new video for critiques

wigglybridge

wigglybridge

14.1 straight pool!
Silver Member
i'm still battling both Youtube and Vimeo, each of which has a vendetta against me putting up video in the format i'd like. Vimeo will let me keep it in portrait mode, but the audio is a quarter second ahead of the video.

that said, i've just put up one, and would love to hear comments.

https://vimeo.com/53963607

before you start, i wasn't Trying to kill my break ball a few shots in -- it just looks that way! i thought i could bump the 15 out of the way and leave the 8 there. after that, i still changed my mind about the pattern out a few times. and Sparkle: you'll recognize the break ball in between the 2 racks; it's the one you showed me Friday night...

about 6 balls before the end of the 2nd rack, i had a nice little pattern ready, but overran both the 5 and the 8 ball (was playing for either one, then the other). i thought i came up with a pretty good recovery plan, but then overran the same 8 ball a 2nd time [!] which was just sloppy, and was ultimately the actual cause of the run coming to an end.
 
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side pocket break

nice work

i do not play well enough to critique. i do suggest better lighting though.

i thought you were not getting to the 2nd rack until you came with the nice side pocket break. somewhere there is a video of Efren using that break in a tournament.

I see you have a Portugese guitar on the wall...... Coimbra style or Lisbon style? do you play the Portugese Fado music as well as you play pool? or maybe it is just cool gameroom decor.
jr
 
not a Portugese guitar -- a bad octave mandolin, belonging to my gf's now-deceased college prof. i do play a wild variety of ethnic instruments, but no Fado.

sorry about the lighting, for now it is what it is -- it's her house.
 
At 1:10>>

When you shoot what I think is the 11 into the side, you drew the CB below what appears to be the 10 along the rail. It appeared as though you could have slow-rolled it and stayed above the 10 to shoot it in the bottom-left corner. If you didn't feel as though you could have stayed on top of the 10, drawing into the 10 and getting it off the rail was a better play-- you could have developed a break shot there. You made the shot coming up, but those are sometimes run-stoppers.

At 3:30>>

When you were picking where you wanted to be on the break ball in the side, you selected way too shallow of an angle there (I think). Going to the short rail in the kitchen and rolling up a bit to leave a steeper angle was a better move. It's hard to see the exact way the CB would come off of that because of the perspective of the video, but let's say you'd make the OB in the side, hit the short rail below the rack and then into the rack--- you would have created WAY more damage than what you did with your shallow angle.

At 6:15>>

It appeared as though you wanted to get to the dark ball in the side after this shot. When you shot the ball, you made it with center english which shot you way over your position line. I would play that with right english and make sure you hit the right rail coming down. Not only does that help you control the speed, it puts you on a path where you can pocket the ball in the side or the 11(?) which is your secondary break ball for this rack.

At 10:20>>

You had the perfect opportunity to make that ball in the side and setup for that next straight-in shot in the corner. You just shoot that corner shot with a little draw and you're dead straight-in on your key ball in the side. That decision, I believe, kept this from being a 20 min video instead of 10.

You make balls really well -- the only thing holding you back is your decision making (it's my weakness too, believe me).
 
Good run Bob. It seems that during the whole run whenever you missed position it was from over hitting as opposed to under hitting. You'll remember last week I mentioned hitting the ball easier. Kind of ironic in that previously I had said to hit it harder & practice moving the CB more. That was designed to try & loosen up your stroke a bit. Also getting further away from center CB to generate movement more easily. Both areas are somewhat improved. An offshoot of that is that the improved stroke & cue tip placement is causing too much movement at times. Could be that computer upstairs is still programed to use the same force as before & hasn't had time to adjust, but it will. There are still times you don't get the stroke you wanted & as that happens less & less the speed aspect will also tend to improve.
Your direction was fairly good for the most part but too much speed worked against you a number of times. But you reevaluated & adjusted fairly well. That's what it's all about. Of all your videos this one clearly shows that your starting to be in control of the balls instead of them controlling you.
There were some times where a different choice may have been slightly better but you had a plan that was workable & went about executing it & adjusted along the way very well.
In the 1st rack you had 2 breakshots that appeared slightly better than the one you chose but you may not have recognized them as such. This was when there were 4 balls left on the table. We can go over that next time.
 
