Do you think a ball can be cut more by using inside or outside English? What are your thoughts?
English on very thin cuts. Poll.
- Thread starter Tennesseejoe
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English
I think you can cut a ball more with inside english, and definately know that more speed is generated on the object ball with inside english. Plus with inside, you can slightly masse into the contact point if necessary. (85 degree cut or more).
I use more inside english than probably 98 percent of the players I have seen, and definately a lot more on cuts on the rail down into a corner pocket, or on back banks to the side pockets. If fact, I have to go back and shoot the same shots with outside english, just to remind myself that I still know how....lol
I think you can cut a ball more with inside english, and definately know that more speed is generated on the object ball with inside english. Plus with inside, you can slightly masse into the contact point if necessary. (85 degree cut or more).
I use more inside english than probably 98 percent of the players I have seen, and definately a lot more on cuts on the rail down into a corner pocket, or on back banks to the side pockets. If fact, I have to go back and shoot the same shots with outside english, just to remind myself that I still know how....lol
I hope everyone says outside, unless they are confused about which is "inside" and which is "outside" as a famous pool author once was.Tennesseejoe said:
This does not included the standard trick shot of cutting a ball that is frozen to the cushion more than 90 degrees by hitting the cushion first with "inside" english. Actually, on that shot, the english becomes outside as it comes off the cushion into to the ball.
Bob Jewett said:
There's another non-straightforward way inside english can produce greater cuts; you can use inside along with elevation to curve the CB into the contact point, and using this method you can produce "greater than 90-degree" cuts (of course not more than 90-degrees to the CB's line of travel at contact, just greater than 90 to the original angle of the shot). I've seen 180-degree cuts done using enough curve (or in that case masse).
But of course I agree in general, there's no way for inside to cut the ball more if you're not taking advantage of curved CB path, or hitting the shot rail-first.
-Andrew
High on the CB...I've found that seems to increase the likelyhood of making it for me....if needed I tweak it with a little left or right....
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The mini-masse effect that Andrew mentioned is the only thing about inside-english that might help you cut a ball thinner, kind of like the spot-shot stop-shot, but, as Andrew said, you're not really "cutting" it thinner when you do that.
I do generally use inside on cuts like the one below, though, simply because it gives me two chances to hit the ball. I can aim to hit the ball very thinly, but still be confident that I'm at least going to get a legal hit on it, and, in 1p, it will oftentimes end up up-table on your side if you end up kicking it. Surprisingly, I find that my % on this shot is about the same either way (inside or outside); that is to say "verrry low", lol.
http://CueTable.com/P/?@3IAmd2PETv3dAmd3dcYr2kETv4kBsX@
I do generally use inside on cuts like the one below, though, simply because it gives me two chances to hit the ball. I can aim to hit the ball very thinly, but still be confident that I'm at least going to get a legal hit on it, and, in 1p, it will oftentimes end up up-table on your side if you end up kicking it. Surprisingly, I find that my % on this shot is about the same either way (inside or outside); that is to say "verrry low", lol.
http://CueTable.com/P/?@3IAmd2PETv3dAmd3dcYr2kETv4kBsX@
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It can "cut" more with inside, but less than 90 degrees. It will "throw" more with outside, so you can get a more than 90 degree result.Bob Jewett said:
unknownpro
The title of this thread specifies "very thin cuts". If this means cut shots about 80 degrees or more, I would vote inside english.
On these extreme cut shots, if you don't put enough outside english to totally cancel out CIT (collision-induced throw), then you can actually throw the OB more (in the bad direction) than if you don't use english at all. This is because you're actually slowing down the surface speeds at the contact point, giving friction more time to take hold. The higher the surface speeds, the less friction can take hold (coefficient of friction falls as the surface speeds gets high), which is why I would use inside english.
If you want to use outside english on these extreme cuts shots, you have to be sure that you put enough spin on the CB such that the surface velocity of the CB at the contact point is going backwards (from your point of view) instead of forwards, or at least remaining still. Basically, you need a high spin to linear speed ratio of the CB, which means you really have to hit the CB a lot off-center. Adjusting for squirt then becomes the dominant issue instead of adjusting for throw.
