - OBs on the center line (1 diamond further)
Level 3 - OBs on the next diamond after the side pockets
Level 4 - OBs again one diamond lower
On each level we had CB in hand on a head string so on level 1 there was only 1 diamond distance between CB and OBs while on level 4 the distance was 4 diamonds accordingly.
So we practiced follow, stop and draw shots scoring points. In the attempt while doing follow, stop or draw we could score from 0 to 3 points for each shot...so 15 points maximum after 5 shots. While performing follow 3 points if the OB is pocketed and CB goes and touches the end rail, 2 - OB is in the pocket CB ends between end rail and last diamond without touching the rail, 1 point - OB pocketed no good follow, 0 - a miss.
Performing stop shots: for scoring 3 points - OB pocketed with perfect stop (no CB movement ... at that time between 1999-2001 we practiced using Aramith super pro balls with a white CB ... there weren't measles CBs at the time..so if there was a side spin there was no penalty), 2 points - you pocket the OB but had slight movement on the CB, 1 point - OB pocketed no stop, 0 - a miss.
Finally on draw shots the same principle as for counting as on follow.
We had five attemts when we had tests or exams so we did the same while practicing and of course the average and % - that is what was important.
Tests and exams were one of the most interesting part of the learning process because there were 16 students in our group studying billiards with the possibility to get the diploma of a coach at the end.
So that time of studying billiards with Jorgen was the most engrossing experience in my life. So as there were 16 students in the group it was always some competition and a lot of fun at least for me. All were from different kinds of sports who were either 1, 2 or third year students and passed the tests to get in that final group of 16 to continue the study.
I came from basketball being third year student at the age of 21 with no experience in billiards at all. I had no additional strong + Jorgen considered while selecting candidates for that group. Most of those + had : female candidates, first year (younger), speaking english, some experience in billiards to remember the most important ... but I guess nothing replaces good motivation, passion and such.
I believe Jorgen was smart enough to build up all the process in such a fashion so to interest and give possibilities to those who are the most interested and motivated.
It was very fun to perform those drills in certain environment and very useful for the future tournaments because we already experienced what is some pressure... It was quite exciting for example to perform those draw shots in a test or exam when the others watching while Jorgen sitting and getting the scoresheets but the most interesting drills for me were always the ones where you could show your view, thinking processes, decisions as for the shots and finally execution. It was also a lot of fun observing others decisions and Jorgen's reactions).
I guess I was one of the most motivated students if I could master all those shots on all those levels and at the end had some fun trying level 5 with draw shots.
I just felt in love with this game and spent all my free time at the table thanks to Jorgen.
That's how I got my diploma with an excellent mark ... won my first national in 2001 two years after I started to learn the game ... and unfortunately being only the one out of two students who is still active as a coach and so on in this sport out of that group of 16.... together with my colleage working at the same place where we studied and started to help Jorgen as coaches with the first group of kids in which we had 10 year old Artem Koshoviy who got the first medals in pool for Ukraine on the International stage and he was always respected among the players for his talent in this game afterwards. Now he's 32 and competes in his second passion in life for car races ... me 43 and I don't see as much fun now in what I enjoyed at a certain time...
May be it is a matter of "all in good time" ...
P.S. Sorry for one more not so short post).
 
Last edited:
Bavafongoul said:
Try this......take 3 object balls and space them 3” apart.
Now take the cue ball and shoot the middle object ball.

Just a simple straight line arrangement with OBs 3” apart.
Shoot the middle OB and make the cue ball replace the OB.

Start 1 Diamond away, then 2 and so on progressively moving
the CB another diamond away without struggling to do the drill.

The goal is to replace the middle OB and not touch the other OBs
or go beyond the line of OBs. You want the CB to stop dead in place.

Why do this drill? Because there are times when your stop shot must
be like Velcro and stop dead in order to avoid getting hooked on next OB.

Even the slightest drift or movement on the CB can result in another OB
interfering your shape for the next intended shot so make the CB stop dead.
Click to expand...
Never thought of this. It's kinda like the rack trick where you shoot the "legs" out from under it.
 
Well, in trying today the same 15 shots, I think I was off a little. It was 4.5 diamonds away, and Im on a 7 foot table , not a nine. And today, when i made only 5 shots what i called perfect stop shots, I did get a 180 rotation on the cue ball. But I think tin man is right. I could drive myself crazy trying this forever, as I know that I get too much minor movement in my body, head, and bridge hand. I know this. I think I my table time on better things.
 
Here's something less frustrating and possibly more effective at shot alignment. Freeze the cue ball to another ball; shoot. The idea is to get the cueball to track the object ball perfectly. Obviously you don't want to ram this although you could get that good at it lol. Minimum speed is good enough to show you what's up with your stroke and alignment.
 
judochoke said:
Well, in trying today the same 15 shots, I think I was off a little. It was 4.5 diamonds away, and Im on a 7 foot table , not a nine. And today, when i made only 5 shots what i called perfect stop shots, I did get a 180 rotation on the cue ball. But I think tin man is right. I could drive myself crazy trying this forever, as I know that I get too much minor movement in my body, head, and bridge hand. I know this. I think I my table time on better things.
Click to expand...
it is good practice but only 15 or 30 balls only and try get 100% focus on those.. then move something else.
 
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