Help Me Draw

[RSB-Refugee]

The cueball accelerates and acquires spin despite the stick's deceleration because the force that's acting on the stick to slow it down is the very same force that's acting on the cueball to speed it up. That is, it's the same in magnitude but operating in the opposite direction. Because of the cueball's smaller mass, the effect on it is larger than on the stick.

Hope that makes sense.

Jim

Are you saying that the two remain in contact until an equilibrium is achieved? If so, would a lighter cue maintain contact longer than a heavier one? Second question, do you feel that a lighter grip adds less mass to the cue than a tight grip?

Tracy

 

[av84fun]

Whitewolf...<< If you watch Cory, he is very very smooth, and I believe that he shoots with the low and level.>>

"Level" is a finite term and it means EXACTLY parallell to a given point of reference. Just watch a tv match or two. You will see for your self that a VERY SMALL percentage of draw shots are accomplished with a LEVEL cue...often becuase the CB proximity to a cushion or an intervening OB makes a level cue impossible.

But even without such obstructions, you will SEE that a LEVEL cue is RARELY used on draw shots. Therefore..."Nearly level" is the correct phrase while "as level as possible" is INCORRECT although it appears often in pool lesson texts. "Level as possible" is incorrect since in the vast majority of instances the pro does not use a level cue orientation even when he/she could do so.

PLEASE...let's not argue. Rather, just let all interested parties WATCH the pros on TV and decide for yourselves.

Regards,
Jim

 

[av84fun]

Jal...The cueball accelerates and acquires spin despite the stick's deceleration because the force that's acting on the stick to slow it down is the very same force that's acting on the cueball to speed it up. That is, it's the same in magnitude but operating in the opposite direction. Because of the cueball's smaller mass, the effect on it is larger than on the stick. Hope that makes sense.>>

Yes is does make sense Jim and you are exactly correct. However, since humans are virtually incapable of starting and then MAINTAINING an EXACT cue stick speed on approach to the CB, the cue stick will either be accelerating or decelerating at the moment of impact. There are LOTS of things wrong with declerating before impact and few if any things wrong with accelarating for reasons you surely know.

Clearlym you are correct that the cue stick DOES NOT and CANNOT accelerate THROUGH the CB impact but it is the FEELING of acceleration throught the ball that is desired and that can only be accomplished by acceleration approaching the CB.

In other words, ALL shots accelerate from the moment of stroke initiation BUT great strokes continue that acceleration...or AT LEAST don't decelerate from the peak velocity achieved before OB impact...and poor strokes DO decelerate from peak velocity.

Regards,
Jim

 

[Jal]

Are you saying that the two remain in contact until an equilibrium is achieved?

Upon initial contact, say one-millionth of a second after they touch, there is essentially no force between them. As they proceed to compress, the force builds up and eventually reaches a peak value. At this point, the stick and cueball are traveling at the same speed which corresponds to maximum compression. The mutual compression force then continues slowing the stick down and speeding the cueball up. During this period the force diminishes and eventually reaches zero as the tip and ball separate. I'm not sure I would call any part of this "equilibrium".

If so, would a lighter cue maintain contact longer than a heavier one?

I don't know much about this except to say that generally the laws which govern such things predict an increase in contact time with more massive colliding objects. It's not a linear relationship, however, if you double the mass you don't double the contact time. The increase is weaker than this. Hertz Law, which governs the collision of spheres to some degree of accuracy, predicts a depedence on the mass raised to the 2/5'ths power. So if you double the mass, the contact period should increase by a factor of 1.3. The tip is sort of like a sphere, but the cue is more like a spring, which are governed by Hooke's Law where the contact time goes up with the square root of the mass. I haven't put much thought into this and it probably wouldn't help. But given the above, it's likely true that a heavier cue will increase the contact time.

The tip does exert the greater influence on this though. It's similar to two springs in series. The weakest spring has the most to say about the characteristics of the combined system.

Second question, do you feel that a lighter grip adds less mass to the cue than a tight grip?

According to what I've read, my own calculations, and a little test where I measured how much force I could generate by pressing the butt of my cue against a scale and noting how far my hand moved with respect to the cue, it's pretty certain that how tight or loose you grip the cue has virtually zero effect on its effective mass. During impact it moves very little with respect to the hand, and in order to have an effect, you would have to be able generate fairly large forces (compression) over this very small distance. With the tightest grip I could manage, it wasn't in the ballpark or even the surrounding neighborhood.

Jim

 

[RSB-Refugee]

Upon initial contact, say one-millionth of a second after they touch, there is essentially no force between them. As they proceed to compress, the force builds up and eventually reaches a peak value.

Would it take more time with a lighter cue, for the two to reach "peak value"? I am trying to understand, but I may not get it. Thanks for trying to explain it to me.

Tracy

 

[FLICKit]

Flickit, you probably didn't mean this literally, but the cueball does not reach its final speed instantaneously. It takes typically 1-2 milliseconds. That may not seem like long, but it's an eternity compared to some things. At large tip offsets, the majority of its spin and speed is acquired during the first half of this period (the force vs time curve becomes highly unsymmetric), but it still does not happen in an instant.

First of all, your post is nitpicking about very inane and super minute details, that's hardly helpful to the post and the ideas conveyed.

Originally Posted by FLICKit
...First of all, there has to be some clarification regarding acceleration. There's the acceleration of the cue ball from 0 to its eventual maximum speed (instantaneously after contact is made).

Besides, you mis-read the statement that I was relaying. After all the contact has ended, the instant after that contact is over, is when the cue ball is at its maximum speed. So the cue ball goes from 0 to maximum speed the instant after the contact is over and done, such that there is no longer any contact. To restate what I said in your terms, the moment after your 1-2 milliseconds is when the cue ball achieves its maximum speed. Applying the comment 1-2 milliseconds later would've made your statement come into alignment with mine.

Sorry, but the stick does decelerate during contact.

Now, you're really taking it to very very minute details, which can often get convoluted, since it'll often be more theoretical than provable or verifiable in real world execution.

First a little background... It's already been acknowledged that there is a force exerted on the cue ball and an equal and opposite force exerted on the stick being held. And, due to the differences in mass, that the cue ball receives the largest amount of change in direction. In reference to the difference in mass
X = mass of human / mass of cue ball
Excluding other factors, the effect of the cue ball against the human with the stick would be 1/x, which in general would be smaller than 1/400.
Applying hypothetical numbers....

Now, let's look at an accelerated stroke from full backswing until the instantaneous moment of contact, until the instant after contact (1-2 milliseconds as you stated). If the stroke of the stick has an acceleration of 5 millimeters / 10 milliseconds and the contact with the cue ball decelerates the stick by a very tiny factor of 1/X, then it is not only possible but likely that the stick can continue accelerating even though that acceleration has been ever so slightly reduced.

"If you ignore" the acceleration from the stroke, then the contact with the cue ball causes deceleration, as you stated. But, with the acceleration of the stroke and the deceleration of the contact simultaneously occuring, the net effect can be an acceleration (less than the original acceleration).

In more real world terms it would be like, instead of accelerating a car 0-60 in 5 seconds, you accelerate it 0-60 in 6 seconds. Definitely slower, but both have a net acceleration nonetheless.

You can of course continue to apply force during this period, but the force between the cueball and tip will be much greater, and this causes the stick to slow down. And the extra force you're applying, by itself, does not give you much more in the way of speed and spin, because of this disparity. It's the acceleration of the stick up to the moment of impact that yields a more significant gain, and this is from the increased cue speed which results. It's particularly significant compared to what happens if you decelerate the stick before impact.

The cueball accelerates and acquires spin despite the stick's deceleration because the force that's acting on the stick to slow it down is the very same force that's acting on the cueball to speed it up. That is, it's the same in magnitude but operating in the opposite direction. Because of the cueball's smaller mass, the effect on it is larger than on the stick.

There are many statements in your first paragraph above that I would say are not accurate or even flawed. I.e. "causes the stick to slow down" when it could be countered with simply causes the stick to accelerate less, but overall it continues to accelerate... I'm not interested in nitpicking each one, but instead have focused on the overall concept.

I apologize in advance for the magnitude of detail presented...

I'm sure the physics here is not 100% (there will be some minor flaws here and there), but the overall concept being conveyed is what's important.

I don't have much of a desire to continue to pursue very nitpicky details...
Especially when you consider that this conversation can get even more detailed when you consider the effects of the tip, acting like a spring, compressing and decompressing, on top of the stick. All of the inane minute and instantaneous details that would be involved...


Just wanted to maintain the simple point I expressed which is that an accelerated stroke can be very useful for applying reverse spin for a draw shot.

