How are you Aiming cut shots.

[SeniorTom]

I think all aiming eventually evolves to subconscious recognition of the simplest reliable visual: CB/OB overlap. I think the system becomes more and more of a cross check and/or trigger for the overlap visual, still an active and important part.

pj
chgo

I have never used the ghost ball process, I seem to subconsciously know how to make the angles. Although, back-cutting causes me headaches sometimes, but am getting better with extra practice. The mind can be a dangerous place when doubts creep in. I see so many able to shoot the lights out, so to speak, but when the spotlight is on them in league competition, their skill set decreases. That's when the back cuts get hard!

 

[DistinguishedBilliards]

Tom,
I struggled with this too still di but am much better. I had to learn the psychology behind it. As I know it it is a left brain vs right brain problem. When you practice and play with limited pressure your right brain "automatic shot making machine takes over " and you just do what you know to do. When the spot light or pressure shows up your left brain " fight or flight" tries to save you: the issue though it that part of your brain doesn't know how to shoot pool well and doesn't have the training your right brain does. SO then you have to recognize it let your left Brian help you calculate then ignore it and shoot. That's the tricky part, you have to accept the outcome before you shoot and get into the moment and your process and get down and shoot the shot without thinking about it. Learn to trust your shot making machine. It is not easy but with practice it works. Or I am completely wrong.

 

[SeniorTom]

Tom,
I struggled with this too still di but am much better. I had to learn the psychology behind it. As I know it it is a left brain vs right brain problem. When you practice and play with limited pressure your right brain "automatic shot making machine takes over " and you just do what you know to do. When the spot light or pressure shows up your left brain " fight or flight" tries to save you: the issue though it that part of your brain doesn't know how to shoot pool well and doesn't have the training your right brain does. SO then you have to recognize it let your left Brian help you calculate then ignore it and shoot. That's the tricky part, you have to accept the outcome before you shoot and get into the moment and your process and get down and shoot the shot without thinking about it. Learn to trust your shot making machine. It is not easy but with practice it works. Or I am completely wrong.

I like and agree with your thoughts . My big issue with me is getting down over the cue ball and going too fast thinking I can make this easily. There is a certain medium in which I think enough but not too much. That seems to work the best for me. But when my mind starts thinking too much and worry creeps in, I can make some bad shots. Just the same, when I am in the zone and my mind is working right I can wow a lot of people.

 

[DistinguishedBilliards]

I have had the same issue and still can do if I get complacent. I started trying to count and develop a time signature between shots. This may still even be rushed but once I have shot a shot I stand up and check the next shot then start a mental count of 7 seconds before I can even get down again. Then its 4 seconds for a visual check and 3 on a final check then hit the ball. in the final 3 seconds I am trying to get my body settled and locked. so then its only eyes move and stroke arm and that brings me to my current item I am working and it is a big deal to get to the next level. I will say it once but in caps.......HOLD THE FINISH.

 

[SeniorTom]

.......HOLD THE FINISH.

I believe in this, but fail at it too often times. I think I need to develop a pre-shot routine where I have important items in it like this.

 

[SeniorTom]

Since this thread is about aiming, I think a pre-shot routine goes hand in hand with aiming. I don't mean to steal the thread, but I would like to know what pre shot routine many of you good Shooters in here have and use. Even mediocre Shooters I would love to hear from you as well.

 

[purple4]

I am working through this problem as well. Here is my shot routine and practice routine as it stands right now working with my instructor twice a month:

Shot:
1. I stand on the line that would strike the object ball directly to its target. I Memorize it like I was shooting that ball into that target.
2. I stand behind the cue ball and find the line that gets me to the first line. I Memorize it as a tunnel not a point. I want the cue ball to create a tunnel to hit that point. I do see a ball in my vision but not just the ghost ball I try and see the entire tunnel.
3. Get down and position the tip ensuring that my "tunnel" of the cue ball matches what I memorized. I say in my head: LOOSE GRIP, SMOOTH, DO NOT DECELERATE
4. Perform 5 practice strokes pause.
5. Stroke the ball properly focusing purely on delivering the stroke dead center of that tunnel.
6. Freeze

Practice:
8 shots each end of the table with donuts based on my last league match most horrific cut shot miss, or just the common cuts that I find tricky like 1 diamond out from long rail and 2 diamond up from short rail and place cue ball on that same line at varying distances.
Must sink all 8 before moving on
Start at one end shoot towards the other. After you shoot put your next ball on the donut and keep going. That way you are shooting from both sides during the 16 ball practice. Gets you moving back and forth, its not as tedious, and identifies a strong side weak side potentially.