At 1:10>>
i was going to end up with a very steep angle if i went above the ball. and for some reason, i actually Like that long shot up the rail; go figure! didn't think of developing a break ball with it, though -- cool idea!

At 3:30>>
actually, i Selected the right angle; but i didn't execute what i tried, and given the angle i drew off the kb, 1.5" made a huge difference. it was just a badly-choked shot.

At 6:15>>
i hit that shot so badly it's hard to tell What i was doing, isn't it?!?! i was actually trying to get on the 1 on the rail, but overran it like crazy.

At 10:20>>
the angle here is Very deceptive; i'd have loved to do exactly that, but there was no way i could hold the cb from going waaaaay up table. which i probably should have done, and used a few rails to come back to center table, rather than blow away a very nice pattern. so i think you're correct that i went wrong there, you just couldn't see from my video angle which way i should have done it differently.

many thanks for the perceptive comments, and the encouragement.
 
I'll just throw in a couple comments on the situation that occurred at approx. 3:30. You already realize you pulled your stroke on that shot which caused not getting to the spot you'd pointed to with your tip. You wanted to be a little farther over. Problem is that there was a very small window on that particular shot if you wanted to go 2 rails to the back of the rack. Stopping where you did was maybe a blessing in disguise as going the same amount past your spot as you came up short of it would have left you in trouble. If that happened then you'd be contacting the long rail further down & consequently be hitting the back of the rack on the right side as you view it from the top of the table. A scratch in the lower left corner looms large. At that point your option would have been to go to the short rail & directly into the rack as Spider suggests. But from say 2-3 inches past where you pointed to, that shot doesn't lie very well to do that. It's not natural. You'd of had to draw to the bottom rail & still may have hit the right side bringing the scratch into play. And you'd need to belt it as there's also the possibility of getting stuck back there.

Going 1 rail into the back of the rack is, in general, only viable when cutting the object ball thin, say a 1/4 ball or less. That's what Spider was suggesting. Going further over or up so you'd have a thin cut is what he was advocating. Not a bad shot but scratching &/or getting stuck are still possibilities. If you have a shot of that nature using extra speed will help minimize those risks.

You mentioned that I showed you that shot so you're probably wondering why I did if there's so many perils & pitfalls attached to it. Take a look at the video & note where you placed your tip of where you wanted to be. Look at the 11 ball. That's the break ball. The shots are similar but that's the shot I showed you. It's far superior. It's main advantage is the position window has much more margin of error for contacting the 1st rail in a favorable area so as to contact the rack on the correct side. Where you placed your tip was the ideal angle but you could still hit the long rail close to the same spot even if the cut was thinner or fuller. That wasn't possible with the other ball. Now if it had been 3 inches closer to the pocket then they become the same shot.
 
Thanks for sharing Bob.

Glad to hear that you have easy access to a table (so Jealous) maybe you can get some clip on spotlights lights this way you you dont have to alter the room too much.

you seem to be really picking up your game which i am very happy to see !!

lots of luck to you and i look forward to seeing more

Happy Thanksgiving
-Steve
 
Good shooting Bob. I think at about 10:24 that stripe in the side could have been followed, even perhaps with a touch of inside to bring you right to the center of the table with additional options for the two remaining balls and which order to shoot them in.

The draw seemed to take you away from your work rather than back into it.

Very nice shooting.
 
