Cue Ball Frozen to the Short Rail

The_JV said:
Can't really provide any insight into the whole "touch of" topic. I don't adhere to the method. I was simply playing the devil's advocate against playing center ball.

I personally don't fret over tip placement deviations on the CB as it relates to stroke mechanics. It's not that I believe I have flawless mechanics. I just know that it's the one aspect of my game I can count on to be reliable. I also tend to play with more english than you're average joe, so following the 'touch of' logic for sake of compensating center ball misfires is moot in nearly all cases. If and when I play center ball is generally to maintain the initial carom angle to the left or right, so they're struck with a level of force to provide friction induce CB rotation. Any horizontal deviation of a center ball CB strike doesn't generally effect these shots negatively.

All that said, I think the 'touch of' argument is a sound one.
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Thanks for a nice in-depth answer. I guess I still have to find a practitioner of "touch of" to see what they say. While the "touch of" argument intuitively seems sound, it won't hold up to scrutiny. The shape of cue ball and tip, the mechanical properties of both, all indicate that error is less punishing the closer to center the hit. Aside from that, we have something to align us, we judge symetrical on each side well.

Had to go on a little road trip and with nothing better to do I noodled this around a little bit. The way we apply side matters, I use a parallel shift although it is set down in place to begin with. Error is less costly with parallel shift than the same error is with back hand english. Even front hand english has less effect.

Something else, Unless several of us are trying to make a shot work I can't remember the last time I noticed tips of english. I want the cue ball to stop over yonder, I want to pocket the object ball, I'll hit the cue ball here to get things started. Ask me how much english I applied and I will probably say something like a lot of low and a little left. Kinda like my cooking. No matter what the recipe starts with there is usually a little windage involved along the line.

Hu
 
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ShootingArts said:
I can't remember the last time I noticed tips of english. I want the cue ball to stop over yonder, I want to pocket the object ball, I'll hit the cue ball here to get things started. Ask me how much english I applied and I will probably say something like a lot of low and a little left. Kinda like my cooking. No matter what the recipe starts with there is usually a little windage involved along the line
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I am retired out of the Carpenters. Our units of measurement went down to the finest unit of measurement being a RCH. Which is good enough for rough carpentry. Finish work could be done to within a Blond one. My flavors range for off center hits would top out at Caliente Gordo.
 
gregcantrall said:
I am retired out of the Carpenters. Our units of measurement went down to the finest unit of measurement being a RCH. Which is good enough for rough carpentry. Finish work could be done to within a Blond one. My flavors range for off center hits would top out at Caliente Gordo.
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Which raises the age old question, how many schooches in a smidgen or is it smidgens in a schooch? Every trade has it's secrets. My favoritest carpenter story other than the nails for the other side, back when times were very hard around here they were squeezing a lot of journeymen into taking second class jobs. A guy I knew had been a carpenter fifteen or twenty years. They squeezed him into a second class job. They took him to his truck to get his tools, he opened his toolbox and got out a hammer, saw, and tape measure!

A few days later the journeyman he was working with was struggling to lay out a containment wall that had some odd angles. The superintendent showed up and watched a few minutes. "Snook, don't you know how to lay that out?" "No sir! I did when I was a first class carpenter, can't remember how with second class pay."

My brother had a computer and network business. We were both system engineers and were installing all new hardware and software in a business. The president came up to watch from the door of the server room: "Need a thingamajig?" "Naw, got one. You have a watchamacallet over there." "Yeah, I got two, need one?" After about five minutes of this I looked over to the company president, "this is high level computer talk." He strayed by a few more times but couldn't stand to stay long. We could have worked together all day and never mentioned what we were doing.

Did have some good times working sometimes. I have to say that working on equipment that needed climate control beat hell out of working outdoors in the plants. All of the steam and such, sometimes the temperature was maybe a hundred and twenty degrees or so. Some morons scheduled things so a ten or twelve story boiler was fired up before it was insulated. To make things a bit more challenging, they hadn't made any provisions for hanging the sheet metal. About a minute arm's length from that boiler would suck all the air out of your lungs!

