Thank you for offering. I would love to have one.Now if we all had one of those JT laser gizmos these discussions would be much more productive
Regards,
Dave
Mastering inside english how long?
- Thread starter dgem
- Start date
Regards,
Dave
Nick, some tips on that shot:
1. Pure side instead of high+side will often get nicer results, and make sure you get pretty far out to the side (not absurd amounts but at least halfway between center and edge). It's not that you shouldn't use high+side, just that in this case you really want to focus on the sidespin and only hit with a little topspin (if any).
2. Account for deflection enough to make sure the CB scrapes the edge of the OB. Hitting it a hait too fat might occasionally make the shot (it kinda slops in off the side rail) but won't give you as nice position... the position works because you're barely skimming the ball and the cueball is moving almost as it's not touching anything at all except the rails.
If you don't account enough for deflection and you can overcut it to the point where the CB hits the rail a split second before the ball, which can still sink the ball but then the CB isn't spinning off the rail, it's caroming off the object ball. You'll know it when you made this mistake because the CB moves straight across the table or straight towards a scratch in the opposite corner.
In some ways you have to 'let it' deflect if you're not using an LD shaft. It helps me to visualize whacking the edge of the cue ball and 'intentionally' deflecting it at an angle into the OB. That's just my mental process, not necessarily an explanation of what's happening or how you need to think of it =)
3. Don't try to hit it too hard. It's not a speed shot, it's a spin shot. It's a lot of CB travel but the spin is taking care of some of the work for you. Hitting the ball hard gets a sharper angle off the rail and less desirable position. Hit soft enough for the english to take, but hard enough to travel up to the kitchen.
...
To get less nervous about it in a game, just do it in practice. Focus at first on consistently making the ball and compensating for deflection enough to hit where you want. Then see if you can figure out how much speed and spin is needed to get back up the table. There is no shot you will fear if you force yourself to hit it literally a hundred times in practice. You may not make it every time with shape but you won't be nervous about it at least.
1. Pure side instead of high+side will often get nicer results, and make sure you get pretty far out to the side (not absurd amounts but at least halfway between center and edge). It's not that you shouldn't use high+side, just that in this case you really want to focus on the sidespin and only hit with a little topspin (if any).
2. Account for deflection enough to make sure the CB scrapes the edge of the OB. Hitting it a hait too fat might occasionally make the shot (it kinda slops in off the side rail) but won't give you as nice position... the position works because you're barely skimming the ball and the cueball is moving almost as it's not touching anything at all except the rails.
If you don't account enough for deflection and you can overcut it to the point where the CB hits the rail a split second before the ball, which can still sink the ball but then the CB isn't spinning off the rail, it's caroming off the object ball. You'll know it when you made this mistake because the CB moves straight across the table or straight towards a scratch in the opposite corner.
In some ways you have to 'let it' deflect if you're not using an LD shaft. It helps me to visualize whacking the edge of the cue ball and 'intentionally' deflecting it at an angle into the OB. That's just my mental process, not necessarily an explanation of what's happening or how you need to think of it =)
3. Don't try to hit it too hard. It's not a speed shot, it's a spin shot. It's a lot of CB travel but the spin is taking care of some of the work for you. Hitting the ball hard gets a sharper angle off the rail and less desirable position. Hit soft enough for the english to take, but hard enough to travel up to the kitchen.
...
To get less nervous about it in a game, just do it in practice. Focus at first on consistently making the ball and compensating for deflection enough to hit where you want. Then see if you can figure out how much speed and spin is needed to get back up the table. There is no shot you will fear if you force yourself to hit it literally a hundred times in practice. You may not make it every time with shape but you won't be nervous about it at least.
Good answer. My thoughts exactly. You could keep improving for an entire lifetime. Watch the filipinos use inside and running english. They are the masters right now.
Strike them from the records
Two things that make me cringe.
1) When I hear a player say they missed a shot because they used inside english, they never say they missed because of outside english or a center ball hit on a dead straight shot, yet they were off by a diamond.
2) Referring to the amount of english applied by how many tips, that is the dumbest crap I have ever heard.
The person that came up with that idea hopefully moved on to checkers.
If you want to learn the cue ball it is very simple, as simple as it gets.
The mind is very powerful, memory recall is a wonderful thing.
PLAY BILLIARDS<,,,,,,,,,,,, PERIOD
Start playing straight rail, and step it up to 2 and 3 cushion.
You will learn to hit the cue ball with any english and stroke with confidence. It will help you in every aspect of pocket pool a thousand times over.
As far as the original question of how long to master it.
As one gentleman noted,,,,,about 37 seconds, play billiards and you may be able to cut that down by half.
Pool is played with the cue ball, the other 15 balls are there so you can have fun playing with the cue ball.
They also add nice color, especially when they are shiney
Two things that make me cringe.
1) When I hear a player say they missed a shot because they used inside english, they never say they missed because of outside english or a center ball hit on a dead straight shot, yet they were off by a diamond.
2) Referring to the amount of english applied by how many tips, that is the dumbest crap I have ever heard.
The person that came up with that idea hopefully moved on to checkers.
If you want to learn the cue ball it is very simple, as simple as it gets.
The mind is very powerful, memory recall is a wonderful thing.
PLAY BILLIARDS<,,,,,,,,,,,, PERIOD
Start playing straight rail, and step it up to 2 and 3 cushion.
You will learn to hit the cue ball with any english and stroke with confidence. It will help you in every aspect of pocket pool a thousand times over.
As far as the original question of how long to master it.
As one gentleman noted,,,,,about 37 seconds, play billiards and you may be able to cut that down by half.
Pool is played with the cue ball, the other 15 balls are there so you can have fun playing with the cue ball.
They also add nice color, especially when they are shiney
I don't think that first shot is makable for all but a few pros. And even they wouldn't go that route. They'd draw the ball two rails for position. Much easier. With the eight ball one diamond below the side pocket and the cue ball at that angle, you can forget about shooting that shot. You could practice that one all day and never get the cue ball to the end rail, let alone three rails back up table.
It can be done. I just did it once in five tries, but I caught the end rail about half a diamond from the corner pocket. A very low percentage shot IMO.
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Halfway between center and edge is maximum sidespin, so that would be "at most".
pj
chgo
I always felt/heard that halfway between center and edge is maximum effect, yet certain shots seem to call call for going beyond that point. I'm not sure if those shots are just being hit improperly and could be accomplished with the halfway-offset... or if some shots just need "beyond maximum" due to the physics of the shot.
An example shot is one that Jude R. pointed out from one of Bert Kinister's videos. In that video I think you're shooting at a hanger from somewhere near the side pocket. The CB hits the hanger and spins violently sideways from the foot rail to the opposite side and out towards the center of the table. I believe the video called for something like 1 or 2 "tips" of english but Jude correctly pointed out that you'll never get the desired effect that way.. it's more like 3 "tips". I know that's a bad way of phrasing it but in any case, you needed to go beyond halfway between center and edge.
When I explain sidespin to noobs I just say halfway between center and edge is the sweet spot and don't bother going beyond it. It doesn't look like a ton of side when you're lining up the shot but it is.
An example shot is one that Jude R. pointed out from one of Bert Kinister's videos. In that video I think you're shooting at a hanger from somewhere near the side pocket. The CB hits the hanger and spins violently sideways from the foot rail to the opposite side and out towards the center of the table. I believe the video called for something like 1 or 2 "tips" of english but Jude correctly pointed out that you'll never get the desired effect that way.. it's more like 3 "tips". I know that's a bad way of phrasing it but in any case, you needed to go beyond halfway between center and edge.
When I explain sidespin to noobs I just say halfway between center and edge is the sweet spot and don't bother going beyond it. It doesn't look like a ton of side when you're lining up the shot but it is.
"Maximum sidespin" means if you try to hit farther from center you miscue. It isn't optional.
pj
chgo
I agree draw is the easier play, and I agree the cue ball goes closer to the corner than diagrammed, but I'm far from a pro and I just made this shot 10 out of 10 times (five on each side) with no scratches (on a Diamond with 4.5-inch pockets). I used high inside spin - it's far riskier with no follow. Maybe that's what you were doing?
pj
chgo
Patrick, are you saying that it's physically not possible to hit further out than "halfway between center and edge"? Because it very much is possible. The only doubt in my mind is whether it's useful (and maybe in some cases necessary). Maybe we define that halfway point differently somehow.
The diameter of the circle around a number on a Centennial ball is nearly 1 ball's radius in size, and so it's a pretty good visual approximation of what I mean by maximum offset (1/2 radius on each side of center).
