I played with what seemed to a heavier cb tonight, and am wondering if the good draw action I was getting could have been because of this?
draw better with heavier cue ball?
- Thread starter evergruven
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You probably just adjusted your aim/stroke to compensate.
A lighter CB draws MUCH more easily
On a bar box with an oversize CB, the play is to go for Follow position over draw position because of the heavier CB- so you have your answer. Hold onto that stroke that worked for you last night 
The greater mass will keep the ball going provided you can get the ball going. On the 7 footers they come from, practical draw shots weren't much of a problem particularly if the cloth wasn't worn. You had to stroke a bit harder but I think the larger diameter allows for more leverage getting the ball to spin.
No.
Drawing Cueball is skill that improves with practice, and draw is 100% harder to control then follow.
Definitely not - the physics are the opposite. Either the CB was actually lighter, or something else was different (e.g., the cloth was slicker, the CB was polished, or you were hitting the CB lower than usual).
The biggest difference I have noticed when drawing heavy and light cue balls is that it seems the light ball will hesitate in place just spinning before rolling backwards and the heavy ball seems to draw immediately after object ball contact. I suppose it could be due to cloth also but it always seems consistent with the heavy ball.
You must mean the opposite?
Heavy cueballs will spin in place like the Flintstones car and then go backward.
Light cueballs don't hesitate and that's why you get so much extra draw action out of them
Biloxi Boy
Man With A Golden Arm
Brings up a good question. Old bar box oversize/weight cueballs were difficult to draw. (I eventually learned after much cussing and many quarters.) Was the problem due to weight or circumference?
If you learn to hit all shots with the same stroke, controlling the distance of draw becomes less of a problem. Problem I have is super draw shots where my stroke accuracy goes out the window. Have yet to do one.
Usually both. A lot of old barbox CBs were heavier, larger, or both for the internal sorting system to be able to return it when you scratch.
That's because when people hit hard, they usually jerk their cues due to breaking their normal shooting form from using much more power than they are used to. I always look for ways to get comparable positioning without hitting really hard. My playing motto is that if you have to hit hard, there is almost always a better alternative.
Geosnookery
Well-known member
This is exactly what often happens drawing the cue ball when playing Snooker ( smaller cue ball) vs American Pool.
Other way around.
Sometimes when you hit hard enough on a lighter/smaller ball for super draw, it could do a mini hop or spin in place for a second before shooting back. Not sure if the latter is a table cloth thing or not.
The reverse is true. The lighter the cueball, the easier it is to draw. I play a lot of blackball, which has a cueball smaller than the object balls. In that game, good follow action is not easy to get, but drawing is a piece of cake.
If we're talking about balls of equal size, ie the cueball and the object balls being the same size and weight, would a heavier set of balls draw more easily than a light one? I don't think so. I think is much tougher to get powerful draw on the Billiard table than the snooker table, even though the billard table has faster cloth and much bigger and heavier balls. I'm not an expert on Billiards, I'm not even a good amateur, just a student of the game. I do find that this particular game seems to be focused on follow and centre-ish hits rather than draw. If it was so easy to draw the heavy ball (and since it would retain spin longer on the super fast, heated table), don't you think that is a strange fact?
People seem to focus on the ball hesitating before coming back on a full hit with draw. That is caused by different factors.
1. If the balls are well polished and smooth in general, the cueball will spin for longer before "grabbing" the cloth.
2. If the cloth is slick, the cueballl will spin longer before grabbing.
Both 1 and 2 indicates conditions in which the balls will roll longer in general because of less friction. It isn't the weight of the balls that is the determining factor in these cases, but you will get more draw and more cueball movement in general due to the lesser friction.
3. The weight difference. If the cueball is lighter than the object ball, it will not stop in place, but rather bounce back when hitting the object ball. The cue ball will not spin in place so much because it is allready moving the backward direction after hitting the object ball. This "push start" will in fact boost the draw, so less "spin in place" is better.
If the cueball is the same weight as the object ball, it will stop and spin until grabbing the cloth and starting to move backward. This situation will give an intermediate amount of draw, and is the "default" for most cuegames, pool, snooker, billiards..
If the cue ball is heavier it will move forward after contacting the object ball, while spinning backward, until it grabs the cloth. Fighting against the forward momentum will eat up a lot of spin and you will get much less draw.
4. Often forgotten, but big power draw shots usually involves hitting a rail or more. Even under ideal, low friction conditions, a dead rail will eat a lot of cueball movement and a lively rail will boost the movement quite a bit.
If we're talking about balls of equal size, ie the cueball and the object balls being the same size and weight, would a heavier set of balls draw more easily than a light one? I don't think so. I think is much tougher to get powerful draw on the Billiard table than the snooker table, even though the billard table has faster cloth and much bigger and heavier balls. I'm not an expert on Billiards, I'm not even a good amateur, just a student of the game. I do find that this particular game seems to be focused on follow and centre-ish hits rather than draw. If it was so easy to draw the heavy ball (and since it would retain spin longer on the super fast, heated table), don't you think that is a strange fact?
People seem to focus on the ball hesitating before coming back on a full hit with draw. That is caused by different factors.
1. If the balls are well polished and smooth in general, the cueball will spin for longer before "grabbing" the cloth.
2. If the cloth is slick, the cueballl will spin longer before grabbing.
Both 1 and 2 indicates conditions in which the balls will roll longer in general because of less friction. It isn't the weight of the balls that is the determining factor in these cases, but you will get more draw and more cueball movement in general due to the lesser friction.
3. The weight difference. If the cueball is lighter than the object ball, it will not stop in place, but rather bounce back when hitting the object ball. The cue ball will not spin in place so much because it is allready moving the backward direction after hitting the object ball. This "push start" will in fact boost the draw, so less "spin in place" is better.
If the cueball is the same weight as the object ball, it will stop and spin until grabbing the cloth and starting to move backward. This situation will give an intermediate amount of draw, and is the "default" for most cuegames, pool, snooker, billiards..
If the cue ball is heavier it will move forward after contacting the object ball, while spinning backward, until it grabs the cloth. Fighting against the forward momentum will eat up a lot of spin and you will get much less draw.
4. Often forgotten, but big power draw shots usually involves hitting a rail or more. Even under ideal, low friction conditions, a dead rail will eat a lot of cueball movement and a lively rail will boost the movement quite a bit.
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The lighter cueball both bounces back AND spins back. Heavier ball sits and does sort of a mini 'burnout' then backs up. The old 'big ball' actually goes forward a bit and then comes back. Sorta.