Delfection/Spin Methods

[Pawlowski424]

Hey everybody,

I'm posting this thread in hopes that I can find a method/approach to improving my game as well as others. My question is regarding deflection.

How do you (personally) compensate for deflection?
Does hitting english on the lower half of the cue ball differ from english on the upper half of the cue ball for you?
Do you have any rules of thumb you'd care to share?
How do you judge your deflection when there's distance involved?
Is it a part of your aiming while standing?

And anything else I may be missing or that I'm unaware of.

I'll share a couple of my methods for the sake of the thread.

I start left or right of the center of the cue ball when I am using spin (depending on the shot/aim/fraction). I compensate differently for the lower half of the cue ball than do the upper half. If you aren't aware of what I mean by that, I suggest you go to a table and try to figure it out. It will improve your game.

Thanks everybody.

 

[NevadaP]

How do you (personally) compensate for deflection?
I don't compensate unless the cue ball is going to travel approx 3 feet + before making contact. Beyond that, I allow for 1/4 to 1/2 ball (intended object ball) deflection depending upon how far off center I aim, and the speed of the shot (a touch more for hard hits). This is with a 11.75mm Kielwood cue, but no different on a 11.75 carbon.

How do you judge your deflection when there's distance involved?
My system (above) is 'seat of the pants' based on watching what the cue ball has done on many previous shots.

No difference for 'high' or 'low' on cue ball.

 

[MitchAlsup]

How do you (personally) compensate for deflection?
Does hitting english on the lower half of the cue ball differ from english on the upper half of the cue ball for you?
Do you have any rules of thumb you'd care to share?
How do you judge your deflection when there's distance involved?
Is it a part of your aiming while standing?

If you do not compensate for deflection, swerve, spin:: you won't make balls.

Hitting english (L-R) low causes the CB to Massé curve.
Hitting english high only gets 1/4 the curve hitting low gets.

To judge deflection you have to develop you computer inside your head and get a feel for it.
There is nothing like hitting and making 1,000,000 balls to train that little computer.

 

[boogieman]

How do you (personally) compensate for deflection?

Getting to know my cue and back hand english (BHE). I basically address the ball with that in mind.

Does hitting english on the lower half of the cue ball differ from english on the upper half of the cue ball for you?

Sort of. Rolling cue ball behaves naturally, force follow behaves or feels quite different than draw. I'll let the more knowledgeable get into the whys. I just know it feels different.

Do you have any rules of thumb you'd care to share?

Try to stay within a dime area near the center of the cueball. Less is more.

How do you judge your deflection when there's distance involved?

Personally, feel. The longer the shot the more accurate everything has to be. It's one of those things sitting up a certain shot and doing it 50 times helps with. There are systems out there, I think Dr. Dave has SAWS, but personally other than understanding the concept they don't help me much. Your 1 tip and my 1 tip is different. We see, feel, think of measurements differently so it's a good baseline but like any system it requires table time to get onto.

Is it a part of your aiming while standing?

Yes, I want to know exactly what I'm wanting to "put on" the ball while doing the analytical standing up stuff. When I get into position the tip should go where I want. If the tip feels wonky or wobbly when I'm down I know I didn't address the ball correctly. Feather the cue before stroking or practice strokes, whatever you're doing... it should be traveling in a straight line without side wobble. Watch Deuel or Ghorst, etc stroke really closely. Notice how the tip follows through in a linear motion? They line up and their shaft doesn't wobble. Watch some pros feather the cue, they are making sure everything is in line and calibrated. The difference I see in most pros (well the ones without absolute wonky strokes) is that the cue is linear and travels through the cue ball in a straight line. I'm not talking pendulum stroke robots either, better players stroke is smoother and straighter than regular players. That's part of the reason they execute shots so well.

And anything else I may be missing or that I'm unaware of.

Be sure your fundamentals are tip top before trying to learn this stuff. It makes learning faster and doesn't input bad info into your "system." If you can't hit the CB within 1mm of your intentions you should focus on that first. There's more to gain from that than anything.

 

[ChrisinNC]

Hey everybody,

I'm posting this thread in hopes that I can find a method/approach to improving my game as well as others. My question is regarding deflection.

How do you (personally) compensate for deflection?
Does hitting english on the lower half of the cue ball differ from english on the upper half of the cue ball for you?
Do you have any rules of thumb you'd care to share?
How do you judge your deflection when there's distance involved?
Is it a part of your aiming while standing?

And anything else I may be missing or that I'm unaware of.

I'll share a couple of my methods for the sake of the thread.

