Different aim for different tables?

K

ktrepal85

Banned
This could be all in my head but I think I noticed something significant over the past week. Let me know what you think:

I started playing on a 9 foot diamond with very tight pockets a lot lately. I was missing many shots and I realized that all of my misses were undercuts. So once I recognized my problem I adjusted my aim and started making everything. I had an epiphany and started playing really well with my new aiming points.

Well after a few days I played on my home table which is a 7 foot valley and my new technique of overcutting wasn't working. When I shot to overcut the ball it actually overcut and missed the pocket lol.

So now I'm puzzled. My first thought was maybe different tables play different to the point where you need to change the cut angle. This is something I've never considered before...can this be true?

My second thought was that maybe the cut induced throw of the object ball is having more of any effect on the 9 foot table since most of the shots are longer. But this doesn't seem like it would have such a significant effect.

My third thought was that maybe I'm crazy and this is all in my head and I'm not shooting exactly the same as I was on the big tables.

Anyways, what do you guys think? Do you ever change your shooting angles depending on the table?

FYI: Both tables have Simonis 860 however the 9 footer plays a little faster and both tables are very level.
 
I've had the same exact experience and I have chalked it up to different lighting.
Although it has been when I shot on a diamond as opposed to a GC.
I just think with the Diamond lighting I see the ball differently than I normally do with inefficient lighting.
I shoot on nothing but 9' tables and notice this effect of hitting the ball too thick on diamonds.
It has nothing to do with the table being 7' or 9' but I know exactly what you're talking about.
I don't even think it is really that you have to hit it thicker but its how much more of the ball you see with a diamond light.
I think you're used to there being more of a shadow and your brain aligns your aiming point with what you remember in the light/shadow.
 
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I believe the slate on a Diamond is 5/8ths of an inch thicker.....
...the weight of a table affects the speed....maybe angles also.

Not in your case, but cloth is usually the biggest factor....
...a heavy cloth hits thick
 
Yes the angles do change enough on differently sized tables to make a significant difference. yes proportionally the tables are all exactly the same 2:1 ratio in size. the problem is when you get really good at a specific size table you get an automatic "Feel" for shots based on the relative position of the balls to the rails, diamonds, and pockets.

for example: put an object ball 12 inches away from the rail directly in the center between the side pockets. The angle to the pocket from that spot is different on 7, 8, and 9 foot tables. You may have hit that shot on that spot 1000 times perfect on your table, but if you play on a bigger table with that exact same shot layout, whoops you just under cut it.

sucks but it's true.
 
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ktrepal85 said:
This could be all in my head but I think I noticed something significant over the past week. Let me know what you think:

I started playing on a 9 foot diamond with very tight pockets a lot lately. I was missing many shots and I realized that all of my misses were undercuts. So once I recognized my problem I adjusted my aim and started making everything. I had an epiphany and started playing really well with my new aiming points.

Well after a few days I played on my home table which is a 7 foot valley and my new technique of overcutting wasn't working. When I shot to overcut the ball it actually overcut and missed the pocket lol.

So now I'm puzzled. My first thought was maybe different tables play different to the point where you need to change the cut angle. This is something I've never considered before...can this be true?

My second thought was that maybe the cut induced throw of the object ball is having more of any effect on the 9 foot table since most of the shots are longer. But this doesn't seem like it would have such a significant effect.

My third thought was that maybe I'm crazy and this is all in my head and I'm not shooting exactly the same as I was on the big tables.

Anyways, what do you guys think? Do you ever change your shooting angles depending on the table?

FYI: Both tables have Simonis 860 however the 9 footer plays a little faster and both tables are very level.
Click to expand...

Yep. In your head. The size of the pockets is part of the difference but the easiest way for me to put it is that on a bigger table you miss wider. If your pockets aren't shimmed then cutting a ball the right side of the pocket with a specific angle every time, whether on purpose of by accident usually will cause you to miss on the right side on a big table. I don't know how tight this diamond is that you are referring to but if its anything like the ones I play on, they are very intimidating at first. You are also looking at everything from a "zoomed out" perspective which will throw your perception off a tad. However the angles do not change at all.