Hu
 
BC21 said:
I don't know exactly where the tip hits the ball, because it doesn't matter. What matters is how it feels and looks and how the shot turns out. I relate that to what it looks like from the centerline of the shaft/stroke, not to the exact point of contact. But now I wonder, is this how most other players do it??
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gregcantrall said:
My method and theory is diametrically opposed. My Kicks Like A Mule Challenge demonstrates the effect of the slightest variation in the strike to the cueball. This can yield a Huge variation in the grouping down range.
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Yes, precision can be critical, but using the cue's centerline to visualize the tip offset can be as precise as any other way.

pj
chgo
 
Patrick Johnson said:
Yes, precision can be critical, but using the cue's centerline to visualize the tip offset can be as precise as any other way.

pj
chgo
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With barrel point I learned to shoot an aspirin tablet thrown up in the air. It didn't take long to pick it up either. Barrel point is what I do to set the shooting platform, With the cue in the Natural balanced grip.
Stephen Hendry stressed the importance of finding the point on the object ball and staying with it. However he is focused on the cueball at contact. 🤷‍♂️ I need to have confidence in the line of aim to focus on the contact and anticipated path of the tip through the ball.
 
straightline said:
Serious question. What is the offset in tips of english? Center of tip at 6 ish mm off center equals 1/2 tip?
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Depends on your tip width. If you are aiming a 12mm tip so that the middle of the tip is lined up to center cb, then you move it "half a tip" to the right (the tip being 12mm, half is 6mm), you are now applying half a tip of right english. The left side of the tip will be lined up to center cb and the center of the tip will be aimed 6mm right of center cb.
 
BC21 said:
Depends on your tip width. If you are aiming a 12mm tip so that the middle of the tip is lined up to center cb, then you move it "half a tip" to the right (the tip being 12mm, half is 6mm), you are now applying half a tip of right english. The left side of the tip will be lined up to center cb and the center of the tip will be aimed 6mm right of center cb.
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I agree with you. However, some consider this a full tip of side for reasons I never quite understood. One of the problems trying to discuss things, we all can't even agree on something as simple as what that first tip of side is. Of course when people are talking from those different perspectives all kinds of useless arguments come up. How far to the side can you hit a cue ball? One group can hit it half a tip further out according to their measurements!

This discussion has been refreshing, reminds me of discussions from when I first came to AZB when we could have intelligent discussions. For a long time all would be discussions became arguments and there was no real communication. Hopefully this, and a few more threads over the last few months, mark a return to civil discussion. I have never understood why a technical discussion should turn heated but I have to admit that when someone talks about my parents and my dog I will return fire, usually with a flamethrower!(grin)

Hu
 
BC21 said:
Depends on your tip width. If you are aiming a 12mm tip so that the middle of the tip is lined up to center cb, then you move it "half a tip" to the right (the tip being 12mm, half is 6mm), you are now applying half a tip of right english. The left side of the tip will be lined up to center cb and the center of the tip will be aimed 6mm right of center cb.
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Thanks that seemed like the standard. I don't think in terms of tips and would rather just apply to taste. The confusion is 1/2 tip can also be a full tip off center and on and on...
 
ShootingArts said:
Thanks for a nice in-depth answer. I guess I still have to find a practitioner of "touch of" to see what they say. While the "touch of" argument intuitively seems sound, it won't hold up to scrutiny. The shape of cue ball and tip, the mechanical properties of both, all indicate that error is less punishing the closer to center the hit. Aside from that, we have something to align us, we judge symetrical on each side well.
Click to expand...
Right there I think is where the argument takes hold. I would agree that a 'smidge' of either left or right is less punishing then say a 'dap' of right more then the intended smidge. However if you planning on a smidge of right for whatever purpose and end up the complete opposite, that may cause problems.

Case in point. When I cut balls down the rail, lets say to the left. Unless there's a requirement of inside english (left), I always hit them with some level of right english. Why...?..., well I tend to aim for the point of the pocket of the rail the OB is travelling along. My style of aim tends to lean toward "missing where I don't want to go". So, I aim a half smidge thick and count on spin induced throw to correct the shot. If I happen to miss hit the CB and get a dab more english I'm still fine. If I end up striking center CB, I'm still fine but sloppy.

Now if I took the same shot and aimed with center CB I could end up with a smidge of either english. That smidge of left english may throw the OB into the rail and generate a miss. Not to mention the alternate path the CB would take once striking the adjacent rail would be wildly different. That said, I have a fairly decent handle on the physics of the game and therefore my initial aim wouldn't be at the point anymore, but more central to the pocket.

It must be said, what I'm discussing above doesn't adhere to the "touch of" methodology. Which if I recall correctly is so little english that the CB doesn't even manage a full revolution before striking the OB. I've seen it referred to as a "twist" of english. I equate that to pool's version of snake oil.