I start left or right of the center of the cue ball when I am using spin (depending on the shot/aim/fraction). I compensate differently for the lower half of the cue ball than do the upper half. If you aren't aware of what I mean by that, I suggest you go to a table and try to figure it out. It will improve your game.

Thanks everybody.

There are no short cuts - trial and error is the only way for your brain to learn it. Simply put, the more off center you spin it, the more you must compensate in your aim for deflection.

This of course is assuming there is no elevation of your cue during the stroke, which would then involve compensating for swerve, which can offset or potentially eliminate or even override the compensation for deflection.

 

[Island Drive]

OP
''How do you (personally) compensate for deflection"

It's a feel thing that changes with cloth and ball and table cleanliness.
These are pre match practice shots ''to get that table feel'' of ball collisions and cue ball reactions and rail speed.

 

[garczar]

Just go shoot balls using spin. You'll figure it out. Everyone's stroke is different as are the multitude of cues/shafts. I'd start out just shooting directly at the OB with various spins, speed, distances. Pay close attention to how much the CB squirts You'll figure it out pretty quik.

 

[Tennesseejoe]

I think a good way to learn about deflection and throw is the set up a long diagonal shot to a corner. Mark where you put the cue ball and where you put the object ball. Now shoot the object ball in the pocket and try to keep the cue ball stop and spinning in place. Always use the same english. When you are consistent in making this shot, continue shooting with english on the other side. You now have a benchmark.
The variations of this are infinite, so continue with another variation. This will give you a feel for the shots. Good luck.

 

[iusedtoberich]

I'll use the word "shift" for any variation from ghost ball aim below:

Every shot I shoot is a bit of a guess. Everything affects how thick or thin to aim the shot. I "think" I get the biggest aim shift when I hit a high speed shot with center outside spin. More than low outside, and more than high outside.

Another shot I have a lot of shift is high inside/outside when the CB is very close to the rail. That particular shot swerves a mile into the direction of the spin.

How much to shift is based on experience. I personally don't believe there "could" be any system that can predict the shift. That's why I think most of the aiming systems are completely goofy. (I don't want to go there!).

 

[Patrick Johnson]

This might help you learn some basic principles, even if you don't use the system:

System for Aiming With Sidespin (SAWS) - Dr. Dave Pool Info

What is the System for Aiming With Sidespin (SAWS)? System for Aiming With Sidespin (SAWS) is a full-length instructional video by Dr. Dave that covers a simple and methodical system to find accurate lines of aim for sidespin shots of any distance, speed, and amount of spin.. It is based on...

billiards.colostate.edu

pj
chgo

 

[Oikawa]

I'll use the word "shift" for any variation from ghost ball aim below:

Every shot I shoot is a bit of a guess. Everything affects how thick or thin to aim the shot. I "think" I get the biggest aim shift when I hit a high speed shot with center outside spin. More than low outside, and more than high outside.

Another shot I have a lot of shift is high inside/outside when the CB is very close to the rail. That particular shot swerves a mile into the direction of the spin.

How much to shift is based on experience. I personally don't believe there "could" be any system that can predict the shift. That's why I think most of the aiming systems are completely goofy. (I don't want to go there!).

I agree with this. I visualize the entire shot (path of OB and CB), and get an intuitive feel for how much to adjust. I visualize the ghost ball and then adjust from there depending on the spin, elevation etc. Work on your fundamentals, then get some reps in for all kinds of spin shots and it will improve over time for sure.

 

[straightline]

BHE works fine until it doesn't; usually speed related. You can avoid the failure zones or learn the extra adjustment. BHE with transposed aim for example. There's always some combination of familiar control.

 

[Bob Jewett]

... I'm posting this thread in hopes that I can find a method/approach to improving my game as well as others. My question is regarding deflection.
...

One approach is to simply play a lot of shots and build up a repertoire of side spin shots. Work on shots you have trouble with in games. Try speed/spin variations of each shot.

Another approach is to try to understand what's going on. You will still have to work on shots you have trouble with, but the knowledge will let you figure out what might be wrong and will tell you what to expect if you change the speed, spin and elevation.

The basics of how all that stuff works is available in Dr. Dave's videos or on his website. It might help to have an experienced player help you on the more confusing shots and situations, as in "Why didn't draw bring that ball back but instead made it go forward more off the rail?"

As one example of things you need to know: all normal side spin shots have swerve, and how quickly the swerve happens partly depends on whether you use draw or follow. You will almost never play with a level stick.

 

[MattPoland]

Zero-X drills taught me to sticker up a shot and shoot every variety of English on it until I could accomplish 10 of 10 and then sticker up a new shot. My feel improved by a demonstrative margin.