 

[Jal]

Would it take more time with a lighter cue, for the two to reach "peak value"? I am trying to understand, but I may not get it. Thanks for trying to explain it to me.

You're welcome. And since I'm interested in this, thanks for the questions. They made me think about this in more detail which helped to clear up at least some of the fog.

All else being equal, a lighter cue will take less time for maximum compression to occur, and the whole contact period will be be shortened. Predicting how much is another thing, but it should shorten it.

As far as the effects on the cueball, its speed and spin can be predicted to a very good approximation knowing only the masses of the stick and ball, tip offset, cue speed, and how much mechanical energy is lost in the transaction. The details of the force and contact time aren't necessary for this. They "automatically" arrange themselves to comply with the laws of conservation of energy and momentum, from which you can derive the cueball's and stick's post impact states. Using this, as I'm sure you already know, given the same speed, a lighter cue will produce less spin and speed, but the same spin/speed ratio, or very nearly so.

Jim

 

[FLICKit]

And the extra force you're applying, by itself, does not give you much more in the way of speed and spin, because of this disparity. It's the acceleration of the stick up to the moment of impact that yields a more significant gain, and this is from the increased cue speed which results. It's particularly significant compared to what happens if you decelerate the stick before impact.

I will respond to this part, because I see you are a technical person, and I think this will get to the heart of the discussion.

If I interpret you right, you say that the increased cue speed before contact is the significant factor. In other words you're saying that contacting at 10 millimeters / 10 milliseconds would produce one result, while contacting at 20 millimeters / 10 milliseconds would produce a greater effect.

What I'm expressing is that it's not JUST the speed before contact that is sole determinant factor. So,
1. constant at 10mm/10ms
2. accelerate from 5mm/10ms and increase to 10mm/10ms just before contact
3. decelerate from 15mm/10ms and slowing to 10mm/10ms just before contact
would all 3 produce different results with 2. producing the best results and 3. producing the worst results.

I would even suggest that a very likely reason for the differences would be the deceleration effects after contact that you were referring to earlier. In example 1 (above), the stick would have a small deceleration effect. In example 2, since the stick was accelerating it would have a smaller decleration effect. And, in example 3, with the stick already decelerating, then the deceleration effect would be greater.

These factors would come into play, from the time immediately after initial collision until the time immediately after any contact between the two has ended. Thus, during the time of contact (1-2 milliseconds) then the effects of the constant stroke, decelerated stroke, and accelerated stroke would affect the outcome of the shot, draw in this case.

Could even say that the ending speed of the stick at the instantaneous moment at the end of contact with the cue ball would be less in example 3, and more in example 2. This would be noticeably impactful regarding the resultant spin placed on the cue ball.


Summary...
The cue ball is in rest on a level felt table with its mass, inertia, and gravity (interrelated terms) keeping it at rest. The effect of initial contact on the lower part of the cue ball, will cause the cue ball to move forward and will impart some level of spin. The decelerated, constant, or accelerated speeds upon approach will be the driving force during the contact. This driving force will impact the magnitude of the spin.


There is a next level... but not adding any more complexity at this time.

 

[Jal]

Flickit,

I appreciate your attempts to understand this, but when you offer a detailed explanation and then characterize someone else's details which disagree with yours as "inane", you don't invite much return discussion. But I don't really think you meant to be insulting, you just have strong ideas about it and have been put somewhat on the defensive by me and the other posters.

Several of your ideas are right, imo, but you're simply wrong about the cue acceleration thing (it happens to all of us). The force acting on the cue during impact at the ball end is much larger than the force that can be applied by your hand/arm. For a hard center ball hit, the average force at the ball end approaches 400 lbs or so. For a hard hit at a large tip offset, it's more like 100 lbs or so. To get the cue up to speed, the average force applied by your hand is around 15 lbs or so on a hard hit. This may seem significant compared to the smaller 100 lb tip/ball force at a large tip offset, but it isn't.

First of all, this force is distributed through the mass of both the stick and the cueball, whereas the 100 lbs (or so) force is acting on the ball directly. The cueball thus sees only a fraction of this according to the ratio of its effective mass against the stick's mass. This is 1/3, typically, but at large tip offsets, the mass of the ball that the cue sees is reduced even further, because of the balls rotation....by a divisor of 1.4, approximately.

Secondly, for anything like a normal stroke, you're unlikely to be applying 15 Ibs of force at impact. I'm not saying it's impossible, just unlikely. More probable is that it's down to a couple of pounds, or maybe 5 lbs or so. I don't know, it's a biology question, but I doubt that it's anywhere near 15.

