I thought I understood english but what's this?

[CreeDo]

I know english well enough to understand throw, deflection, curve, masse, etc. But there's one particular english that I don't get. It involves using low inside on a sharp cut.

Let's say you have a thin-ish (over 50 degrees) rail cut. The OB is very close to the short rail.

Center ball = cueball goes straight up the table along the tangent line.
Top = cueball goes forward of the line.
Inside = cueball spins off the rail to go even more forward of the line.
Top + Inside = cueball goes as far ahead of the line as possible.

That's how I've understood it for years. I know that there will be exceptions... for example a very thin cut with pure sidespin will spin more off the rail than a mix of top+side because the top sort of 'dilutes' the amount of side you're putting on the ball, without adding much benefit (since the shot's already very thin). I also understand that I can get varied results depending on how much I'm cheating the pocket, and that using side means I'm cutting the ball a bit more thin, and that the sidespin will take better at slower speeds etc. etc.

...
What I don't get is that in at least one book they claimed you could get the cueball to go even further ahead of the tangent line by using low inside. I was sure it had to be a typo. But later a very good player visited our pool hall and claimed that if you had one of those situations where the OB is frozen to the short rail and you wanted to spin it in (by kicking it off the short rail), low inside was more effective than plain inside, and after contacting the OB you'll send the cueball more in the direction of the spin. There was also a video with commentary where efren had to make a thin cut that was very close to a corner, and the tangent line was sending him down table away from that end of the table. Billy I. said something like "here he can play with low inside to get it to zigzag two rails without running away down table" and that's just what efren did.

So what's the trick? I'd think that if you truly use a low hit, you're drawing the ball, and bending it backwards from the normal tangent line. If you use draw+inside, the inside might be enough to carry it forward of the line, but the draw isn't really helping, it should be fighting the tendency to go forward of the line.

The only thing I can think of is that low inside would get better results if you hit pretty softly so that the cueball curves a bit as it approaches the OB. The angle of approach for the cueball changes. But that doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. The book would be clearer if that's how it's supposed to work, I'd think.


One more thing, I saw a great example of 'holding' a ball where the cut is just a tiny bit too sharp to use normal inside english + follow. Buddy hall used high inside, but jacked the stick way up, like using semi-masse, it's similar to the english used in the famous passing lane shot. What I was wondering is how this shot can happen without a foul, even if it's too fast to see? When you jump legally, the cue ball is trapped between the tip and the slate and then bounces out at a sharp angle... but there's a limit to how vertical you can go with the stick, or else the ball would bounce off the slate and back into the tip again. That's what it seems like must be happening with these 'top masse' shots.

 

[VIProfessor]

You will probably note that the cut shots in which you greatly widen the angle of rebound with low inside are just about always played at medium speed or below. This is because what you're doing when you put low inside on such shots is like drag draw. Because of the low speed, the draw is about gone by the time it reaches the object ball, so all that's left on the cue ball is pure inside english. This, combined with the low speed which allows the english to take more, widens up the angle.

Edit: As you may be aware by now, depending on the angle and the object ball's distance from the rail, playing the cue ball firmer with low inside will kill the cue ball instead of widening the angle and sending the cueball downtable. Experiment with the shots at different speeds, angles, and object ball distances from the rail to learn the parameters of the shots.

 

[scottycoyote]

vip is right on the nose with that one. We learned a similar shot at cue-tech to make the ball do down the rail at an angle i didnt know was possible until i shot it.

 

[Russ Chewning]

I know english well enough to understand throw, deflection, curve, masse, etc. But there's one particular english that I don't get. It involves using low inside on a sharp cut.

Let's say you have a thin-ish (over 50 degrees) rail cut. The OB is very close to the short rail.

Center ball = cueball goes straight up the table along the tangent line.
Top = cueball goes forward of the line.
Inside = cueball spins off the rail to go even more forward of the line.
Top + Inside = cueball goes as far ahead of the line as possible.

That's how I've understood it for years. I know that there will be exceptions... for example a very thin cut with pure sidespin will spin more off the rail than a mix of top+side because the top sort of 'dilutes' the amount of side you're putting on the ball, without adding much benefit (since the shot's already very thin). I also understand that I can get varied results depending on how much I'm cheating the pocket, and that using side means I'm cutting the ball a bit more thin, and that the sidespin will take better at slower speeds etc. etc.

...
What I don't get is that in at least one book they claimed you could get the cueball to go even further ahead of the tangent line by using low inside. I was sure it had to be a typo. But later a very good player visited our pool hall and claimed that if you had one of those situations where the OB is frozen to the short rail and you wanted to spin it in (by kicking it off the short rail), low inside was more effective than plain inside, and after contacting the OB you'll send the cueball more in the direction of the spin. There was also a video with commentary where efren had to make a thin cut that was very close to a corner, and the tangent line was sending him down table away from that end of the table. Billy I. said something like "here he can play with low inside to get it to zigzag two rails without running away down table" and that's just what efren did.

So what's the trick? I'd think that if you truly use a low hit, you're drawing the ball, and bending it backwards from the normal tangent line. If you use draw+inside, the inside might be enough to carry it forward of the line, but the draw isn't really helping, it should be fighting the tendency to go forward of the line.

The only thing I can think of is that low inside would get better results if you hit pretty softly so that the cueball curves a bit as it approaches the OB. The angle of approach for the cueball changes. But that doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. The book would be clearer if that's how it's supposed to work, I'd think.


One more thing, I saw a great example of 'holding' a ball where the cut is just a tiny bit too sharp to use normal inside english + follow. Buddy hall used high inside, but jacked the stick way up, like using semi-masse, it's similar to the english used in the famous passing lane shot. What I was wondering is how this shot can happen without a foul, even if it's too fast to see? When you jump legally, the cue ball is trapped between the tip and the slate and then bounces out at a sharp angle... but there's a limit to how vertical you can go with the stick, or else the ball would bounce off the slate and back into the tip again. That's what it seems like must be happening with these 'top masse' shots.

I think what you are referring to is a shot where the bottom english wears off just before the cue ball reachs the object ball. This will leave pure sidespin on the cueball, and this will result in the maximum "spread" off the rail for the cue ball. Imagine it like this.. the slower the cue ball is moving, not counting sidespin, the more the sidespin will spin the ball upon contact with a rail. The faster a cueball is moving when it hits the rail after contact with the OB, the less amount of time spin has to "catch".

To learn this shot, get a lot of Efren's older matches.. He uses inside low a lot to move the cue ball slowly up the rail when he's gotten a little too much angle. He makes the cue ball behave as if he were straighter in, and applying follow.

If I am not mistaken, the reason he doesn't play the shot so much now is because when we see him, he is playing under the TV lights, on VERY fast cloth. If you use this shot on very fast cloth, the spin will either take on it's way to the OB, making aiming more difficult, or will make the cue ball spin too fast off the rail when hit at "comfortable speed".
It works MUCH better on a slower cloth.

The problem you are having is that of thinking "draw on the cue ball ALWAYS means backing up off the tangent line after contact with the OB." This is only true when the cueball is either hit forcefully enough to "stun" off the OB or harder. When hit softer than stun speed, the results can be mixed.

The reason low + inside often gets more forward motion than top + inside is because top + inside is often hit at "stun speed" or harder.. The stun speed will automatically cause the cue ball to travel along the tangent line for a short period, and will also have the cue ball moving too fast to allow spin to catch as much as you need.

If you think "draw drag + spin" instead of "low + spin", then you get the idea of what it happening in a clearer way.

If this is not what you were referring to, I apologize..

Russ

 

[Russ Chewning]

You will probably note that the cut shots in which you greatly widen the angle of rebound with low inside are just about always played at medium speed or below. This is because what you're doing when you put low inside on such shots is like drag draw. Because of the low speed, the draw is about gone by the time it reaches the object ball, so all that's left on the cue ball is pure inside english. This, combined with the low speed which allows the english to take more, widens up the angle.

Edit: As you may be aware by now, depending on the angle and the object ball's distance from the rail, playing the cue ball firmer with low inside will kill the cue ball instead of widening the angle and sending the cueball downtable. Experiment with the shots at different speeds, angles, and object ball distances from the rail to learn the parameters of the shots.

Wellllll, it took me forever to type it out, but it looks like VIP said it in a much more concise way..

Russ

 

[pdcue]

IIUC - the idea is that the CB is sliding on contact, instead of rolling.
It has to do with Max angular Velocity VS Linear<forward>Velocity
(where is Bob Jewett when you need him?) for the spining CB
to get max english effect.

Geek mode disengaged...
Bank Pool players often use it to make banks that seem unmakeable to newbies.
We used to call it 'stalling' the CB

Dale

 

[Bob Jewett]

I know english well enough to understand throw, deflection, curve, masse, etc. But there's one particular english that I don't get. It involves using low inside on a sharp cut. ...