Here are a couple of pictures showing a good hit very near that circle and a miscue just a little farther out. Of course, this isn't proof that the miscue limit is about 1/2 radius from center, but it illustrates my claim. Most knowledgable players agree that you can't hit very much outside this limit without miscueing. I think there's even a physics formula that agrees with this.
GOOD HIT (ON EDGE OF CIRCLE)
MISCUE (OUTSIDE EDGE OF CIRCLE)
If you can hit significantly farther out than this and consistently not miscue I'd be interested to see it.
pj
chgo
P.S. Of course, I oriented the circle so it was facing directly at me when I shot these shots.
Patrick: I'll try experimenting more tonight and see if I'm maybe subconsciously steering my stroke to not hit as far out as I thought, or something like that.
I don't know if it qualifies as any sort of 'proof' of anything but in one of Bert Kinister vids, secrets of shotmaking, he attempts to show how hitting way out to the side of a ball doesn't result in a miscue. His test (maybe less than scientific) has him holding onto a ball and having a player press the tip of the cue into that ball far out to the edge, to the point where half the tip is almost showing. The tip doesn't slide off the edge of the ball until he's really far out there (hard to describe it but way outside the centennial circle anyway).
Still, you'd be right to expect actual shooting tests rather than setups like this. So I'll try them. It may have something to do with pivoting too?
I don't know if it qualifies as any sort of 'proof' of anything but in one of Bert Kinister vids, secrets of shotmaking, he attempts to show how hitting way out to the side of a ball doesn't result in a miscue. His test (maybe less than scientific) has him holding onto a ball and having a player press the tip of the cue into that ball far out to the edge, to the point where half the tip is almost showing. The tip doesn't slide off the edge of the ball until he's really far out there (hard to describe it but way outside the centennial circle anyway).
Still, you'd be right to expect actual shooting tests rather than setups like this. So I'll try them. It may have something to do with pivoting too?
I admire that initiative. Try it before you buy it.
Pushing isn't the same as hitting, so I don't think that's an apples-to-apples test.
By the way, with a normal size tip (12.7mm or 1/2" wide) you're at maximum offset when the outside edge of the tip is lined up just inside the outside edge of the cue ball (none showing from the opposite side).
Pivoting wouldn't change the maximum offset, but it might change your perception of where you're hitting the ball.
pj
chgo
Welp, I tried it, and I was dead wrong. When I use "maximum" english, I'm not hitting nearly as far out to the side as I thought I was. I tried your centennial test and even hitting the very edge of the number ring felt like a ton of spin. I got a couple of balls to go hitting a bit outside of it, but what I thought of as "3 tips" of sidespin was more like 2. And it felt like I was on the verge of miscuing and the ball deflected quite a bit.
In the future when I tell people how much english to put on a ball I'll have to come up with something other than "halfway between center and edge" because in most cases that's overkill for whatever shot they're trying.
In the future when I tell people how much english to put on a ball I'll have to come up with something other than "halfway between center and edge" because in most cases that's overkill for whatever shot they're trying.
Rep to you for your initiative to get an honest factcheck! That's how we really learn.
:thumbup:
It's easy to be misled about where we're hitting the ball when so much of it is hidden by the width of our tip. That's why I use a 10mm "sissy" tip.
pj
chgo
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Even if you could make contact significantly beyond (1/2)R without slippage, it wouldn't do you any good - at least not without some major modifications to the standard cue. But as far Mr. Kinister's demonstration, if they really were well beyond (1/2)R, I can't think of a reason the tip wouldn't slip other than that maybe the player was pushing the tip toward the cueball, consciously or subconsciously.
Jim
Thanks PJ. On the kinister tape, I can't tell how or why his push test worked, but I think it's just what you said, his student doesn't want to make an ass out of kinister so pushed inward a little to prevent slippage. Or it's just an optical illusion since I'm seeing this from a side view and not from a tip's-eye-view.
It's weird, bert sometimes seems full of it, but what he teaches works. His method for making very sharp cuts that travel 6-7 feet down the long rail would probably make you faint. And he says to aim slightly angled long difficult shots as if they had 0 angle and were straight in. I have no idea why that one works, but it does.
It's weird, bert sometimes seems full of it, but what he teaches works. His method for making very sharp cuts that travel 6-7 feet down the long rail would probably make you faint. And he says to aim slightly angled long difficult shots as if they had 0 angle and were straight in. I have no idea why that one works, but it does.