I would vote for a bit of inside english on these thin cut shots. With inside, the surface speeds at the contact point would be much faster, and thus friction would be greatly reduced.
On these extreme cut shots, if you don't put enough outside english to totally cancel out CIT (collision-induced throw), then you can actually throw the OB more (in the bad direction) than if you don't use english at all. This is because you're actually slowing down the surface speeds at the contact point, giving friction more time to take hold. The higher the surface speeds, the less friction can take hold (coefficient of friction falls as the surface speeds gets high), which is why I would use inside english.
If you want to use outside english on these extreme cuts shots, you have to be sure that you put enough spin on the CB such that the surface velocity of the CB at the contact point is going backwards (from your point of view) instead of forwards, or at least remaining still. Basically, you need a high spin to linear speed ratio of the CB, which means you really have to hit the CB a lot off-center. Adjusting for squirt then becomes the dominant issue instead of adjusting for throw.
I would vote for a bit of inside english on these thin cut shots. With inside, the surface speeds at the contact point would be much faster, and thus friction would be greatly reduced.
I agree with Bob here. Outside english can clearly cut the ball to a wider angle.
A lot of people find IE helps them to make a thinner contact when cutting around 80 degrees from a foot or so away, but this is just an alignment / squirt effect.
Try putting CB and OB a couple of inches apart. From this distance, swerve and squirt don't come into play, so you can make an extreme edge contact pretty accurately and consistantly.
If you play the shot at slowish speed with heavy OE, center ball (not high or low) it appears that the spin actually transfers to the OB for a greater than 90 degree cut. It is significantly wider than what you'll get with IE on the same shot.
Note: If you hit this shot a lot harder, the throw won't work so well and the speeds between the surfaces is increases. Same is true for any component of top or bottom.
After trying this method out, I was amazed at the cut shots I began to make. By using BHE (aim and pivot) for alignment, the same cuts can be made reasonably consistantly from a foot or so away.
btw: If anyone's trying to swerve in to improve the angle, I think they would lose much more accuracy by not hitting the extreme edge, than they could gain by a slight change in the path direction of the CB.
Still, if a player finds it easier to make an extreme edge contact by playing with IE, then it will be very useful to them, but if they want a few degrees up their sleeve, better learn to shoot at the extreme edge with OE.
Colin
A lot of people find IE helps them to make a thinner contact when cutting around 80 degrees from a foot or so away, but this is just an alignment / squirt effect.
Try putting CB and OB a couple of inches apart. From this distance, swerve and squirt don't come into play, so you can make an extreme edge contact pretty accurately and consistantly.
If you play the shot at slowish speed with heavy OE, center ball (not high or low) it appears that the spin actually transfers to the OB for a greater than 90 degree cut. It is significantly wider than what you'll get with IE on the same shot.
Note: If you hit this shot a lot harder, the throw won't work so well and the speeds between the surfaces is increases. Same is true for any component of top or bottom.
After trying this method out, I was amazed at the cut shots I began to make. By using BHE (aim and pivot) for alignment, the same cuts can be made reasonably consistantly from a foot or so away.
btw: If anyone's trying to swerve in to improve the angle, I think they would lose much more accuracy by not hitting the extreme edge, than they could gain by a slight change in the path direction of the CB.
Still, if a player finds it easier to make an extreme edge contact by playing with IE, then it will be very useful to them, but if they want a few degrees up their sleeve, better learn to shoot at the extreme edge with OE.
Colin
jsp said:
That's a good analysis jsp. I'm guessing a bit, but I'm pretty sure it's not that hard to get "overspin" as you might call it with OE english such that the edge of the CB is moving backwards, and this is what pushes the OB back at over 90 degrees from the contact point tangent (or is it the normal).
I didn't believe it myself until I started experimenting with some close shots using BHE and slowish speeds.
Try it out with a CB and OB placed in dimples about 2" apart with a big cut required, with OB travel of not more than a foot required.
