Center Ball

[nick serdula]

Center ball

Hay Jack,
I have a feeling there is a lot said by for the most part clueless posters. Center ball is what is used to control the angle the rock bounces away from the object ball including not moving at all. Center ball with a nice speed moves the cue ball with ease and control. By controlling your stroke speed and keeping it constant position becomes literally top position.
You know that. It is the only way to hone and develop a stroke.
Johnny Archer plays center ball. And plays it well. Masterfully. For the cash.
I bet he has gone blue in the face trying to help others game levels get higher but wagering no one listens would be a strong bet.
Fast cloth follow everything. Yes folks. Pool is now put pool. It is like telling golfers this sport is way to hard for everyone else. We will now be using peach baskets for holes.
Fast cloth? Why not male the pockets bigger too?
Most players today have no shot of playing 3 balls under what this cloth allows on the old cloth and far worst on backed cloth. Diamond tables would be laughable.
Nick

 

[pt109]

Hay Jack,
I have a feeling there is a lot said by for the most part clueless posters. Center ball is what is used to control the angle the rock bounces away from the object ball including not moving at all. Center ball with a nice speed moves the cue ball with ease and control. By controlling your stroke speed and keeping it constant position becomes literally top position.
You know that. It is the only way to hone and develop a stroke.
Johnny Archer plays center ball. And plays it well. Masterfully. For the cash.
I bet he has gone blue in the face trying to help others game levels get higher but wagering no one listens would be a strong bet.
Fast cloth follow everything. Yes folks. Pool is now put pool. It is like telling golfers this sport is way to hard for everyone else. We will now be using peach baskets for holes.
Fast cloth? Why not male the pockets bigger too?
Most players today have no shot of playing 3 balls under what this cloth allows on the old cloth and far worst on backed cloth. Diamond tables would be laughable.
Nick

St Andrews golf course was considered an unfair test of golf by the majority of golfers...
....you could hit a perfect drive and end up in a hole.
Golf grew up...it didn't get easier, but it favours great playing.

I played on all kinds of cloth growing up...from 42 ounce snooker cloth to backed pool cloth.
I prefer carom cloth or 760 or Tournament 2000....it makes more things possible...
...and an excellent player should have no objection to that.

 

[Cornerman]

Johnny Archer plays center ball. And plays it well. Masterfully. For the cash.

This is all nice and good, and telling beginners to stay near center ball is nice advice, but anyone who has watched ,with any intent, any professional player knows that every professional player (including Johnny Archer) use a tremendous amount more english than amateurs. Their ability to efficiently use any amount of left/right spin, and their recognition of when to use that amount of spin are one of the reasons they are simple better than amateurs.

It absolutely confounds me why people continue to say that professions stay closer to center, yada yada. It simply is not true. Surely when people actually pay close attention, it becomes very obvious.

He might tell you it's better for (amateurs) to stay near the center, but no professional "stays near the center." They would be giving up their advantage if they did such a thing.

Freddie

 

[barrymuch90]

I think some top players prefer shot making and position play using proper angles and speed control rather than spinning the ball. Watching certain players like Darren Appleton most def prefer to punch the ball using center ball(ish) I mean I assume they're using a half a tip either way to throw the object ball and sometimes certain English helps balls pocket, along the rail) but unles they're out of line or dead straight some players get out without much English.

 

[Straightpool_99]

This is all nice and good, and telling beginners to stay near center ball is nice advice, but anyone who has watched ,with any intent, any professional player knows that every professional player (including Johnny Archer) use a tremendous amount more english than amateurs. Their ability to efficiently use any amount of left/right spin, and their recognition of when to use that amount of spin are one of the reasons they are simple better than amateurs.

It absolutely confounds me why people continue to say that professions stay closer to center, yada yada. It simply is not true. Surely when people actually pay close attention, it becomes very obvious.

He might tell you it's better for (amateurs) to stay near the center, but no professional "stays near the center." They would be giving up their advantage if they did such a thing.

Freddie

I've been saying this for years on here...Obviously the pros are better at staying in line, thus they can play more shots with center ball if they so choose. HOWEVER, when they are left tough they will shoot that spin shot with no effort at all. Also many choose to use spin to stay in line, not just to recover. That takes a lot of practice with using spin...Pros are different in how they use sidespin, how much and how often, but they all use it. Saying something else is just blatantly false.