Using draw to multiply the side spin is a fairly standard technique, especially among carom players. As others have mentioned, the draw slows the cue ball but all the side spin remains, giving a very large spin/speed ratio. The surprising thing is that hitting the cue ball on the equator doesn't give you the maximum. Ron Shepard did an analysis and got the result that you want to hit with equal amounts of draw and side (7:30 or 4:30 for those of you who use a clock face to describe the hit). I covered this in one of my BD articles if you want more details. It's on-line.

 

[seymore15074]

I know english well enough to understand throw, deflection, curve, masse, etc. But there's one particular english that I don't get. It involves using low inside on a sharp cut.

Your explaination of things is right on target. As others have already said, it's not that you are actually "playing" the ball low-inside, however you are cueing low-inside on the cue ball.

Think of the low as slowing the cue ball down a touch to transfer the maximum ammount of english off of the rail. If you setup this shot with the cue ball half a diamond away from the object ball, straight-inside will be (very very close to) the maximum reaction. However, if you pull the cue ball back to 3-4 diamonds away, and you basically slow roll it with straight-inside to have the same speed on contact, you're inside will be slowing down slightly as it travels towards the object ball. Using the low-inside lets you hit the ball a little firmer, and retain the maximum ammount of inside on the cue ball, up until contact. The low is simply helping the cue ball slow down to transfer a little more inside...

I'm glad to see a thread like this, because this is a higher-skill shot. It may take some people years to find this out on their own.

 

[axejunkie]

I was going to mention Efren until I saw Russ' post. He uses that shot quite a bit. I always seem to get more sidespin using low or center ball than high when hit at that speed.

 

[Andrew Manning]

Thanks for posting this. Since I've been reading about pool online fanatically for a couple of years, I very rarely read about a technique I hadn't heard of before, especially one that has a clear and logical foundation in physics, but this one is new to me. Of course you can get more speed/spin ratio by using low english to cut the speed without killing the spin, but I never thought of it. I'll have to try this next time I'm cutting a ball thin off the rail and really need to spin up/down table.

Another thing to mention, though, especially for firmer shots, is that follow/draw basically become masse spin after the CB hits a rail. If you have that 50-degree cut down the rail with inside english, hitting it with top will curve the CB back toward the rail after it comes off, which will send it further down table. If that doesn't make sense, see these two shots on cuetable:

Cuetable diagram

-Andrew

 

[CreeDo]

Thanks for the answers everyone. Esp. VIP and Russ for making it super clear and Mr. Jewett for clarifying that truly maximum sidespin doesn't happen on the equator as I always thought. I guess it's one of those things that always nagged at me in the back of my head. In the past, when I wanted to get maximum 'take' from the english, I just shot slower which means I was creeping the OB in, and having to deal with more curve as the cueball travels along, etc. Now I know I can use the draw-drag effect to hit the ball a little firmer as seymore put it.

Can't wait until I screw up my position and get to try it

 

[Russ Chewning]

Thanks for the answers everyone. Esp. VIP and Russ for making it super clear and Mr. Jewett for clarifying that truly maximum sidespin doesn't happen on the equator as I always thought. I guess it's one of those things that always nagged at me in the back of my head. In the past, when I wanted to get maximum 'take' from the english, I just shot slower which means I was creeping the OB in, and having to deal with more curve as the cueball travels along, etc. Now I know I can use the draw-drag effect to hit the ball a little firmer as seymore put it.

Can't wait until I screw up my position and get to try it

No problem, Creedo.. Let us know how it goes..

Russ

 

[Bob Jewett]

... Ron Shepard did an analysis and got the result that you want to hit with equal amounts of draw and side (7:30 or 4:30 for those of you who use a clock face to describe the hit). I covered this in one of my BD articles if you want more details. It's on-line.

I had some time to look this up: http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/1998-05.pdf

An article that discusses the "quality" of the stroke, which is the spin/speed ratio is at http://www.sfbilliards.com/articles/1999-02.pdf

 

[Ballistic Billiards]

i'm going to be practicing this one the next time i have balls left on the table instead of the slip draw i usually practice weeeeeeeeeee

 

[CreeDo]

Mr. Jewett comes through again

He described this exact phenomenon and the exact reasons behind it in the first link from 1998 and it's really interesting. In addition to confirming that draw+side gets more effect than plain sidespin, he points out that follow+side gets less. He noted that a lot of players subconsciously figure it out (I did). I incorrectly drew the conclusion that top+side was weaker because you aren't hitting as far to the side. I assumed bottom+side would be weaker for the same reason.