 

[markjames]

great post mister!
look at all the excellent advice
ask valuable questions
get high quality answers
thanks to you
-and all the excellent responses

 

[Pawlowski424]

Okay. I'm not trying to toot my own horn when I say this, but I'm no slouch at the table lol. I'm an unknown, and I prefer to keep it that way.

The way I do things at the table is objective. Objective for me creates a consistency and the ability to adjust quickly and more efficiently. Thats my thing. No matter what, there'll be "feel" in pool and I'm aware of this. No doubt. It's getting better every week.

I have my methods of using spin. I'm not a beginner. I'm not intermediate. I'm not average. I'm up there, a little bit. I'm just interested in other peoples methods when they're using spin and how they account for that out of curiosity. Perhaps I wanna see if it lines up with how I do things. Or, perhaps someone has something that's better than mine. I'll share another little nugget just in case it may help someone:

1. Deflection can be used to fine tune shots/thin cuts. (I'll let you figure that one out )

I wanna shout out NevadaP for sharing their little detail/observation.

 

[Oikawa]

Okay. I'm not trying to toot my own horn when I say this, but I'm no slouch at the table lol. I'm an unknown, and I prefer to keep it that way.

I'm not sure if you are saying this because people are replying in a simple "just HAMB and you'll figure it out" sort of way, but if so, I wouldn't say it reflects their thought upon your skill level at all, but rather that HAMB truly is the answer to these things for most players, especially the better they get.

Simplifying things and turning down systematical approaches when it comes to aiming/compensating for spin can be thought to come from a lack of intellect/understanding which you perhaps find to be true, but in this case it's the opposite for most people; even the most analytical of people will eventually realize the power of their intuition as they progress in their game.

After doing something for long enough and well enough, you just visualize the desired outcome and let everything else happen automatically from that.

 

[Pawlowski424]

I'm not sure if you are saying this because people are replying in a simple "just HAMB and you'll figure it out" sort of way, but if so, I wouldn't say it reflects their thought upon your skill level at all, but rather that HAMB truly is the answer to these things for most players, especially the better they get.

Simplifying things and turning down systematical approaches when it comes to aiming/compensating for spin can be thought to come from a lack of intellect/understanding which you perhaps find to be true, but in this case it's the opposite for most people; even the most analytical of people will eventually realize the power of their intuition as they progress in their game.

After doing something for long enough and well enough, you just visualize the desired outcome and let everything else happen automatically from that.

Ohhhh, that response is me interpreting most of the replies on here as if I'm struggling with deflection or spinning the cue ball sometimes. I'm not. I just want to get some idea of how other high speed players are doing their thing. I won't air out everything I taught myself because I spent a LOT of time figuring out why things work the way that they do and how I can use those details in other situations/games.

I have no concerns whether one is technical or not. From my experince 8/10 people of various speeds of play depend on "intuition". Generally speaking, the ones that rely on this and are still strong players started relatively young. I'm not one of them. Therefore that intuition/feel isn't there and I had to really get analytical as you say and develop an imperfect understanding of why things work the way they do. Including deflection.

For me, I dont have to analyze as much (depending on the table/game) because the information has just gotten so refined. And it's getting better. But, I'm looking to find any slight improvements to my game that I can.

 

[SpiderWebComm]

Ohhhh, that response is me interpreting most of the replies on here as if I'm struggling with deflection or spinning the cue ball sometimes. I'm not. I just want to get some idea of how other high speed players are doing their thing. I won't air out everything I taught myself because I spent a LOT of time figuring out why things work the way that they do and how I can use those details in other situations/games.

I have no concerns whether one is technical or not. From my experince 8/10 people of various speeds of play depend on "intuition". Generally speaking, the ones that rely on this and are still strong players started relatively young. I'm not one of them. Therefore that intuition/feel isn't there and I had to really get analytical as you say and develop an imperfect understanding of why things work the way they do. Including deflection.

For me, I dont have to analyze as much (depending on the table/game) because the information has just gotten so refined. And it's getting better. But, I'm looking to find any slight improvements to my game that I can.

What I'm going to post is completely opposite of what the science and math guys do and preach but it is an alternative that definitely works. Don't make guessing and adjustments to compensate for deflection when aiming, make it a part of the aiming process itself like CJ Wiley with a parallel shift for TOI or other pivoting systems that can go from CCB to an angled tip/shaft to the outside. Use the width of the tip and amounts to home in for what you want to do. There's a lot on YouTube if you have the time and desire to seek it out. If I go beyond what I just posted to explain it, guess what is going to happen?

 

[RandyinHawaii]

I've been working on the system JJ shows in a video on Youtube; Ttitle is: Jeremy Jones Pool Instruction - Aiming with English