Do you use an aiming system or go by feel?
- Thread starter SamLambert
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I'm watching this!
No. Sorry guys but I have to take this one.
No. That's not how it works.
The cte line as an initial alignment is LITERALLY less than a mm way from the actual UNKNOWN shot line.
To me this is the key to everything that makes CTE work.
The shooter starts out simple orienting their eyes and body to the CTE line. At that position IF they brought their cue down to center ball the shot for everything but a pure 30 cut would miss the pocket.
BUT the cue tip is literally just a tiny shift away from the actual shot line at this point. And the pivot to center from a half tip away represents this tiny shift. For whatever reason it brings the bridge hand V into line with the actual shot line EVEN IF THE SHOOTER DOESN"T KNOW THAT THE LINE IS RIGHT.
What I mean is that even if the shot line LOOKS WRONG it turns out to be right when using CTE.
Especially when a person first starts learning CTE. You have many moments where your brain is screaming wrong but the shot line you end up on is right.
Here is a diagram where the shots are set up on a string. The red lines represent the actual Ghost Ball shot line. The purple lines represent the actual Center to Edge line.
The important thing to notice here is that the cue ball IS the focal point. Not the object ball. The cue ball center would be lined up to the GB center IF that GB position were 100% known as in if a template were in the GB position. The only place where the cue ball can be struck however is the side facing the shooter.
So, the important thing here then is what happens to the lines when they converge on the cueball and exit it out the back. Since the shooter is using the Center to Edge line to place his body relative to that line which exists in ONLY one place per shot he is literally only a teeny shift away from the actual ghost ball line.
Here is another image, it is from the same diagram but blown up to convey what I found in actual measurments. Notice that the distance between the GB shot line and the CTE line at the back of the ball is less than a half mm no matter the distance between the cueball and the object ball.
This is what led to me making this video titled convergence lines.
Think about this for a moment folks......... using GB you are trying to imagine a phantom ball down table and in line with the pocket which itself is off angle to your focus. BUT if you can orient yourself to the CTE Line and focus then on the CB you have narrowed your field of vision and your focus to just the cue ball and in reality to just half of it.
You already know you need to get to center ball (disregard the use of spin for this exercise please). You already know that going straight in on the CTE line won't work.
But somehow if you use a secondary line coming off the edge of the CB to the Object ball and orient your body between them and then come into the shot laying your bridge hand down with the tip a half tip away from center and then pivot to center ball you land on the exact ghost ball line. - I don't know WHY this works but I would bet it has something to do with that teeny space between the KNOWN CTE line and the Unknown GB shot line. It's like the shooter if literally forced into the right shot line and I don't think that this is because the shooter's subconscious is picking it up. I think that there is some tie in with the tight alignment forced on the shooter by the use of the CTE line and the secondary a-b-c line or 15/30/45 degree perception.
I think that the CTE line brings the shooter so close to the actual shot line that the secondary line and the pivot seal the deal - from the cueball as the focal point. This is my opinion of how and why it works for all shots.
The pivot is the same distance. The body's orientation is deliberately placed by the lines "seen". The shooter literally has very little choice in the matter if he follows the instructions literally. Thus he often does not know that the shot line is correct. Not because his subsconscious knows it is (that would actually be wonderful if the subconscious could pick the true shot line each time) but because the shooter is using a different type of perception that is cueball focused and not pocket focused.
What I mean by this is that the old way is pocket----->object ball------>cueball-----cue where the shooter first plots the shot backwards from the pocket to the cueball and tries to lay the cue down on the line he thinks is right.
The CTE way is shooter----->cueball------>object ball. That's it. Experience shows that this is all that's needed because a limited number of "perceptions" works for the vast amount of shots using this method. In my opinion because of that incredibly small space between the easy-to-see Center to Edge line and the not-easy-to-find ghost ball line (shot line). That tiny space makes all the physical difference when this perceptual method is used to get down on the shot.
To me this has proven itself to be not only very objective but it bears out shot after shot after shot after shot. (yes I still miss, yes I lost a $10,000 one pocket match being cast as a poster boy for CTE) I have put in tons of hours on the table trying to trick this system and find flaws and holes and I can't.
I would be MORE THAN HAPPY to spend table time with someone willing to go through it with me and point out what shots can't work with CTE and do it all on camera. We can film in super slow motion and then see if I am steering the shots they say are impossible. I have shot as slowly as humanly possible during my testing to try and insure no steering. (and I do have a bad stroke which requires me to really focus on keeping it straight)
I personally use this method to aim when I play. I don't know how else to say it but that it truly works for me. I can fully understand that some people get the DVD and their eyes would cross and they would say screw it this is all BS. But it's not. 90/90 is a simpler method of ball to ball aiming and it works great for tons of shots. I use it a lot along with CTE. These methods just work and the math or 3-d diagramming to explain why is well above my pay grade but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It simply doesn't matter to me because these methods work without holes as far as I can tell.
Now, I am not the best player. But I can hold my own wherever I have ever been in my life. Oklahoma, Florida, Charlotte, Germany, China, wherever I have gone I been one of the better players in town. I have also devoured Byrne's books, 99 critical shots and many others, tons of accu-stats tapes and tons of instructional tapes, had instruction from local instructors to professional players. I have been gambling on pool since I was 12 and have my share of tournament trophies and league victories in my life. So I know pool and myself well enough to know what is happening when I shoot balls.
I hope it's clear that I have put a lot of thought into this. I am no one's lapdog on this topic and no one's shill. I was dragged into this topic by Hal Houle. I didn't seek him out, I didn't seek out Stan. I bought the first DVD and I was like, oh shit this is going to be hard for people to digest. And it was, for me as well. So I worked it a little and then put it aside preferring to use "my" version of CTE that I had cobbled together from all the bits and pieces of information on the net and what people had sent me privately.
But when Stan started doing the curtain shots and the banking shots I knew I should try harder to understand his methods and instruction and that's when I started going slowly chapter by chapter and working through it, using the reference shots and the chart provided to REALLY try hard to get the perceptions as given.
That's when I realized that CTE the way Stan teaches it is super accurate. But I still didn't know WHY.
And subconscious adjustment didn't feel right. Now the assertion that the pivot is somehow the pliable missing link that adjusts to all angles doesn't feel right either. I say this based 100% on my own hours trying to figure out each step and find the WHY, be it subconscious or some spot where I had to "guess" and "go for it". I found neither.
But what I did find was that everything Stan says bears out.
I don't know about it only works on a 2:1 table, I don't know about connects to right angles, I don't know because I don't have the ability to do the math to figure that out. It may not be true, it might be Stan's best guess as to why it works..... What I do know though is that following the instructions and working through the perceptions until they become "natural" works to improve my accuracy in aiming.
And this wouldn't be a good JB post without a bet. I'd bet high on that and have. I lost but I damn sure used CTE in conjunction with my lousy emotion-fueled stroke when I played Lou and I use it in every gambling match and every tournament match I play. Win or lose, I use CTE to aim and overall it's been damn good to me.
I hope you look at my diagrams and think about what I said. I think that tiny space at the back of the cueball facing the shooter makes all the difference.
Peace.
P.S.
If aiming is not that important then why are there so many devices and diagrams out there to teach it?
This is only a tiny amount of what you can find addressing the aiming part of the game.
http://jbcases.com/images/aiming/gb-trainers/
JB you out did yourself here, but...
In your first colorful diagram, it proves that what works with the 30 degree CTE line, 1/2 tip offset and pivot on the close OB results in progressively different cut angles for those that are further away, and is what many trig/geometry shooters have said for years. They all go into the same corner.
Can you diagram how your CTE works to get the same ~30 degree cut angle for all of the OBs down table?
I thank you for your contribution to this thread.
Be well
This is the utility that I and some others want to know.
In your first colorful diagram, it proves that what works with the 30 degree CTE line, 1/2 tip offset and pivot on the close OB results in progressively different cut angles for those that are further away, and is what many trig/geometry shooters have said for years. They all go into the same corner.
Can you diagram how your CTE works to get the same ~30 degree cut angle for all of the OBs down table?
I thank you for your contribution to this thread.
Be well
This is the utility that I and some others want to know.
Ron Swanson
Banned
No. Sorry guys but I have to take this one.
No. That's not how it works.
The cte line as an initial alignment is LITERALLY less than a mm way from the actual UNKNOWN shot line.
To me this is the key to everything that makes CTE work.
The shooter starts out simple orienting their eyes and body to the CTE line. At that position IF they brought their cue down to center ball the shot for everything but a pure 30 cut would miss the pocket.
BUT the cue tip is literally just a tiny shift away from the actual shot line at this point. And the pivot to center from a half tip away represents this tiny shift. For whatever reason it brings the bridge hand V into line with the actual shot line EVEN IF THE SHOOTER DOESN"T KNOW THAT THE LINE IS RIGHT.
What I mean is that even if the shot line LOOKS WRONG it turns out to be right when using CTE.
Especially when a person first starts learning CTE. You have many moments where your brain is screaming wrong but the shot line you end up on is right.