...
What I'm expressing is that it's not JUST the speed before contact that is sole determinant factor. So,
1. constant at 10mm/10ms
2. accelerate from 5mm/10ms and increase to 10mm/10ms just before contact
3. decelerate from 15mm/10ms and slowing to 10mm/10ms just before contact
would all 3 produce different results with 2. producing the best results and 3. producing the worst results.

Yes, we are in agreement here. It's just that I don't think you're going to be able to see much difference.

Could even say that the ending speed of the stick at the instantaneous moment at the end of contact with the cue ball would be less in example 3, and more in example 2.

I think so.

This would be noticeably impactful regarding the resultant spin placed on the cue ball.

I doubt it.

Jim

 

[FLICKit]

Jal, let me clarify...

Originally the general tenor of the conversation was about how to apply draw to a shot. My contribution to the thread was to focus primarily on spin. Inside of that general conversation talking about the difference between 1-2 milliseconds is quite detailed to the level of inane, and didn't really add anything to the general conversation.

Afterwards, I read some of your other posts, and realized that you just like to be technical and have some level of expertise with physics concepts. At that point, for the sake of fun and interest, I put forth my previous post which challenged you more to the level of technical detail that you espouse. That's why I even PM'ed that I'd be interested in your response.

I appreciate your attempts to understand this, but when you offer a detailed explanation and then characterize someone else's details which disagree with yours as "inane", you don't invite much return discussion. But I don't really think you meant to be insulting, you just have strong ideas about it and have been put somewhat on the defensive by me and the other posters.

I apologize if you've taken offense to any of my comments.

Often times when someone makes an accusation it is usually interesting to apply that assessment or characterization on themself first.

"attempts to understand this"... Hmm... hypothetically, what if I likewise said that I appreciate your attempts to understand this?

True, my overall intention is not to be insulting and I have some strong ideas.
"put somewhat on the defensive by me and the other posters". Sounds to me like you're being a bit defensive. Now, if my pointing out your defensiveness make me sound defensive... well it's kinda paradoxical.

Several of your ideas are right, imo,

I appreciate the vote of confidence, but for the sake of the discussion, I can't tell which ones are you referring to?

but you're simply wrong about the cue acceleration thing (it happens to all of us).

Excuse me for pointing out again, that you sound quite defensive there.

The force acting on the cue during impact at the ball end is much larger than the force that can be applied by your hand/arm. For a hard center ball hit, the average force at the ball end approaches 400 lbs or so. For a hard hit at a large tip offset, it's more like 100 lbs or so. To get the cue up to speed, the average force applied by your hand is around 15 lbs or so on a hard hit. This may seem significant compared to the smaller 100 lb tip/ball force at a large tip offset, but it isn't.

From this quote all the way to the end, much of your information sounds quite suspect and unsubstantiated. Before automatically making an assumption that "you're wrong", I'll give you an opportunity to substantiate the information that you are providing. Afterwards, then we'll have a better understanding of each other so that the conversation can proceed in a more rational manner.

First of all, this force is distributed through the mass of both the stick and the cueball, whereas the 100 lbs (or so) force is acting on the ball directly. The cueball thus sees only a fraction of this according to the ratio of its effective mass against the stick's mass. This is 1/3, typically, but at large tip offsets, the mass of the ball that the cue sees is reduced even further, because of the balls rotation....by a divisor of 1.4, approximately.

Excluding the 100 lbs (or so) force, much of what you state here seems much more sound reasoning.

Secondly, for anything like a normal stroke, you're unlikely to be applying 15 Ibs of force at impact. I'm not saying it's impossible, just unlikely. More probable is that it's down to a couple of pounds, or maybe 5 lbs or so. I don't know, it's a biology question, but I doubt that it's anywhere near 15.

If you can in any way justify these large numbers of opposition force from the cue ball, then using your same line of reasoning, I wouldn't be surprised to be able to justify the human bodies ability to do the same and more. When given a choice between the power of the force from the cue ball, and the power of the force from the human body, I'd put my money on the human factor to overcome. Maybe it's a bad assumption, but we'll soon see based on the next few responses (hopefully technical and not personally defensive).

Yes, we are in agreement here. It's just that I don't think you're going to be able to see much difference.

Agreement here??? I fail to see what you're saying we're in agreement with.
Please clarify.