Colin
I think overspin, or as I've called it, "retrograde" spin is pretty easy to get on side spin shots by using both draw and side and letting the draw take away the speed of the ball while the side stays on. The Jacksonville Project tape showed one side spin shot that had something like 15% retrograde spin as the ball left the tip (the side of the ball was actually moving backwards relative to the table as the ball moved forward).Colin Colenso said:
A standard extreme bank at one pocket is to freeze the object ball to the long rail one diamond from your opponent's pocket. Put the cue ball on the headstring frozen to that same side rail. Bank the object ball one cushion into your pocket. The standard way to shoot this shot is with plenty of outside english. I think it's impossible to make the shot with inside, but I've never tried it that way.
Freddy the Beard tells of a proposition shot that is similar. Move the object ball up the rail towards you until it is almost at the side pocket. Bank it cross-side, which is more then 90 degrees. You can ask Freddy, but I'm pretty sure the only hope is with plenty of outside english.
This kind of shot is a little unfair in that it doesn't test the initial cut angle and includes spin on the cushion. I'll see if I can figure out a better test. The problem I see is controlling for cue ball speed.
While this sounds reasonable, especially if you include swerve, I still favor retrograde outside for thinnest possible cuts.jsp said:
I'll have to try Colin's setup. I think it's only necessary to find for a given stick speed (that's the hard part) whether the cut angle when the object ball travels a fixed distance such as one foot is larger with one spin or the other.
In any case, the point is kind of moot, since your choice of side spin is usually dictated by where you need to send the cue ball.
Colin Colenso said:
I thought that squirt takes place at the time of cue ball and cue stick contact. I believe as you that swerve does not have a significant effect at this distance but I think swerve might.
Bob Jewett said:
This is one of Vern Elliots proposition shots. While I have never seen it accomplished, I asked Vern how it was done. He wouldn't say how he made it but did indicate it was with inside (masse) or a jump shot. I couldn't get him to "fess up". One hint he did give was that it is easier on a big table.
Has anyone seen it?
When someone says that they cut a ball backwards (more than 90 degrees), I view this as from where the cue ball and object ball lay before the shot---not from the instant the cue ball contacts the object ball. Therefore with inside English and the masse effect---a ball can be cut more that 90 degrees.
Snapshot9 said:
I think that most players can make a thin cut with more consistency and accuracy because the cue ball squirts away from the object ball rather than running into the object ball. Most of us fear not hitting the object ball when cutting it and run into the object ball rather than driving the cue ball into the proper contact point.
However, I believe that I can make some particular cut shots using outside English that I cannot make with inside English. I just can't cut shots as consistently using outside English although it looks good when the curve of the cue ball and the spin combine together to slide off of the object ball cutting it even more.
JoeyA
Tennesseejoe said:
Yes, squirt changes the immediate angle of the CB off the tip, while swerve comes into play during the travel. The longer the travel, (vertical spin and speed also come into play) the more the swerve. So over a couple of inches it is usually negligable...especially if cueing is reasonably flat.
I line up these shots center ball so I can accurately predict the contact point. Then pivot the back hand with my bridge at the pivot point, which pretty much guarantees I'll hit the same contact point as I was aligned to. That way I don't have to try to guess the effect of squirt.
btw: Thanks to Bob for the info on retrograde spin for OE being around 15%. That is highly significant in explaining this effect.
Colin
It is hard to be consistent using outside english on a thin cut. For some shots, throw can vary by around nine degrees over a range of tip offsets which span less than one-tenth of an inch. That's the difference between a large amount of throw in one direction and a similar amount in the other direction, and assuming a reasonably fast cueball speed to move the object ball (the span is even greater at slower speeds). As you approach 90 degrees, the offsets that produce one or the other come closer and closer together.JoeyA said:
On the other hand, throw is almost constant for thin cuts when using either pure stun, any amount of follow or draw, and even random amounts inside english. In all of these cases, it's predicted to be 0.5 to 0.9 degree, and mostly in the 0.6 to 0.8 degree range for fairly brisk cueball speeds (7 mph and up).
I think the moral is that if you absolutely have to throw the object ball in the reverse direction, outside is the way to go. But it's pretty much of a crap shoot as to what results you'll see. You can overspin it to get a more moderate and predictable amount of throw. But for cuts sixty degrees or more, you have to get precariously close to the miscue limit to do so (you're already close just to get it to reverse in the first place).
Just more babble.
Jim