I have some ideas on why this obviously false idea is so strong on this forum:

1. Instructors...Obviously for an instructor trying to teach an APA 3, the easiest way to make him improve is to make him shoot center ball. He has no chance of making spin shots anyway (and even if he should make it he'll lose control), so it's a quick fix to get results. The instructor will be long gone, once the poor schmuck realizes that this was only a bandaid and not a proper cure. In fact he may never actually realize it. He'll simply think it's his own fault he cannot get out after years of practice, and blame the whole thing on his own bad genetics or lack of discipline for practise.
How do you sell this idea to the beginners in the first place: "The pros all play this way." The same way you sell a fiberglass Cuetec cue.
2. Poor observation skills. Some people are just not experienced enough to realize what is actually going on at the table. Even with the measle ball, spin often dies out straight after rail contact without being really obvious (to a naive observer), especially with an all white cueball. TOI is very hard to spot, for instance. With the advent of HD this may become a thing of the past, but some people will never see things right before their eyes, even when they are obvious.
3. Hearsay: "My cousin had lunch with (some pros) brother and he said that the pros only use center ball." Even more common is one sentence taken out of its natural context. So a pro may say he "..prefers center ball usually but.." and then everything before and after this fragment is completely forgotten or left out.
4. It plays into the false idea that excellence is all about simplification (which rather ironically fails because it is a gross oversimplification):
Locking elbows, locking wrists, shooting all center ball...These are all ideas dreamed up by engineers who apparently have no actual idea how the human mind or indeed body works. Instead of watching other sports or natural movements they have this idea that using a pool cue is completely different than any other activity the human body is capable of, thus needing completely artificial and rigid movements. and anything else is simply wrong. They know machines and thats it. The human arm/shoulder is a lot more complex than their extremely oversimplified model, and the brain....lets not even start on that subject. The hand is so complex that they are actually trying their best to ignore it, rather like beginner physics classes where variables are simply left out of the model..But sadly the variables do not disappear no matter how strongly their existence is being denied. "Sidespin is tricky...lets not use it" You should try telling Efren or Earl that.

 

[Neil]

I've been saying this for years on here...Obviously the pros are better at staying in line, thus they can play more shots with center ball if they so choose. HOWEVER, when they are left tough they will shoot that spin shot with no effort at all. Also many choose to use spin to stay in line, not just to recover. That takes a lot of practice with using spin...Pros are different in how they use sidespin, how much and how often, but they all use it. Saying something else is just blatantly false.

I have some ideas on why this obviously false idea is so strong on this forum:

1. Instructors...Obviously for an instructor trying to teach an APA 3, the easiest way to make him improve is to make him shoot center ball. He has no chance of making spin shots anyway (and even if he should make it he'll lose control), so it's a quick fix to get results. The instructor will be long gone, once the poor schmuck realizes that this was only a bandaid and not a proper cure. In fact he may never actually realize it. He'll simply think it's his own fault he cannot get out after years of practice, and blame the whole thing on his own bad genetics or lack of discipline for practise.
How do you sell this idea to the beginners in the first place: "The pros all play this way." The same way you sell a fiberglass Cuetec cue.
2. Poor observation skills. Some people are just not experienced enough to realize what is actually going on at the table. Even with the measle ball, spin often dies out straight after rail contact without being really obvious (to a naive observer), especially with an all white cueball. TOI is very hard to spot, for instance. With the advent of HD this may become a thing of the past, but some people will never see things right before their eyes, even when they are obvious.
3. Hearsay: "My cousin had lunch with (some pros) brother and he said that the pros only use center ball." Even more common is one sentence taken out of its natural context. So a pro may say he "..prefers center ball usually but.." and then everything before and after this fragment is completely forgotten or left out.
4. It plays into the false idea that excellence is all about simplification (which rather ironically fails because it is a gross oversimplification):
Locking elbows, locking wrists, shooting all center ball...These are all ideas dreamed up by engineers who apparently have no actual idea how the human mind or indeed body works. Instead of watching other sports or natural movements they have this idea that using a pool cue is completely different than any other activity the human body is capable of, thus needing completely artificial and rigid movements. and anything else is simply wrong. They know machines and thats it. The human arm/shoulder is a lot more complex than their extremely oversimplified model, and the brain....lets not even start on that subject. The hand is so complex that they are actually trying their best to ignore it, rather like beginner physics classes where variables are simply left out of the model..But sadly the variables do not disappear no matter how strongly their existence is being denied. "Sidespin is tricky...lets not use it" You should try telling Efren or Earl that.

I'm quoting you, but this applies to others also. I just read this whole thread, and another one on using center ball. No where did I see anyone say that one should never use english.

I also think it is very bad form to be stating what instructors teach when you don't know what they teach. And especially to be stating some nonsense that they say to get students to listen to them. While I am at it, you also state that engineers state that locking elbows, using center ball, locking wrists is all stuff made up by them, and is the only way to play correctly. Hogwash. You have nothing to base that on. Nothing! Not one instructor I have ever seen has stated such. And, you stating that they have just shows how little you actually understand about what is taught and why it is taught.

You sound more like an extremist. Where one says to use mainly center ball, and all you hear is never use english. There is a vast, vast, difference between the two statements.