I am still searching for being able to hit center ball with a good stroke with a high 90s percentage at 4 diamonds or more distance with a front or back cut. So when I practice shot making I practice it like final ball. Just do not scratch. When my shot making workout is done I work on non center ball drills also using donuts. The hard part is doing the same thing over and over but that is the number one way to master anything. I do not think you can just work on it once here once there.

 

[DistinguishedBilliards]

On the cut overlap, Can I get more points of view and dictation of how to visualize and implement the process.?

 

[Patrick Johnson]

On the cut overlap, Can I get more points of view and dictation of how to visualize and implement the process.?

Learning Fractional Aiming could be a good way to learn CB/OB overlaps - 3/4 ball, 1/2 ball and 1/4 ball overlaps are the main "references" in Fractional Aiming.

(Red Xs are CB/OB contact points.)

I'm sure you can find lots of Fractional Aiming discussion in this Aiming Conversation forum.

pj
chgo

 

[BC21]

For anyone who can accurately pinpoint the ob contact point from behind the cb, or keep it in focus after getting aligned for the shot, here's a good method of aiming, and it certainly isn't aiming for the contact point as some people suggest.

Aim away from the contact point by the same distance the contact point looks to be from the center of the ob. This is from a ccb perspective, meaning you stand behind the cb and imagine a line from its center to the contact point on the ob. From there if it looks like the center of the ob is 0.5 inches left of the contact point, aim 0.5 inches to the right of the contact point.

But PAY ATTENTION to where you are aiming in relation to eighth of a ball references (aim points 0 through 7, where 0 is a full hit, 2 is a 3/4 hit, 4 is a halfball, and so on...). This will help train your visual skills quicker for recognizing fractional alignments or cb-ob overlaps.

 

[Patrick Johnson]

Aim away from the contact point by the same distance the contact point looks to be from the center of the ob.

Sometimes known as "Double The Distance" aiming. I almost mentioned it too.

pj
chgo

 

[Bob Jewett]

Sometimes known as "Double The Distance" aiming. I almost mentioned it too. ....

I had forgotten about the "Double The Distance" system. At first glance it appears to be the same as the ghost ball but there is a slight error built in if the distance is not measured along the right line. I think this is most evident if the cue ball is close to the object ball. For most shots the DtD system is fine.

 

[Patrick Johnson]

I had forgotten about the "Double The Distance" system. At first glance it appears to be the same as the ghost ball but there is a slight error built in if the distance is not measured along the right line. I think this is most evident if the cue ball is close to the object ball. For most shots the DtD system is fine.

What's the right line? Not like fractions on the OB (viewed as a disc)...?

pj
chgo

 

[Bob Jewett]

What's the right line? Not like fractions on the OB (viewed as a disc)...?

pj
chgo

The equal distances need to be on the GB-OB line. The three points are

Center of OB
Contact point
Center of GB

The distance between the first two points appears to be smaller than the distance between the second two because the points are farther from you. The error is not large for normal-length shots.

Draw out an overhead diagram with a half-ball shot and the cue ball half a ball from the object ball. The angle between the center of the cue ball and the contact point is less than half of the angle between the contact point and the edge of object ball ( through the center of the ghost ball). Most would consider that to not be "double the distance".

Often you can find imperfections in a system by taking the angle/positions to an extreme. If the system breaks there, you need to figure out under which conditions the system is "good enough" to use. And if the system breaks at an extreme it probably has errors for all cases.