RussPrince said:
Yes the angles do change enough on differently sized tables to make a significant difference. yes proportionally the tables are all exactly the same 2:1 ratio in size. the problem is when you get really good a specific sized table you get an automatic "Feel" for shots based on the relative position of the balls to the rails, diamonds, and pockets.

for example: put an object ball 12 inches away from the rail directly in line with a side pocket. The angle to the pocket from that spot is different on 7, 8, and 9 foot tables. You may have hit that shot on that spot 1000 times perfect on your table, but if you play on a bigger table with that exact same shot layout, whoops you just under cut it.

sucks but it's true.
Click to expand...

Angles don't change.
 
Am amgle is an angle is an angle. you could be playing on the football field and a 10degree cut to the pocket will always be 10 degrees....that's math:) You might be talking about extraneous factors that affect the balls and the roll, but not table dimension
 
ktrepal85 said:
This could be all in my head but I think I noticed something significant over the past week. Let me know what you think:

I started playing on a 9 foot diamond with very tight pockets a lot lately. I was missing many shots and I realized that all of my misses were undercuts. So once I recognized my problem I adjusted my aim and started making everything. I had an epiphany and started playing really well with my new aiming points.

Well after a few days I played on my home table which is a 7 foot valley and my new technique of overcutting wasn't working. When I shot to overcut the ball it actually overcut and missed the pocket lol.

So now I'm puzzled. My first thought was maybe different tables play different to the point where you need to change the cut angle. This is something I've never considered before...can this be true?

My second thought was that maybe the cut induced throw of the object ball is having more of any effect on the 9 foot table since most of the shots are longer. But this doesn't seem like it would have such a significant effect.

My third thought was that maybe I'm crazy and this is all in my head and I'm not shooting exactly the same as I was on the big tables.

Anyways, what do you guys think? Do you ever change your shooting angles depending on the table?

FYI: Both tables have Simonis 860 however the 9 footer plays a little faster and both tables are very level.
Click to expand...

The angles are the same but a lot of conditions can change your aim point.

First of all, a tight table reveals the cracks in your fine aiming skills. They do not reward players who habitually cheat the pocket to get shape. Down the rail cut shots especially reveal bad aiming habits. I pretty much only play on tight pockets and on down the rail cut shots I try to aim so that the object ball does not brush the rail on the way to the pocket. This usually involves targeting slightly outside the pocket's dead center - maybe 1/4" or so, or using a little extra English to throw the OB cleanly down the rail.

Concerning other things that affect aim, were the balls clean, and the rooms about the same temperature and humidity? I have found that temperature, humidity, the moisture level of the cloth and cleanliness/condition of the balls can have a discernible effect on throw. The first thing I would recommend is wiping off the balls with a clean, dry cloth.
 
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Drop The Rock said:
Yep. In your head. The size of the pockets is part of the difference but the easiest way for me to put it is that on a bigger table you miss wider. If your pockets aren't shimmed then cutting a ball the right side of the pocket with a specific angle every time, whether on purpose of by accident usually will cause you to miss on the right side on a big table. I don't know how tight this diamond is that you are referring to but if its anything like the ones I play on, they are very intimidating at first. You are also looking at everything from a "zoomed out" perspective which will throw your perception off a tad. However the angles do not change at all.



Angles don't change.
Click to expand...

+1

The angles are the same, the OP is just hitting them bad.

A 1/2" miss on a 3' shot could be 2" at 8', depending on the angle.
 
The angles of the shots are different. It is true that the 'relative' angles on a pool table do not change - a spot shot is always the same angle regardless of the size of the table. But if you take a shot 5 inches off the rail 2 diamonds away from the corner pocket and imagine a triangle - the base of the triangle will always be 5 inches, but the height of the triangle will change the bigger the table gets. 2 diamonds of height is much longer on the 9 foot table than the 7 footer - so the angle has to be different. Taking this analogy further, the angle required to cut said shot to the pocket in a 7 foot table would be an undercut on a 9 footer - as the OP stated. It would come up short. Your brain was trained to hit the 5 inch 2 diamond shot at X angle, and it was slightly off.
 
It's not pertinent to the OP's problem...
...but angles DO change on thicker cloth...
...if you roll in a half-ball cut on a fast cloth...and then hit the same place on a very thick
cloth...you will miss it thick.
I THINK it's because whitey stays in contact with the object ball a nano second longer
and pulls the ball thick.

PJ, Bob Jewett, or the Doc could explain this better....but I know it from empirical experience.
 
The cleanliness of the balls and sometimes the surface texture of the <older> balls will add CIT and SIT throw to the CB-OB interaction.
 