 

[nick serdula]

You are clueless as most other posters here

This is all nice and good, and telling beginners to stay near center ball is nice advice, but anyone who has watched ,with any intent, any professional player knows that every professional player (including Johnny Archer) use a tremendous amount more english than amateurs. Their ability to efficiently use any amount of left/right spin, and their recognition of when to use that amount of spin are one of the reasons they are simple better than amateurs.

It absolutely confounds me why people continue to say that professions stay closer to center, yada yada. It simply is not true. Surely when people actually pay close attention, it becomes very obvious.

He might tell you it's better for (amateurs) to stay near the center, but no professional "stays near the center." They would be giving up their advantage if they did such a thing.

Freddie

Center ball has nothing to do with the center of the ball. As a matter of fact you never hit the center of the ball when you use it and avoid it because you will miss. Confused?
That is why people exclusively do not use center ball. And most players that use it can't explain it to anybody.
Nick

 

[gregcantrall]

Never said I didn't know how to use it.

Matthew Quigley: [Quigley shoots Dobkin, O'Flynn and Marston before they can even aim their guns, then walks up to a dying Marston] I said I never had much use for one. Never said I didn't know how to use it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwDmV1KWrKQ

 

[Cornerman]

You sound more like an extremist. Where one says to use mainly center ball, and all you hear is never use english. There is a vast, vast, difference between the two statements.

I would suggest that you then also don't take it to the extreme.

If "people" say to use "mainly center," meaning vertical center, and if the same people claim that AAA and above players use "mainly center," then I wholeheartedly disagree and consider these people in fantasy land. Simple observation of the countless number of professionals that all of us have watched over the years live, in person, at any of the major and minor events prove this.

In this thread, we have posters claiming Buddy Hall, Dennis Orcullo among others as "mainly center" players. Yet other people who have actually watched both of these players many times have seen otherwise. They are mainly "gobs of left and right spin" players. Throw Earl and Shane into the mix, and these are even "more gobs" players.

As you know, there are four or five absolute standard short rack rotation shots, most if not all require the user to have an understanding of what happens with 1 tip vs 1/2 tip vs extreme tips to get the cueball to and through the center of the table. Every good short rack rotation player knows these shots and the importance of the position path using english.

How is it possible that all these posters somehow believe that "mainly center" is the way to go, when every good to great player uses spin for optimum position every rack?

How is it possible that all these poster say things like "only use english when you get out of line"? What kind of crazy saying is this???

Freddie <~~~ must be watching a different planet

 

[BasementDweller]

I would guess that pros use at least a little bit of english on 90 percent of their non straight in shots.

This topic comes up all the time and it always leaves me scratching my head. Up until now I just thought I had dermatological issues.

 

[pt109]

I would guess that pros use at least a little bit of english on 90 percent of their non straight in shots.

This topic comes up all the time and it always leaves me scratching my head. Up until now I just thought I had dermatological issues.

BD....the dermatologist....
...that one ain't gonna get topped today....:rotflmao1::rotflmao1::rotflmao1:

 

[Neil]

I would suggest that you then also don't take it to the extreme.

If "people" say to use "mainly center," meaning vertical center, and if the same people claim that AAA and above players use "mainly center," then I wholeheartedly disagree and consider these people in fantasy land. Simple observation of the countless number of professionals that all of us have watched over the years live, in person, at any of the major and minor events prove this.

In this thread, we have posters claiming Buddy Hall, Dennis Orcullo among others as "mainly center" players. Yet other people who have actually watched both of these players many times have seen otherwise. They are mainly "gobs of left and right spin" players. Throw Earl and Shane into the mix, and these are even "more gobs" players.

As you know, there are four or five absolute standard short rack rotation shots, most if not all require the user to have an understanding of what happens with 1 tip vs 1/2 tip vs extreme tips to get the cueball to and through the center of the table. Every good short rack rotation player knows these shots and the importance of the position path using english.

How is it possible that all these posters somehow believe that "mainly center" is the way to go, when every good to great player uses spin for optimum position every rack?

How is it possible that all these poster say things like "only use english when you get out of line"? What kind of crazy saying is this???

Freddie <~~~ must be watching a different planet

Freddie, I respect your opinions a lot. But, I really have to disagree with you here. You may only be using 4 or 5 standard shots. I know of about 30. Yes, going through the center of the table is very important. But, to feel that english is normally required to do so tells me one thing- you haven't spent any time learning what can be done using the vertical axis. I think you would be amazed at what you can do with just follow and draw and stun if you actually spent some time with it.

Now, I am NOT saying to never use english. There will be times in almost every rack where it is necessary, or just desirable. What I am saying, is that the game is much simplified when one tends to stay as close as possible to the vertical axis of the cb.