Another case of a system that breaks is fractional ball if you only look at the first four values:

full ball -- 0 degrees cut
3/4 ball -- 15 degrees cut
1/2 ball -- 30 degrees cut
1/4 ball -- 45 degrees cut

A nice progression that clearly fails for the next case in that obvious sequence:

0 ball -- 60 degree cut -- off by 30 degrees

Of course it is easy to show that 3/4 and 1/4 are not exactly the angles shown above but without knowing trigonometry/geometry the fifth step shows you that you have to be careful and something is not quite right. (What is not right mathematically is that the sine of an angle is not equal to the angle but it is nearly equal for small angles.)

 

[BC21]

The equal distances need to be on the GB-OB line. The three points are

Center of OB
Contact point
Center of GB

The distance between the first two points appears to be smaller than the distance between the second two because the points are farther from you. The error is not large for normal-length shots.

Draw out an overhead diagram with a half-ball shot and the cue ball half a ball from the object ball. The angle between the center of the cue ball and the contact point is less than half of the angle between the contact point and the edge of object ball ( through the center of the ghost ball). Most would consider that to not be "double the distance".

Often you can find imperfections in a system by taking the angle/positions to an extreme. If the system breaks there, you need to figure out under which conditions the system is "good enough" to use. And if the system breaks at an extreme it probably has errors for all cases.

Another case of a system that breaks is fractional ball if you only look at the first four values:

full ball -- 0 degrees cut
3/4 ball -- 15 degrees cut
1/2 ball -- 30 degrees cut
1/4 ball -- 45 degrees cut

A nice progression that clearly fails for the next case in that obvious sequence:

0 ball -- 60 degree cut -- off by 30 degrees

Of course it is easy to show that 3/4 and 1/4 are not exactly the angles shown above but without knowing trigonometry/geometry the fifth step shows you that you have to be careful and something is not quite right. (What is not right mathematically is that the sine of an angle is not equal to the angle but it is nearly equal for small angles.)

Not sure what "double the distance" means. I was simply saying that the contact point is always in the middle between the ob center and the actual aim point. It's like this for all cut shots.

From ccb there are 3 lines: 1 - ccb to ob center (viewed as a circle, not a sphere); 2 - ccb to ob contact point; and 3 - the actual aim line to pocket the ball. The angle from 1 to 2 is the same as the angle from 2 to 3. Not a bad way to visualize the aim line if you can accurately pinpoint the contact point and match the angles, or match the distance from cp to ob center, then aim for that distance on the opposite side of the cp.

 

[BC21]

The ghostball doesn't have to be imagined. Just use the width of the ob as viewed from behind the cb.

Look at this aiming diagram again. If the ob contact point is at 2, then you aim ccb to 4. If the cp is 1.8 then you aim for 3.6. Ah, maybe now I see why PJ said it was the double the distance method.

Anyway, the more you use these references, the more you begin to recognize shots as a 2 or a 3, or a 5.5 or a 6.2, or whatever.

 

[Bob Jewett]

I was simply saying that the contact point is always in the middle between the ob center and the actual aim point. It's like this for all cut shots. ...

I was saying that "middle between" is not going to be so obvious for short shots and from the point of view of the cue ball. Here is a diagram of a short shot. I think it's hard to see from this close view the correct "middle".

You have to get back a ways before the two angles look about the same. The angular separation between the two pairs of points will never be exactly equal.

 

[Bob Jewett]

Not sure what "double the distance" means. ...

Take the distance from the OB center to the contact point and double it. It's just a slightly different way to say it. "Equal distance on the other side of the contact point" would be another.

 

[BC21]

I was saying that "middle between" is not going to be so obvious for short shots and from the point of view of the cue ball. Here is a diagram of a short shot. I think it's hard to see from this close view the correct "middle".

View attachment 722133

You have to get back a ways before the two angles look about the same. The angular separation between the two pairs of points will never be exactly equal.
View attachment 722134

We don't see shots from an overhead view, so the overlap never looks like it does in your image. Instead, the ghostball actually overlaps the ob. Here is a closer to reality view of a half ball aim. The reference points (ob center, cp, and aim point) are on the equator of the ball.

I am not using the actual ghostball here, because that's not a good reference, due to it being imaginary and not visible. I am only using visible references. Of course the cb will not lay perfectly flat against the ob, so the method will produce slightly thick hits from up close. But as long as there's a few inches between the cb and ob it works fine.

 

[bbb]

this a picture from patrick on dr daves site