For those who are lazy to click the links and read, this is what I think the article is saying (feel free to correct me if I'm screwing it up).

-The true maximum effect of side happens when any unnatural follow or draw (i.e. vertical spin) has died. If the ball is still sliding and has follow or or draw on it when it touches a rail, the effect is not nearly as strong... the sidespin is diluted by the vertical spin.

- When you blend side with either follow or draw, the follow or draw will eventually die out, and what you're left with is almost pure side for a split second after they die. If the ball happens to hit a rail during that split second it will really whip off of the rail. If the ball hits before that split second, it's still got the forced vertical spin on it, and the side isn't as good. If the ball hits too long after that split second, the side starts getting diluted by natural forward roll. That's also not as good (but probably still decent).


So what I think is being said is that the ideal, perfect spin happens when all vertical english has died off, and forward roll hasn't kicked in yet. Then it's almost pure sidespin. So there's probably a bit of 'timing' to getting maximum spin.

Because draw wears off so much faster than follow, you can reach that magic sweet spot (or come closer to reaching it) more quickly than with topspin or plain side. The topspin puts the unwanted natural roll on the ball almost immediately, the equator hit delays it for a split second, but then it will take over after sliding a few inches... but the draw hit can delay it pretty much indefinitely.

- Icing on the cake is that the draw hit not only lets you delay the sidespin, it leaves the ball moving slower which increases the effect of the english.

The diagrams in the article made it clearer than I probably can using just words. If you visualize the 'maximum sidespin' points on a ball, you must hit way off to the side if you're using follow...not so far off to the side on the equator... and even less off to the side using draw. So for any given amount of spin, the different points you can hit to achieve it all fall on a straight line that points from the 'upper corner' of a ball to the point where the ball touches the table.

Go read the article in case I've screwed this up :B

Sad to say I still haven't been able to try it out myself, I keep accidentally staying in line and I forgot to take a minute to experiment with it.

 

[mikepage]

Thanks for the answers everyone. Esp. VIP and Russ for making it super clear and Mr. Jewett for clarifying that truly maximum sidespin doesn't happen on the equator as I always thought. I guess it's one of those things that always nagged at me in the back of my head. In the past, when I wanted to get maximum 'take' from the english, I just shot slower which means I was creeping the OB in, and having to deal with more curve as the cueball travels along, etc. Now I know I can use the draw-drag effect to hit the ball a little firmer as seymore put it.

Can't wait until I screw up my position and get to try it

Isn't the drag-draw shot a great tool? I can think of four separate reasons to use it:

http://forums.azbilliards.com/showpost.php?p=460194&postcount=24

 

[Bob Jewett]

... Because draw wears off so much faster than follow, you can reach that magic sweet spot (or come closer to reaching it) more quickly than with topspin or plain side. ... .

Top spin doesn't wear off. This is explained well in Byrne's "Advanced Technique in Pool and Billiards" in his chapter on why you almost never see more top spin than with a ball that is rolling smoothly on the cloth. That's the natural state of the cue ball -- rolling smoothly.

To the extent that you have excess follow on the cue ball, it dissipates (and is turned into a change in speed) at the same rate that draw is turned into a change in speed. Most players never hit the ball high enough to have excess follow unless, of course, the cue ball hits an object ball fully, and then the cue ball has excess follow (in relation to its speed) because all the speed has been removed.

 

[CreeDo]

I get what you're saying... you don't see a ball's topspin outweighing its speed, and if it did it would be rubbing the cloth and eventually friction would wear it away. So I guess I wasn't thinking when I thought of topspin as dissipating.

But did I get the thrust of it right, that the goal is basically to ensure that the cueball hasn't picked up natural roll by the time it hits a rail, and that the goal of draw+sidespin is to delay the onset of natural roll? Because once the natural roll kicks in, it dilutes the sidespin and eventually eliminates it entirely, right?

 

[VIProfessor]

I get what you're saying... you don't see a ball's topspin outweighing its speed, and if it did it would be rubbing the cloth and eventually friction would wear it away. So I guess I wasn't thinking when I thought of topspin as dissipating.

But did I get the thrust of it right, that the goal is basically to ensure that the cueball hasn't picked up natural roll by the time it hits a rail, and that the goal of draw+sidespin is to delay the onset of natural roll? Because once the natural roll kicks in, it dilutes the sidespin and eventually eliminates it entirely, right?

Right.....Good luck with learning the shot!