English Question
- Thread starter Jen_Cen
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You may need to clarify the question a bit. Are you talking about (for example) placing the cue ball on the headspot and shooting it directly through the footspot into the short cushion using side spin and then side spin with draw? Or are you talking about a rebound angle from an object ball, and then into a cushion?
You are interested in the spin to speed ratio of the cue ball. If you play with draw and side spin, the cue ball will slow down (by up to 50% from its initial speed) but almost all of the initial side spin will remain. When the cue ball arrives at the rail, it will have extra spin for its speed. On the other hand, if you use both side and follow, the cue ball will not slow down much on the way to the cushion and the spin/speed ratio will not be enhanced.Jen_Cen said:
Playing with draw and side spin is a standard way to increase the effect of the side spin, but you need a long enough travel on the cue ball for the draw to slow the cue ball down as it wears off.
here is an application
Here's a way to leverage this principle. A very good player once showed me this shot. Have fun with it.
Here's a way to leverage this principle. A very good player once showed me this shot. Have fun with it.
Bob Jewett said:
Hey Bob, you just said the same thing Big C said in post #2, except it took you four times as long to say it. :wink:
You should be a lawyer, and get paid by the word.
jay helfert said:
They probably meant the same thing, but they said different things. "Less speed" isn't enough by itself to make the rebound angle greater. That takes less speed and undiminished spin (a greater spin-to-speed ratio), as Bob said.
pj
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Jen_Cen said:
One reason is the spin/speed ratio that Bob Jewett mentioned. Another possibility is that the cue ball swerves more with the draw (because it goes slower and because you're hitting more downward on it), which changes the angle into the rail. This probably isn't as big an effect as the spin/speed thing.
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English answer
It just bloody works that way!
It just bloody works that way!
Jen_Cen said:
Yes (maximum tip offset is a circle around the center of the ball about the same size as the circle around the number, so it gets closer to center as you hit lower on the ball). But the tradeoff is still positive, at least down to a certain amount of draw - I think probably about halfway to maximum draw (which would be at a 45 degree downward angle from centerball on that maximum circle). I think Ron Shepard explains this somewhere in his Amateur Physics for the Amateur Pool Player, which you can find at Bob Jewett's SFBilliards.com here, but it's pretty technical reading.
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Jen_Cen said:
You could definitely miscue on this Jen. Try it. It is a maximum spin but minimal speed shot. The object ball is about half an inch off the rail. You want the cueball spinning like a top so that it can hit the object ball slightly fuller. Slow speed amplifies both throw and the angle off of the rail. I may have diagrammed it a bit extreme, but I was very surprized when I first saw it done successfully.
Jen_Cen said:
Yes, you would. You can only hit about halfway to the ball's edge from center (maybe a little more) without miscueing. (That's about the outer edge of the circle around the ball's number on Centennial balls.)
When you're hitting that far from centerball you're using the edge of your tip, so it would look something like this:
Here are two pictures with chalkmarks showing a typical maximum good hit and a typical miscue. I hit these with the center of the number pointing straight at me.
Maximum good hit:
Miscue (note the double chalk mark where the tip "skidded"):
Sorry for the bad focus - I took these awhile ago with my phone.
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Last edited:
Yes, that's true. The catch is that you can add significant draw without taking off much side spin. There is an optimum ratio of draw/side that will give you the maximum ratio of side spin to ball speed when the draw has worn off. That mixture turns out to be roughly equal amounts of draw and side. It turns out that you can simultaneously use 70% of maximum draw and 70% of maximum side at the same time.Jen_Cen said:
Bob Jewett said:
What about draw with side making the angle longer or shorter. Draw enhances either, but does it make either angle more or less than side english alone? I know if I'm going to shorten a long angle a lot it will be with low inside because side only is not enough. And yes there are other factors I know very well. I'm talking about the direct rebound angle without any distance involved.
Rod
Rod said:
If the cue ball has draw on it when it hits the rail it will rebound at a steeper angle. But the draw we're talking about here (used to enhance sidespin) usually wears off before the cue ball hits the rail, so it has no direct effect on the rebound angle - it just slows the cue ball down so the sidespin has more effect.
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