Regardless of the similarities or lack there of. I do lean toward aiming with some level of english unless of course the shot requires none. Kind of a "I'm ok with a little more" vs "I hope I don't get the opposite".
ShootingArts said:
Had to go on a little road trip and with nothing better to do I noodled this around a little bit. The way we apply side matters, I use a parallel shift although it is set down in place to begin with. Error is less costly with parallel shift than the same error is with back hand english. Even front hand english has less effect.
Click to expand...
I do the same. IMO back hand english is one of the things in this game that prevent players from improving. With time any bad form can be molded into a viable method, but BHE has to be the worse footing for any foundation I can imagine.
 
The_JV said:
Right there I think is where the argument takes hold. I would agree that a 'smidge' of either left or right is less punishing then say a 'dap' of right more then the intended smidge. However if you planning on a smidge of right for whatever purpose and end up the complete opposite, that may cause problems.

Case in point. When I cut balls down the rail, lets say to the left. Unless there's a requirement of inside english (left), I always hit them with some level of right english. Why...?..., well I tend to aim for the point of the pocket of the rail the OB is travelling along. My style of aim tends to lean toward "missing where I don't want to go". So, I aim a half smidge thick and count on spin induced throw to correct the shot. If I happen to miss hit the CB and get a dab more english I'm still fine. If I end up striking center CB, I'm still fine but sloppy.

Now if I took the same shot and aimed with center CB I could end up with a smidge of either english. That smidge of left english may throw the OB into the rail and generate a miss. Not to mention the alternate path the CB would take once striking the adjacent rail would be wildly different. That said, I have a fairly decent handle on the physics of the game and therefore my initial aim wouldn't be at the point anymore, but more central to the pocket.

It must be said, what I'm discussing above doesn't adhere to the "touch of" methodology. Which if I recall correctly is so little english that the CB doesn't even manage a full revolution before striking the OB. I've seen it referred to as a "twist" of english. I equate that to pool's version of snake oil.

Regardless of the similarities or lack there of. I do lean toward aiming with some level of english unless of course the shot requires none. Kind of a "I'm ok with a little more" vs "I hope I don't get the opposite".

I do the same. IMO back hand english is one of the things in this game that prevent players from improving. With time any bad form can be molded into a viable method, but BHE has to be the worse footing for any foundation I can imagine.
Click to expand...


Thanks! First time I have seen "touch of" even somewhat defined. Of course it sounds like we both use a little english on those down the rail shots, or really it depends on other factors for me, I suspect both of us. Running a ball down the rail was one of the first shots I learned on old five by tens with I don't know what rail profile, they were dead! Playing around with fairly shallow angles I could hit the rail hard over an inch behind the object ball and slide down the rail putting the ball in a pocket a foot or two away. I really started cooking with gas when I realized I was throwing away half of my margin and started shooting at the spot halfway out the inside rail I could see.

I think angles and collision induced spin will have more effect than any slight effect from hitting a cue ball a tiny amount one side of center or the other. I have to say that anyone that can hit a cue ball consistently with so little side that it spins less than once on the way to the object ball most of the time can hit center ball too. Seems like it has became a mental crutch for the touch of fans, but I am a believer in magic feathers. If somebody believes something makes them play better it usually will!

One of the places I cut my teeth was Nick's Steak House. Rumor had it that they once cooked a damned good steak there. Now all the restaurant tables and chairs were thrown in a pile almost ceiling high in a back corner and there were maybe between eight and twelve or more pool tables in that old dark room with the windows painted over. The only light would be over the table I was playing on and the little bar all the way up front. Hardcore alcoholics at the little bar, rarely anyone but myself on a table all night.

First time I saw somebody run a ball down a rail I thought it was cool and I worked on it until I could run a ball from almost side pocket down the rail to those big corners. I remember the feel, even get a whiff of the smell of that old place quietly rotting away. Mixed drinks were seventy-five cents, beer fifty or less, I don't remember at the moment. I think that was the last of the businesses there, the building was condemned and only stored that old bar and pool equipment until it was knocked down many years later I believe. I have wondered many a time what happened to those old tables. They were massive old tables, not Gold Crowns, no idea the brand now.

The good old days when times were rotten!

Hu
 
Patrick Johnson said:
Meaning the direction you want the CB to go?

Doesn't squirt dictate that you need some cue angle?

pj
chgo
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I have always adjusted my aim for the effects of the parallel shift. Any form of sidespin we use generally calls for some compensation in aim. I was bowling when I started playing pool and I thought of them much the same. Bowling you can aim at the arrows in the lane aiming directly at them, or you can aim at the split in the pins that you want to hit and make the compensations for the curving ball when you throw. Pool is much the same. When I am aiming I make the adjustments for what the cue ball's path will be.

Hu
 
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