Here is a diagram where the shots are set up on a string. The red lines represent the actual Ghost Ball shot line. The purple lines represent the actual Center to Edge line.
The important thing to notice here is that the cue ball IS the focal point. Not the object ball. The cue ball center would be lined up to the GB center IF that GB position were 100% known as in if a template were in the GB position. The only place where the cue ball can be struck however is the side facing the shooter.
So, the important thing here then is what happens to the lines when they converge on the cueball and exit it out the back. Since the shooter is using the Center to Edge line to place his body relative to that line which exists in ONLY one place per shot he is literally only a teeny shift away from the actual ghost ball line.
Here is another image, it is from the same diagram but blown up to convey what I found in actual measurments. Notice that the distance between the GB shot line and the CTE line at the back of the ball is less than a half mm no matter the distance between the cueball and the object ball.
This is what led to me making this video titled convergence lines.
Think about this for a moment folks......... using GB you are trying to imagine a phantom ball down table and in line with the pocket which itself is off angle to your focus. BUT if you can orient yourself to the CTE Line and focus then on the CB you have narrowed your field of vision and your focus to just the cue ball and in reality to just half of it.
You already know you need to get to center ball (disregard the use of spin for this exercise please). You already know that going straight in on the CTE line won't work.
But somehow if you use a secondary line coming off the edge of the CB to the Object ball and orient your body between them and then come into the shot laying your bridge hand down with the tip a half tip away from center and then pivot to center ball you land on the exact ghost ball line. - I don't know WHY this works but I would bet it has something to do with that teeny space between the KNOWN CTE line and the Unknown GB shot line. It's like the shooter if literally forced into the right shot line and I don't think that this is because the shooter's subconscious is picking it up. I think that there is some tie in with the tight alignment forced on the shooter by the use of the CTE line and the secondary a-b-c line or 15/30/45 degree perception.
I think that the CTE line brings the shooter so close to the actual shot line that the secondary line and the pivot seal the deal - from the cueball as the focal point. This is my opinion of how and why it works for all shots.
The pivot is the same distance. The body's orientation is deliberately placed by the lines "seen". The shooter literally has very little choice in the matter if he follows the instructions literally. Thus he often does not know that the shot line is correct. Not because his subsconscious knows it is (that would actually be wonderful if the subconscious could pick the true shot line each time) but because the shooter is using a different type of perception that is cueball focused and not pocket focused.
What I mean by this is that the old way is pocket----->object ball------>cueball-----cue where the shooter first plots the shot backwards from the pocket to the cueball and tries to lay the cue down on the line he thinks is right.
The CTE way is shooter----->cueball------>object ball. That's it. Experience shows that this is all that's needed because a limited number of "perceptions" works for the vast amount of shots using this method. In my opinion because of that incredibly small space between the easy-to-see Center to Edge line and the not-easy-to-find ghost ball line (shot line). That tiny space makes all the physical difference when this perceptual method is used to get down on the shot.
To me this has proven itself to be not only very objective but it bears out shot after shot after shot after shot. (yes I still miss, yes I lost a $10,000 one pocket match being cast as a poster boy for CTE) I have put in tons of hours on the table trying to trick this system and find flaws and holes and I can't.
I would be MORE THAN HAPPY to spend table time with someone willing to go through it with me and point out what shots can't work with CTE and do it all on camera. We can film in super slow motion and then see if I am steering the shots they say are impossible. I have shot as slowly as humanly possible during my testing to try and insure no steering. (and I do have a bad stroke which requires me to really focus on keeping it straight)
I personally use this method to aim when I play. I don't know how else to say it but that it truly works for me. I can fully understand that some people get the DVD and their eyes would cross and they would say screw it this is all BS. But it's not. 90/90 is a simpler method of ball to ball aiming and it works great for tons of shots. I use it a lot along with CTE. These methods just work and the math or 3-d diagramming to explain why is well above my pay grade but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It simply doesn't matter to me because these methods work without holes as far as I can tell.
Now, I am not the best player. But I can hold my own wherever I have ever been in my life. Oklahoma, Florida, Charlotte, Germany, China, wherever I have gone I been one of the better players in town. I have also devoured Byrne's books, 99 critical shots and many others, tons of accu-stats tapes and tons of instructional tapes, had instruction from local instructors to professional players. I have been gambling on pool since I was 12 and have my share of tournament trophies and league victories in my life. So I know pool and myself well enough to know what is happening when I shoot balls.