Not so fast!!

Drop The Rock said:
Yep. In your head. The size of the pockets is part of the difference but the easiest way for me to put it is that on a bigger table you miss wider. If your pockets aren't shimmed then cutting a ball the right side of the pocket with a specific angle every time, However the angles do not change at all. \

Angles don't change.
Click to expand...

The dead center of the pocket never changes that's true, but if you shooting into a 4.75'' pocket where you can make the shot changes if you go to a table with a 4.25'' pocket, so in that regard the angle does change.

You can shoot the shot at the same angle and miss very badly on a super tight table if you are not hitting dead center, that's the only that doesn't change.
 
My experience agrees with the last comment. Tighter pocket tables usually require slower pocket speeds and an aiming point that brings the object ball EITHER into the pocket center or toward the pocket FACING, not the pocket POINT. Looser pockets will allow entry even when the object ball hits the rail or point first if the speed is not too great. Even 4 7/8 pockets can play tight if the cut on the pocket has different angles between the two incoming rails to that pocket -- Steinway Billiards-Queens NY GCs exhibit this -if you ever played on their standard pocket tables, you will soon realize the pocket "cut" in that room favors an aiming point more closely aligned to a tight pocket table--the Cue Bar in Queens and Raxx n LI standard GCs play "looser" because the two incoming rails to the pockets on their tables are cut more evenly.
Willie Mosconi, if you ever watched him warm up before an exhibition- I did--always judged pocket cut and rail/cloth speed before any match- he knew that, in fact--every room and every table has its own unique characteristics, in his own words.
 
RussPrince said:
Yes the angles do change enough on differently sized tables to make a significant difference. yes proportionally the tables are all exactly the same 2:1 ratio in size. the problem is when you get really good at a specific size table you get an automatic "Feel" for shots based on the relative position of the balls to the rails, diamonds, and pockets.

for example: put an object ball 12 inches away from the rail directly in the center between the side pockets. The angle to the pocket from that spot is different on 7, 8, and 9 foot tables. You may have hit that shot on that spot 1000 times perfect on your table, but if you play on a bigger table with that exact same shot layout, whoops you just under cut it.

sucks but it's true.
Click to expand...

JasBy said:
The angles of the shots are different. It is true that the 'relative' angles on a pool table do not change - a spot shot is always the same angle regardless of the size of the table. But if you take a shot 5 inches off the rail 2 diamonds away from the corner pocket and imagine a triangle - the base of the triangle will always be 5 inches, but the height of the triangle will change the bigger the table gets. 2 diamonds of height is much longer on the 9 foot table than the 7 footer - so the angle has to be different. Taking this analogy further, the angle required to cut said shot to the pocket in a 7 foot table would be an undercut on a 9 footer - as the OP stated. It would come up short. Your brain was trained to hit the 5 inch 2 diamond shot at X angle, and it was slightly off.
Click to expand...
These sound right to me.

It's surprising to me how familiar we get with the shape and dimensions of the table, to the point that we develop an accurate "Spidey Sense" of where the pockets are even when we're not looking at them.

Given that, it makes sense that expecting the pockets to be a shorter distance away down the rail would make you tend to "aim short" or undercut shots.

pj
chgo
 
Looser pockets allow for more error in aiming, tighter pockets require more precise aiming, missing a shot has nothing to do with the size of the table, the type of cloth or anything else....or it would have the same effect on straight in shots as well...in which the same aiming is required to pocket a ball as well....and we've ALL missed STRAIGHT IN SHOTS.
 
Friction induced throw...........

ktrepal85 said:
This could be all in my head but I think I noticed something significant over the past week. Let me know what you think:

I started playing on a 9 foot diamond with very tight pockets a lot lately. I was missing many shots and I realized that all of my misses were undercuts. So once I recognized my problem I adjusted my aim and started making everything. I had an epiphany and started playing really well with my new aiming points.

Well after a few days I played on my home table which is a 7 foot valley and my new technique of overcutting wasn't working. When I shot to overcut the ball it actually overcut and missed the pocket lol.

So now I'm puzzled. My first thought was maybe different tables play different to the point where you need to change the cut angle. This is something I've never considered before...can this be true?

My second thought was that maybe the cut induced throw of the object ball is having more of any effect on the 9 foot table since most of the shots are longer. But this doesn't seem like it would have such a significant effect.

My third thought was that maybe I'm crazy and this is all in my head and I'm not shooting exactly the same as I was on the big tables.

Anyways, what do you guys think? Do you ever change your shooting angles depending on the table?

FYI: Both tables have Simonis 860 however the 9 footer plays a little faster and both tables are very level.
Click to expand...

if you play where there is allot of humidity the cue ball will kind of grab the object ball a little with every shot especially if the balls are a little dirty.

It could be the cleaner that they use on the balls also.

I played in a tournament this last weekend in Mankato, Mn. Nice poolhall. Kate Cue Club.

You had to make sure you were cutting everything as thin as you needed or you were in trouble.

Knowing how this works with humidity and tight pockets on these diamonds helped me win this one.

Everyone was hitting the balls too thick.

Has nothing to do with the size of the table. But it does have to do with the many conditions that the average player doesn't understand.

There's info out on this. It's out there.

I call it friction induced throw.

Good Luck...........
 
genomachino said:
if you play where there is allot of humidity the cue ball will kind of grab the object ball a little with every shot especially if the balls are a little dirty.

It could be the cleaner that they use on the balls also.

I played in a tournament this last weekend in Mankato, Mn. Nice poolhall. Kate Cue Club.

You had to make sure you were cutting everything as thin as you needed or you were in trouble.

Knowing how this works with humidity and tight pockets on these diamonds helped me win this one.

Everyone was hitting the balls too thick.

Has nothing to do with the size of the table. But it does have to do with the many conditions that the average player doesn't understand.

There's info out on this. It's out there.

I call it friction induced throw.

Good Luck...........
Click to expand...


This is one of the reasons it's so important to adjust to a room with some practice racks before playing. This is something road players deal with all the time. Usually they adjust quickly because they're used to playing under a wide variety of conditions.
 
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genomachino said:
I call it friction induced throw...
Click to expand...
That's accurate, but all throw is friction-induced. We usually talk about two kinds: spin-induced (for mostly straight shots with side spin) and collision-induced (for cuts with no side spin). Of course, the two kinds can also be combined (cuts with side spin), but there's a limit to how much throw can be produced.

pj
chgo
 
Patrick Johnson said:
That's accurate, but all throw is friction-induced. We usually talk about two kinds: spin-induced (for mostly straight shots with side spin) and collision-induced (for cuts with no side spin). Of course, the two kinds can also be combined (cuts with side spin), but there's a limit to how much throw can be produced.
Click to expand...
All shots involve a "collision." That's why I think "cut-induced throw" (CIT) is a better name than "collision-induced throw." Throw can be caused either by spin (SIT) or cut angle (CIT).

Also, these effects don't really add like many people think. For example, if you are getting maximum throw with a slow, 1/2-ball hit stun shot, you can't get more throw by adding inside spin. In fact, the inside spin will reduce the amount of throw.

For people who are interested in this and want more info and demonstrations, check out the videos and list of supported claims on the squirt, swerve, and throw effects summary page.

Enjoy,
Dave
 
How do you aim? If you use some sort of system, that could be the issue.

I always aim by planting an imaginary line from the back of the object ball to the hole, there is the contact point. That line will be there on any table and size pocket. Then it's time to use the 25 years of shooting experience to adjust for spin and position speed and shoot.

Trick is to hit the contact point LOL

ktrepal85 said:
This could be all in my head but I think I noticed something significant over the past week. Let me know what you think:

I started playing on a 9 foot diamond with very tight pockets a lot lately. I was missing many shots and I realized that all of my misses were undercuts. So once I recognized my problem I adjusted my aim and started making everything. I had an epiphany and started playing really well with my new aiming points.

Well after a few days I played on my home table which is a 7 foot valley and my new technique of overcutting wasn't working. When I shot to overcut the ball it actually overcut and missed the pocket lol.

So now I'm puzzled. My first thought was maybe different tables play different to the point where you need to change the cut angle. This is something I've never considered before...can this be true?

My second thought was that maybe the cut induced throw of the object ball is having more of any effect on the 9 foot table since most of the shots are longer. But this doesn't seem like it would have such a significant effect.

My third thought was that maybe I'm crazy and this is all in my head and I'm not shooting exactly the same as I was on the big tables.

Anyways, what do you guys think? Do you ever change your shooting angles depending on the table?

FYI: Both tables have Simonis 860 however the 9 footer plays a little faster and both tables are very level.
Click to expand...
 
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