I responded to your message detail by detail, just to be thorough, based on the technical manner that we've been having this discussion in this thread. I recognize that sometimes responses in such a manner can relay some unintended consequences. For that I apologize in advance. I assure you that my purpose of doing this, was not to hijack the thread or turn the conversation into drivel, but instead to further the challenge and test of my theories about the impact and value of acceleration to generate back spin. If there is a better set of theories, then I'm willing to test them, both in discussion and in execution on the pool table to see which produces the best results. Currently, I have seem much better and more reliable draw on a pool table utilizing the concepts of using acceleration to generate spin.

In real life, I can and have quite readily taken someone who is struggling to do draw, and quickly put them on a path to executing good draw. Once I start them on the path, I allow them to further there abilities on this through their own personal experiences. Possibly providing periodic refinement along the way, with intervals of time inbetween, until they elevate to a point where there abilities can respond to the refinement necessary.

Sort of gives them the ability to develop the touch and feel that was pointed out by someone else (apologize for not looking it up, but you know who you are) in this thread..

Not trying to brag or anything in that manner, just stating what I've seen from my personal experience and training.

Once again to restate the desire is simply to test and challenge your theories and mine, and hopefully for myself learn which one produces the best real world results to my pool game. I understand that some of the concepts I'm relaying aren't necessarily consistent with generally accepted norms, but from what I've seen it does seem very consistent with the actions of top players.

 

[Rod]

LLL

LOW-LEVEL-LOOSE.

Best consistency

LLLG

Low-Level-Loosie-Goosey - LOL

The original poster is at least missing the first part - LOW.

Rod

 

[FLICKit]

LLLG

Low-Level-Loosie-Goosey - LOL

The original poster is at least missing the first part - LOW.

Rod

I like low level and loose as well... Usually that's the kind of motion that contributes to acceleration through the point of contact. There are many sophitiscated shots where that kind of motion is required, not just draw. What ya gonna do if close to the rail, or if have to get a little jacked up over a ball?

Have to be able to make the necessary adjustments when it's required, or else suffer the consequences.

Even when you can't get Low & Level, still have to be able to generate sufficient reverse spin at the point of contact...

I've seen other top players who don't get low and level and are still able to generate significant spin to draw the length of the table and more...

 

[Bob Jewett]

... . If the stroke of the stick has an acceleration of 5 millimeters / 10 milliseconds and the contact with the cue ball decelerates the stick by a very tiny factor of 1/X, then it is not only possible but likely that the stick can continue accelerating even though that acceleration has been ever so slightly reduced.
...

The deceleration of the cue stick during the contact with the cue ball was studied in one series of sequences in the Jacksonville Project. The speed of the cue stick is reduced by half during the 1-2 milliseconds that it is on the cue ball. That's pretty much exactly what physics predicts from a 3:1 ratio of masses (cue stick to cue ball).

After that, the hand re-accelerates the stick up to about 80% of its initial speed, but by then the ball is long gone. The speed of the "catch up" lets us calculate the "stiffness" of the grip relative to the stiffness of the tip, and it is about 100 times "softer." That is, the flesh of your grip hand is about 100 times softer than the leather in the tip.

The cue ball leaves the tip with about 130% of the stick's initial speed for a center ball hit.

 

[Bob Jewett]

Are you saying that the two remain in contact until an equilibrium is achieved? If so, would a lighter cue maintain contact longer than a heavier one? Second question, do you feel that a lighter grip adds less mass to the cue than a tight grip?

Tracy

In fact, when the ball leaves the tip, it is going at about 130% of the initial speed of the cue stick, and the cue stick is going at abot 50% of its initial speed. There is no equilibrium involved. The tip is springy.

A lighter stick will have a very slightly shorter contact time if all other factors are equal. I don't think anyone has proposed any useful result from this. The contact time is expected to get something like 5% shorter if you go from a 20-ounce cue to 18 ounces.

Having more or less contact time does not by itself get you more spin or speed to any significant extent.