I hope it's clear that I have put a lot of thought into this. I am no one's lapdog on this topic and no one's shill. I was dragged into this topic by Hal Houle. I didn't seek him out, I didn't seek out Stan. I bought the first DVD and I was like, oh shit this is going to be hard for people to digest. And it was, for me as well. So I worked it a little and then put it aside preferring to use "my" version of CTE that I had cobbled together from all the bits and pieces of information on the net and what people had sent me privately.
But when Stan started doing the curtain shots and the banking shots I knew I should try harder to understand his methods and instruction and that's when I started going slowly chapter by chapter and working through it, using the reference shots and the chart provided to REALLY try hard to get the perceptions as given.
That's when I realized that CTE the way Stan teaches it is super accurate. But I still didn't know WHY.
And subconscious adjustment didn't feel right. Now the assertion that the pivot is somehow the pliable missing link that adjusts to all angles doesn't feel right either. I say this based 100% on my own hours trying to figure out each step and find the WHY, be it subconscious or some spot where I had to "guess" and "go for it". I found neither.
But what I did find was that everything Stan says bears out.
I don't know about it only works on a 2:1 table, I don't know about connects to right angles, I don't know because I don't have the ability to do the math to figure that out. It may not be true, it might be Stan's best guess as to why it works..... What I do know though is that following the instructions and working through the perceptions until they become "natural" works to improve my accuracy in aiming.
And this wouldn't be a good JB post without a bet. I'd bet high on that and have. I lost but I damn sure used CTE in conjunction with my lousy emotion-fueled stroke when I played Lou and I use it in every gambling match and every tournament match I play. Win or lose, I use CTE to aim and overall it's been damn good to me.
I hope you look at my diagrams and think about what I said. I think that tiny space at the back of the cueball facing the shooter makes all the difference.
Peace.
P.S.
If aiming is not that important then why are there so many devices and diagrams out there to teach it?
This is only a tiny amount of what you can find addressing the aiming part of the game.
Thought you were busy?
Ron Swanson
Banned
I'm sorry, you're reading different words than i am.
I will try. I think I followed this up with a diagram that places the shooter/eyes and feet at approximately the right distance away from the cue ball. I need to dig into my files to see what's there. I am sort of manic when it comes to this stuff, will spend hours on it and then drop it for months. Also it works best when you have a really large monitor to work on otherwise it's a lot of zooming. When I draw these I set up the workspace to be real size so as to not make any scale errors.
I also drew out a cue at some point at the proper size and taper.
The thing to take away from this diagram is that the shooter's body position WILL BE at a slightly different physical position for each shot. Think of where the cue must be for each shot and put the shooter into position holding it. The cueball and all the object balls are on the same center line. You can see the ghost ball get progressively higher as the cut gets larger. What is hard to make out though is that the CTE line for each shot also gets progressively lower, because the visible "edge" of the ball is different visually than it appears as a top down 2-d drawing. In other words, the edge of the nearest ball at a 15 degree angle is much farther to left when seen from the standing position than the farthest ball at 85 degrees. Thus as the shooter then acquires the CTE line for each shot his body is forced to move from the right to the left around the cueball - we are talking literally inches in body movement but there is only ONE place where a person can stand and really SEE the CTE line clearly coming back to there face with the eyes in the normal upright position.
The problem as I see it is that you are thinking of the CTE line as a 30 degree hit. It's not, it would ONLY be a 30 degree hit IF the shooter were to put the cue on that line and shoot the cue ball down that line. What it is is an orientation line to use a hard objective visual reference to orient the body to a space that is literally a tiny shift away from the actual shot line.
Your question then is how does a half tip offset and pivot to center from there result in getting to the shot line for all distances along the string? I don't know yet why this is but I am fairly sure that it isn't some form of guessing. (honest to the non-existant god, sometimes I get down on these shots and I just have to trust the line because I really truly don't know if the line is right or wrong. - experience has shown me that the line is right most of the time) I know from practice that when I do everything according to the steps and the shot doesn't go and I know that my stroke was good then I go back and choose a different secondary line and it then works and works every time after that. So to me this further proof that the method is objective.
Anyway, if I find the files and have some time I will certainly add to the diagram and try to answer your questions somehow graphically.
Hmmm......
That, I don't get .
If you did not adjust for that less than 1MM away from the actual shotline, you'd still make most balls .
1/2 tip pivot only moves the CTE line by less than 1MM to the actual shot line?
I have thought that as well, but as you know someone will always engage him.
It is funny reading threads that he participates in, the number of holes shown in his posts when on ignore, are eye opening.
It is funny reading threads that he participates in, the number of holes shown in his posts when on ignore, are eye opening.