Hi Bob. Quick question: What were you trying to do with the cue ball on your very first shot, and why?
 
oog, i was wondering when someone would ask that question, Dan;)

i was Actually trying to slide over and bump the 9 to stop me and then shoot the 3; as with some of the other shots later, the angles in the video are deceptive, and this one was steeper than it looks, so i was worried about getting over too far right, which i did anyway, but thought my best chance for success was to bump, although i know that's not considered good practice unless you mean to put that ball somewhere else.

i got very, Very lucky and not only had a shot, but a perfect opportunity to separate those balls on the rail with the next shot. so i was very happy with how it worked out, but it was dumb luck, not smarts.
 
i want to add my continued thanks to sparkle, who has been kind enough to help me with my game, and his comments are bang on. i'm at a very exciting stage, just getting enough accuracy/position to start to be able to play smarter, and he's keeping me at the edge of my seat with suggestions for how to go forward with it. as he notes, letting my stroke out a bit and using some spin is opening up new avenues for me, but i'm a little like a bull in a china shop as a result. pretty sure he's right that it will just take some work to tame it a bit further and then things will get pretty interesting!

Steve K, thanks for the reminder, i've been meaning to get some clip-on's. the lighting situation isn't as bad as the video makes it look, but it could be a lot better for me and for the video, and that's a good way to go, as there's a fireplace shelf just to the right of the picture that would be perfect for this.

3-and-stop, i think either your idea or executing mine better would have worked. at my current ability level, i think i was taking the right approach, but i remember very distinctly choking on that shot, worried that i'd over- or under-hit it, and as a result my stroke was poor.

i was lucky, as it turned out, that after the break i had a fairly complicated dead ball in the pack that i could get to after one more shot. i was kinda pleased with my spotting of that dead one, it was not at all as straight as it looks in the video, it involved a couple of kisses, as you might be able to tell from the resulting breakout.

the shot that i hate the most in this run, and cringe the most at showing y'all, was the one at 0:45, where i clobber the break ball. you can even see from my set position in the video that i'm not even Close to low enough on the cue ball, and then i poke-stroke it instead of following through. duh. that was a really easy shot to execute properly, and would've left a very easy conventional out instead of the somewhat-tortuorous one i cobbled together.
 
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Towards the end you did a great job nudging out the break ball. If I can just suggest working on Pocket Speed. Seems like you hit that shot a lot harder than you had to, as a result moving the created breakball too far away from the rack and too off angle to having a good chance at using it as a good angle to the stack.

At the moment before you got position to play that shot, I would of liked you to take closer look to see exactly where you should be so you could of shot it with more control. So after that you were left clawing, trying to find a new solution to the end rack with not a lot of options left.

Other than that, again you are progressing well.

Steve
 
you mean the 1st rack, right, Steve? and you are 100% right.

the other Steve/sparkle was also trying real hard the last time we got together to get me to hit shots softer ("no, even softer than that"), and as he pointed out above, i was in general over-running shots and hitting things too hard in this run. so that part sure could've been better.

but i also think your conclusion is very perceptive -- i didn't really look closely enough at Exactly where to put the cue ball for that nudge shot. as a result, i pushed the break ball too low, and then decided that my position zone for it was too small for my playing ability, so i had to shoot it and abandon what could've been an easier out pattern.
 
wigglybridge said:
oog, i was wondering when someone would ask that question, Dan;)
Click to expand...

oog, no problem! :smile:

I asked because I didn't know what you were doing before you turned the camera on. You didn't appear to walk around the shot or look at the tangent line towards the 9 or anything, so it almost looked like you didn't have a plan for the cue ball. When I saw it thread its way through the 3/9 gap for perfect position to break up the balls on the rail off the 3, I wondered if that was your intent.

Did you consider or have the angle for this: Shoot the 1 with high follow and medium speed to go to the foot rail and then up to break apart the 2 rail balls. It looked like you had a good angle to get you close, maybe with a little inside or outside english, depending. All you would need is to nudge either ball just a little to free both up, and then you had a safety ball for your next shot (the five ball?). If you missed the breakout, you would still probably have a shot. I would have tried this because I liked the 9 for a possible break shot, with the 3 a good key ball. The 8 was tied up with another ball close to it, so I wouldn't know for sure if I could keep that 8 for the break shot (keeping the 9 as a back up for as long as possible).
 


This position here, i felt you still had some very good options.

- You did good in shooting the ball on the rail, and that is the first obvious option. when you shot the 10 ball there after not sure why you took the path that you did instead of just following up a tad and playing for the ball higher than the 8 to have a straight angle on it up in the corner. leaving yourself with just a simple draw shot for the 8 in the side to serve as a key ball. Yes the Break ball being the 11? is a shade high but still a fantastic breakball.