 

[FLICKit]

Interesting contribution Bob... am now looking at some high speed video clips from the following address....
http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/pool/high_speed_videos/index.html

 

[FLICKit]

These are pretty cool high speed videos

With this video the cue stick remains so close to the cue ball that it actually appears to hit the cue ball again....
http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/pool/high_speed_videos/new/HSVA-36.htm

This one is really fascinating. There is no double hit, but you can see the stick and cue ball travelling about 2 inches after contact with no change in separation between the two.
http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/pool/high_speed_videos/new/HSVA-36.htm

Don't think these contributes to the conversation, but kinda cool to see the miscue...
http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/pool/high_speed_videos/new/HSVA-43.htm
http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/pool/high_speed_videos/new/HSVA-44.htm

Very interesting different perspective showing the hand during the swing including effect from impact.
http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/pool/high_speed_videos/new/HSVA-34.htm

 

[FLICKit]

Tiny correction... the 2nd one should be
http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~dga/pool/high_speed_videos/new/HSVA-38.htm

 

[cuetechasaurus]

I can teach you how to REALLY draw the cueball, but I don't want to leak this information to the public. It's really valuable information. But what the heck, I'll tell you anyways.......












Take the cueball, put it next to a piece of paper. Now use a pen or pencil, and draw a circle. Don't forget to draw the measles too if you are using a measles cueball. Bingo, you have drawn the cueball. Anyone who makes profit of this valuable information I have just given, I want 20% of all profit you make from it. Muahahahahha

Seriously though, I think you should ignore all of the physics mumbo jumbo about drawing your rock. It's great information, but it's just gonna confuse a novice. The key thing is having a straight stroke, and good alignment. With those two combined, you will get a real solid hit on the cueball, lots of draw with minimal effort. IMO there is not a better feeling shot in pool when you have a dead straight in long shot, and you hit it so sweet that the cueball draws directly back towards your tip, and you can do it again and again.

 

[mikepage]

[...]
I don't know much about this except to say that generally the laws which govern such things predict an increase in contact time with more massive colliding objects. It's not a linear relationship, however, if you double the mass you don't double the contact time. The increase is weaker than this. Hertz Law, which governs the collision of spheres to some degree of accuracy, predicts a depedence on the mass raised to the 2/5'ths power. So if you double the mass, the contact period should increase by a factor of 1.3. The tip is sort of like a sphere, but the cue is more like a spring, which are governed by Hooke's Law where the contact time goes up with the square root of the mass. I haven't put much thought into this and it probably wouldn't help. But given the above, it's likely true that a heavier cue will increase the contact time.

The mass effect is weak. It's not possible to "double" the hooke's law mass by increasing the mass of the stick.

Describing the linear motion of two objects (stick and ball) is a two-dimensional problem. It involves the mass of the stick, mass of the ball, position and momentum of the stick, and position and momentum of the ball. This can be turned into an easier one-dimensional problem by going to a center of mass coordinate system. For the one-dimensional problem, the one we can actually solve, there is only one "mass." It is called the stick-ball reduced mass. It's equal to (ms*mb)/(ms+mb). The Hooke's law contact time depends on the square root of this, not on the square root of the mass of the stick. For a normal stick and ball this reduced mass equals about 75% of the mass of a ball. If you went to a stick that has the mass of a freight train, this reduced mass would increase only to 100% of the mass of a ball. In other words, the Hooke's law contact time can only be increased by 10% or so no matter how heavy you make the stick.

 

[av84fun]

pooltchr...<<...that is to get consistant controlled draw, you keep the cue as level as possible>>

Hi Steve,
We've had this same debate...totally friendly as I hope you agree...on another forum. I think that the "level as possible" instruction is somewhat misleading and is not IN FACT routinely practiced by most top pros. They might SAY to keep the cue "as level as possible" but they DON'T DO IT IN REAL LIFE.

I just invite any interested party to simply watch a TV match and pay attention to what they SEE and not what they hear or read.

What they will SEE is:

A. The cue is ALMOST NEVER level...mostly because it is impossible to GET it level except in a small minority of the places where there CB comes to rest.

B. Even in the rare instances where the cue COULD be exactly level...it is NEVER made to be level on LOW, MAXIMUM DRAW SHOTS. If it WAS level on shots where the tip is intended to strike the CB at the maximum lowest point, then almost certainly, the CB will be scooped causing an illegal jump shot.

You are utterly correct that when the shot does NOT call for maximum draw then the cue should be and is kept FAIRLY level...if possible...but RARELY "as level as possible"...except maybe when only a tip or so of low is being used. Most other times, there will be a slight downward incline in excess of "as low as possible." I attribute that to the fact that dead level is used so RARELY that they become accustomed to the slight downward incline and repeat it habitually.

All I am saying is that using the "as level as possible" advice GENERICALLY for all draw shots is not what people will SEE when they watch the pros play.

Kind regards,
Jim