Seems to me Rick just wants a straight answer to a simple question. Maybe there wouldn't be 11000 posts. Edit: I just realized you were talking about JB but the same thing applies to Rick. I don't understand the anger.
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Rick's whole claim doesn't even have any truth to it. He says CTE is marketed as a totally objective aiming system. Where did he get that from? I have never seen it marketed as such. Does it say that on Stan's website. Rick has went on and on about something HE made up.
My bad again. I did not mean to imply that you were necessarily the one angry.
The pivot doesn't move the CTE line at all.
Go from the premise that the actual shot line is the only unknown here.
The known things are.
1. The CTE line, can be seen and aligned to.
2. The Edge to A/B/C line, can be seen and aligned to.
3. Coming down and placing the bridge hand where the cue tip stops a half tip away from the center of the cue ball.
4. Pivoting so that the cue tip stops at center cue ball.
Those are the KNOWN positions that are common to all shots taken using CTE.
What can the shooter choose then?
A. the shooter can choose what Edge to A/B/C line to use. So he can pick the right one or not.
B. the shooter can choose to use an inside sweep or an outside sweep. This is essentially a choice between where your shoulders will be before going down into the shooting position. It is directed by the position of the head. There are only two choices here and once a person has practiced them he understand the difference.
C. The shooter can choose how to pivot. Explained below one way works all the time and the other way almost never works. Thus there is really only one pivot choice BUT physically there are two ways to bring the tip to center ball without moving the bridge hand.
The first two KNOWN things, 1 and 2 above, force a body alignment that is literally the only place around the pool table that the body can be when looking at the two balls and "seeing" these lines in direct relation to the shooter's eyes. What I mean is that there is only one spot where these lines are all easily visible AND from that position the shooter can go down into the shooting position comfortably addressing the shot.
If the shooter were to move a few inches even to the right or left of this position then they would not see these two lines clearly and attempting to go into a shooting position would show them that they clearly were way off any chance to make the object ball.
So, IF you accept the premise that 1 and 2 force the shooter into a precise body position for the shot being faced (forget any other shot) then the next known thing happens.
#3 - From that forced body position the shooter bends into the shot adopting a shooting position, the bridge hand lands on the table as a result of the shooter's standing position and WHERE the bridge hand lands is forced because it literally cannot be even half an inch different or the cue tip won't be sitting at one-half tip from center ball when the bridge hand comes to rest. What I mean is that the shooter literally has no choice to change where the bridge hand goes here without moving his body off the position forced by 1 & 2.
#4 - Now the "pivot". From this forced body position and forced bridge hand placement the shooter only has to pivot the cue to center ball. What IS the pivot and where is the pivot point? Well HERE then is the point where there IS a choice to be made. The cue tip MUST go to center ball to finish the sequence.
But there are two ways to do this.
One is to not have any further torso movement and simply using the backhand move the cue so that the tip pivots around the bridge V-point and addressed the cue ball at center.
Two is to slightly shift the hips so that the whole body sort of settles into slightly different position and this brings the cue to center ball. The FEET don't move when doing this.
Number two is what works all the time. Number one rarely works.
Either of them are just slight movements that translate into a small shift in tip position facing the cue ball.
The end result of this process is that "somehow" the cue ends up on the actual previously unknown shot line. But the steps to get there are firm forcing the shooter to adopt strict alignments and body motions. At no point other than the very last pivot is there any choice for the shooter other than to follow directions.
The somehow has to be contained inside this system somewhere as a fixed mechanical reason in my opinion. The reason I say this is because the CTE line is fixed, the Edge to A/B/C line is fixed. The shooter can't change them at will. These two lines force a foot position that does not change. Move the feet anywhere from that forced position and now the shooting stance absolutely does not work.
No you would not make most balls. I have tried it that way, just laying the cue on the CTE line. That is truly a half ball hit and only a few shots you face will actually be a true half ball hit as measured by the cueball path being directly on top of the CTE line.
Half-Ball Hit refers to the ball overlap as seen from the shooter's perspective.
When I first heard of CTE I thought that it was laying the cue on the CTE line and letting "perception" do the rest. Not at all. Although it defintitley would be possible to make a lot of shots by throwing the cueball INTO the actual shot line from the cte line but this would mean tons of body english and severely cut off a lot of position routes in my opinion.
lol
And if your initial alignment is to ghost ball - even if your estimate of that isn't exact - you'd be even closer.
The same applies to every other way of aiming.
Get counseling. This topic has made you (even more) crazy.
pj
chgo
I am pretty sure it won't. But I am content to back Stan Shuffett as stated and whatever format he and Bill agree to is fine with me on the condition that it be live streamed.