- Your other option would be to shoot that higher ball first and play to have shape for the 8 in the side having a straight shot on it so you could just draw back to shoot the 5 (on the rail) leaving the 10 (?) as the keyball with a simple follow shot in the side towards again the 11 ball as the break.

- Your last option and still very possible would be to first shoot the 8, follow to the rail and out towards having that top ball in the other side. wher you would shoot that ball with follow bringing you closer to the 5 on the rail where again you would play that to have the 10 in the side with follow towards the 11 as the breakball.

I hope this helps, but then again its a lot easier from this side of the keyboard.

-Steve
 
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Dan, i did consider that briefly, but it would've needed a fair bit of inside and top and i'm never certain in that particular geometry exactly where the cueball will end up. i remember thinking there was a possibility i could end up threading between the 2&11 (or bumping the 11) and ending up snookered.

this was an edit -- the camera'd been rolling, and i'd missed a straight-in 2-foot shot just before. so i walked around for a minute to let off steam, as well as examine the situation, before shooting again. i Do tend to shoot first and plan later [!], but this wasn't one of those times, and as i said above, i wasn't smart enough to see the plan that luck handed me.

i like your idea of the below-the-stack break. i need to put some thought into actually playing for those, because i really do like them a lot, and find it in many cases easier to get on them. as you point out, this one had a really nice set of balls leading to it.
 
Steve, thanks for the picture, it makes this so much easier!

at the moment of the pic, i was definitely still thinking of the 11 as the break. if i could reliably hit the ball soft [!], i think your answer would have been the best one. sometimes i don't see the obvious, simplest path, though, and i think this was one of those times.

having missed that idea, i think what i should have done was shoot the 8 and follow around for the 5 back in the same pocket. that way, i'd have been staying along the line of the shot on the 5. and then i could have kept that beautiful 1-10 end pattern.

i didn't because i wasn't confident in the path, and so i made a mistake i make far too often: thinking i can control a series of draw shot angles & speeds as if i were Alex P. although, really, overhitting that 10 was inexcusably sloppy, it was a very easy shot. going back and pausing the video, i see i also overcut it.

shooting the 5 first? that's a shot i need to woodshed on for a few hours! don't we all have some particular shots we love or hate? well, that's mine -- almost guaranteed to dog that ball (as i indeed did after the video ended!).
 
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stevekur1 said:
Towards the end you did a great job nudging out the break ball. If I can just suggest working on Pocket Speed. Seems like you hit that shot a lot harder than you had to, as a result moving the created breakball too far away from the rack and too off angle to having a good chance at using it as a good angle to the stack.

At the moment before you got position to play that shot, I would of liked you to take closer look to see exactly where you should be so you could of shot it with more control. So after that you were left clawing, trying to find a new solution to the end rack with not a lot of options left.

Other than that, again you are progressing well.

Steve
Click to expand...

Guess I'll jump in again with a little insight on the above situation. You'll recall I mentioned 2 break balls I liked with 4 left on the table. That was the other one. I liked it better than the 11. Unless I'm misreading it's position due to the video. It was low but looked like you could contact the corner ball without much problem. If so then it was an excellent BS. Much better than the other 2. With a medium hard draw stroke with left english that BS produces excellent results with no scratch risk. After contact the CB goes to the short rail & back into the rack. It's almost like a BS & then a secondary BS all in one shot.

One other thing you can do with the ball you shot to nudge it. In addition to less speed if you use left there it will send the ball slightly higher. With the angle you had on that particular shot it would have only made maybe a 1/2" difference. The left also kills the CB speed slightly. It increases the shot difficulty a bit so you have to decide if the tradeoff is worth it. The shot was so easy that I think it was. It wasn't strictly necessary but was desirable & it's something you should know & consider because there'll be other times when it is necessary. Good little shot to practice & get a feel for.

I'll be over there Fri. & Sat. so let me know if & when you want to play.
 
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