Looking for a REAL mathematical system
- Thread starter mr3cushion
- Start date
Bill,
The system master's name was Chuck, as i remember.
I met him only a few times at Thanh Tam billiard in Southern CA, and i haven't seen him around for a long time. Luckily i drew diagrams and wrote down everything that he taught me. He told me to work on them cuz they're really helpful for the game. I have now over 20 pages of diagrams showing systems and references. I'm sure he has more teach but it's kinda hard to find him now.
The system master's name was Chuck, as i remember.
I met him only a few times at Thanh Tam billiard in Southern CA, and i haven't seen him around for a long time. Luckily i drew diagrams and wrote down everything that he taught me. He told me to work on them cuz they're really helpful for the game. I have now over 20 pages of diagrams showing systems and references. I'm sure he has more teach but it's kinda hard to find him now.
Bill,
You got me looking through some of my old stuff and found something from Jim McFarlin that may be something you're looking for, maybe not. I do not know how to use the WEI table so I will try to explain what was written on a diagram from long ago:
It's a dead ball system.
The numbering from the short rail your 2 balls are on (right side of your diagram) go from 1-5 for each diamond, starting at the upper corner on the side of the rail you will be hitting 1st. The corner is 1, next diamond is 2, next is 3, etc.
The long side rail diamonds opposite the 1st rail you will hit (cueball position) are numbered 1-8, the 1st being the 1st diamond closest to scoring short rail (the right side of the bottom long rail in your diagram) and 8 being in the corner furthest away.
The diamond numbers on the 1st rail you hit (the top long rail in your diagram) are 10-80, 10 being the 1st diamond closest to your scoring rail (where the 2 balls are in you diagram) and 80 being in the corner, although you would never use more than 40, the center diamond.
You would determine where you want the cue ball to hit on the short rail to score the shot, where your cueball is located on the long rail (bottom on your diagram), and multiply those 2 numbers. This will tell you where you must hit on the 1st rail to score the shot.
Examples: Let's say in your diagram you would need the cue ball to hit the middle diamond on the short rail to score (3) and your cue ball is in the corner (8), you would multiply 8x3=24 so you would hit the top long rail at 24, which is close to 2.4 diamonds away from the scoring rail.
Another would be if you still needed to score at 3 and the cueball was laying on the 3rd diamond (3), then you would multiply 3x3=9 and hit .9 diamond closest to the scoring rail.
I hope this makes sense, I never really worked with this much because I was able to use the corner 5 to estimate the 2nd rail fairly well and was able to use running english. This worked fine for me.
The only issues w/deadball systems is that the longer the angle, the tougher it is to judge, because I have found that you needed more speed or play it a little shorter to be accurate. Maybe this system builds in the adjustment, I do not know. Jim just liked showing me stuff since we didn't see each other all that often while I lived in No CA. He was a great guy.
Hope this helps in some way, godd luck in your search.
Dave
Last edited:
Bill , I believe I saw some examples in Carl Conlon Diagrams Book on figuring this shot. Maybe you should give Dieckman a call. Either Hayama or Matsuzaka Diagrams 10/1969, also a France Diagram.
Eddie Robin has a precise system in Winning One Pocket. It tells you exactly where to aim given where you are and where you want to go to after one cushion. The only problem is that it requires you to use a stroke that causes two things to happen:
The cue ball must not curve after the hitting the first cushion. That means that it must have little draw or follow when it hits the cushion.
The cue ball must have the right amount of running english to make the rebound angle equal to the inbound angle.
I think it's hard to accomplish that with most shots. If you can accomplish that, the system works equally well on all kinds of tables.
Eddie's system includes the fact that the ball is reflected at the "rail groove" and not the line of diamonds or the nose of the cushion. That's a detail that lots of systems gloss over and thereby lose accuracy.
The cue ball must not curve after the hitting the first cushion. That means that it must have little draw or follow when it hits the cushion.
The cue ball must have the right amount of running english to make the rebound angle equal to the inbound angle.
I think it's hard to accomplish that with most shots. If you can accomplish that, the system works equally well on all kinds of tables.
Eddie's system includes the fact that the ball is reflected at the "rail groove" and not the line of diamonds or the nose of the cushion. That's a detail that lots of systems gloss over and thereby lose accuracy.
I love technical discussions, and I saw this one getting derailed before it really got started. Enough about that...
If questions like this were really so simple, I think we'd all have been bored by billiards long ago!
Even though the shot pattern you diagrammed is technically a 2-cushion first shot, I think of it as only requiring a 1-cushion system because the 2nd rail contact is so obvious. Of course, if you truly understand 1-rail collisions, then 2 or more rails follow as natural extensions, although more than 2 gets cumbersome when thinking of them successively.
I do have an accurate, practical method for 1 and 2 rail kicks/banks with any spin that's based on a simplified ball-cushion interaction model, but it involves more details and assumed knowledge than is easily explained in a forum post. I'll be starting a blog soon about my pool and billiard ideas, though, and I'll try to publish it when I have the time.
However, here are some useful general principles that anyone attempting such a system will want to keep in mind:
- Rolling balls give the most predictable lines across different conditions even though there's curving because it's always the same 1:1 follow/speed ratio at cushion contact. That doesn't mean they give the same lines on different equipment - not at all! Rolling follow doesn't give the best angles for all shots, though, so there can be a trade-off between banking accuracy and creating better approach angles to increase scoring chances.
- Stunning into the cushion to avoid curving seems simpler, but it's less predictable because a perfect stun is difficult to achieve (there's usually slight follow or draw that adds uncertainty). Also, the ball/cushion coefficient of restitution (COR) for stun impacts on some tables can be significantly different than that for follow or draw (Dr. Dave has a video showing this).
- Drawing off of the cushion is the least predictable of all because varying table friction changes how rapidly it wears off before the cushion. That adds uncertaintly to the exact amount of draw at the cushion, and that makes the resulting curve after it harder to predict. Drawing can create better approach angles in some positions, though, so it can be worth the trade-off.
Robert
Raiford Great to hear about a Blog. Please keep AZ info about it!
Material from Carl Conlon is also mentioned by Walt Harris in one of his Atlas books.
Can anyone elaborate on what kind of material Carl had? Maybe we can get Dieckman to post up a little bit of it. I've never seen any kind of book from Conlon, and I have almost every other book mentioned in this thread.
Can anyone elaborate on what kind of material Carl had? Maybe we can get Dieckman to post up a little bit of it. I've never seen any kind of book from Conlon, and I have almost every other book mentioned in this thread.
This was a 325 pages never been publish manuscript with 50 pages of original pages of his In Form ation column published in "The National Billiard News" in the late 60's/ early 70's.
Here an Example:
