Great Kickers

Black-Balled

Black-Balled

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Yow! Posted this over in the Carom pages and it is a good illustration of a thought I have often had...While Efren has undeniably elevated the kicking aspect of pocket billiards, it is still worlds behind the billiards players.

Is it the increased mass of the balls, the predictability/ accuracy of the tables, or is it something else?

I mean, (do you?) have to have big balls to fire at this shot? How many tries do you think you would need to knock this one down?
http://CueTable.com/C/?@2AUNj4BEKi4CRLH4VEKi3VasF3VQff4VOyE1VbGs1VQOY3VaRo3VJUk4VYkK2VQvc2VTAB@

ericyow said:
I just watched the 2006 Sang Lee match of Blomdahl v. Torres. I got it off of www.caromtv.com, Video On Demand. That is a really good way to watch awesome 3c billiard matches with live, on point commentary. I enjoyed it thoroughly and cost about half of what the dvd would've cost. Best part is, I can burn it to dvd myself and bam! Viola!

I ordered this one in particular because Miguel is a friend as well as a hero of mine, and Blomdahl...well, he's simply amazing. This match was beautiful to watch as Blomdahl straight up donkey-stomped my boy Miguel (sorry buddy). Miguel's great, but he never stood a chance. I think Blomdahl ran an 11, and went 5 and out to make 35 points in only 13 innings! Simply beautiful.

And the shot of the match...
http://CueTable.com/C/?@2AUNj4BEKi4CRLH4VEKi3VasF3VQff4VOyE1VbGs1VQOY3VaRo3VJUk4VYkK2VQvc2VTAB@

They have the sample clip available here - http://www.caromtv.com/vod/cc106-09_sample.wmv

I almost cried just a little, it was so sweet.

Anyway, just thought I'd toss it your way.

-yow!


edit: at caromtv.com they've got a bunch of freeviews too to check out :D
Click to expand...
 
That's an astonishing shot. The hit on the red ball is just about half-ball, so in that sense it's a "natural", but to hit a two-rail kick into an exact half-ball hit is very very strong, especially with enough spin and speed to make a 6-rail billiard after the half-ball hit.

I thought I was kicking well to win a hill-hill match last night with this shot:

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But kicking well for me and kicking well for Blomdahl are very different things.

Walter, I think the big difference between pool players who are excellent kickers and billiards players is that for the billiards players, spinning the ball around the rails at extremely precise angles is all they do. I don't mean to disparage the complexity of the game by saying that, I just mean that all of their time at the table is spent calculating how to use angle and spin going into the first rail in order to go multiple rails into a 2.5" target. If any top pool player spent that high a percentage of their time with that goal in mind, they'd learn to spin that ball around the rails with astonishing accuracy too.

Also, I think the fact that the tables are constructed with rail-rebound predictability as an utmost priority helps a lot. I do think kick shots have to be much easier on a billiards table than a gold crown.

-Andrew
 
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