 

[Cornerman]

. You may only be using 4 or 5 standard shots

I said "there are 4 or 5 standard shots." I didn't say I use 4 or 5 standard shots.

What I am saying, is that the game is much simplified when one tends to stay as close as possible to the vertical axis of the cb.

Respectfully, what I'm saying is the game is much simplified when one understands how to use english and incorporates it into their individual game, and that the game is actually more difficult by staying as close as possible to the vertical axis.

I'm no professional, but I've won my fair share of tournaments. But, forgetting about that, it still confounds me that there is no professional that tends to stay as close as possible to the vertical axis. And you know, I put a lot of attention into watching how the pros play. Can you offer an explanation of why my (and a slew of others) observance doesn't jell with your quoted statement? Do you believe that they'd actually be better than they are if they incorporate your advice into their play?

To me, you're doing a feel-good saying for beginners, but I'm sure you don't view it that way.

Freddie

 

[Neil]

I said "there are 4 or 5 standard shots." I didn't say I use 4 or 5 standard shots.




Respectfully, what I'm saying is the game is much simplified when one understands how to use english and incorporates it into their individual game, and that the game is actually more difficult by staying as close as possible to the vertical axis.

I'm no professional, but I've won my fair share of tournaments. But, forgetting about that, it still confounds me that there is no professional that tends to stay as close as possible to the vertical axis. And you know, I put a lot of attention into watching how the pros play. Can you offer an explanation of why my (and a slew of others) observance doesn't jell with your quoted statement? Do you believe that they'd actually be better than they are if they incorporate your advice into their play?

To me, you're doing a feel-good saying for beginners, but I'm sure you don't view it that way.

Freddie

Well, with all due respect, I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree. I don't agree that there are no pros that try to stay close to center axis. And, I also don't agree that most prose use a lot of english on almost all shots.

I also believe that most of the top players today, which are Chinese, are tending to minimize the use of english. And that it is one of the reasons they are better.

As to the explanation of why that is that your observation doesn't jell with mine. You aren't going to like it much I don't think. But, frankly, I think you are seeing what you want to see. And, also, I'm sure that you, like almost all players, aren't hitting the cb where you actually think you are.

 

[Cornerman]

But, frankly, I think you are seeing what you want to see. And, also, I'm sure that you, like almost all players, aren't hitting the cb where you actually think you are.

Good news is that I just spent 11 straight days doing color commentary with easily the best camera crew with whom I've had the pleasure of working, during the US Open 10-ball and 8-ball. The close up camera work doesn't lie.

Better news: my observations jell with what the camera work shows.


Freddie <~~~ would rather not guess

 

[ps611846]

Freddie, I respect your opinions a lot. But, I really have to disagree with you here. You may only be using 4 or 5 standard shots. I know of about 30. Yes, going through the center of the table is very important. But, to feel that english is normally required to do so tells me one thing- you haven't spent any time learning what can be done using the vertical axis. I think you would be amazed at what you can do with just follow and draw and stun if you actually spent some time with it.

Now, I am NOT saying to never use english. There will be times in almost every rack where it is necessary, or just desirable. What I am saying, is that the game is much simplified when one tends to stay as close as possible to the vertical axis of the cb.

Can you make a video playing Bert Kinister's "six pointed star" (all variations) by only using the vertical axis ?

I would like to see you speed control. :grin-square:

 

[gregcantrall]

Can you make a video playing Bert Kinister's "six pointed star" (all variations) by only using the vertical axis ?

I would like to see you speed control. :grin-square:

Can you explain what the "six pointed star" is? Thank you.

 

[ps611846]

Can you explain what the "six pointed star" is? Thank you.

1 ball on the middle diamond of the upper part of the long rail. 2 ball on the middle diamond of the short rail (counterclockwise). Every other ball from 3-6 on the middle diamond of every rail (always counterclockwise). Ball in hand and run in order.

Everytime you run, you place the 1 ball on the same middle diamond and every other ball moves counterclockwise (always on middle diamonds).

 

[Neil]

Can you make a video playing Bert Kinister's "six pointed star" (all variations) by only using the vertical axis ?

I would like to see you speed control. :grin-square:

I'll get right on that right after I see your video of Bert's shot #1 and Shot #2 using english.

 

[ps611846]

I'll get right on that right after I see your video of Bert's shot #1 and Shot #2 using english.

I can make shot #1# which is straight - in with center ball - 1 tip of right or left - cb quarter english right or left. I can't "replace" the ob with english.

Shot #2 is really tough. I can't make it come straight back to the pocket.

My question was not about you knowing the 27 shots Bert teaches. Ok, you have seen his videos. Good for you !!!!!

I asked you if you can run the "six pointed star" or "nine pointed star" by staying on the vertical axis and not using sidespin.