frankncali said:
Thanks for the response
I read your response to McGyver and understand what you are saying. Just in my thinking I would have figured that the CIT would have started
the OB pushing and then the IE would have increased it. I guess not.
That's what I had imagined would happen, but some early testing showed it just wasn't the case on cut angles. I had been playing with some BHE adjustment systems and it just wasn't working as expected with IE cut shots. So I think this knowledge is very useful for anyone wanted to take a more systematic approach to adjustment.
Also, the soft stun creating the very large amounts of throw surprised me a bit, and explained a lot of confusion I had encountered over the years where I would sway back and forth between undercutting stun shots to overcutting the other shots based on what I was perceiving as the 'correct' potting angle. Now I know that there this correct angle (or contact point) varies more than I had thought and so I need to adjust my methodology of pot angle adjustment to better fit with what is really going on.
Years ago a guy showed me a shot that demonstrated just how much
an OB could be thrown off target by the shooters hitting unwanted english on the cueball. A lot of people do not believe this or dont realize it until they are shown.
That shot was a straight on hit. I like seeing the results you have gotten
on shots with a cut angle. .
Yes, from a touching ball, the line can be thrown off a few degrees in either direction using either english (cueing straightish) or soft stun (across the ball).
On straightish shots, either spin left or right will act similar to how we see the OE acting in the video, turning the OB significantly. So any slight pull or push across or hitting slightly off center will have a significant effect. One way to reduce this is to hit it harder. This reduces the throw, but it may cause greater cueing inaccuracy too.
Watching alot of good players I notice them spinning the balls often. Thats one huge difference between bangers and Pros. The Pros have the ability to control the balls better with the english applied. They also have an ability to hit most any shot with most any english and get the wanted results.
Do you think that the Pros make an actual adjustment physically or that they just "know" what needs to happen and it occurs? Its hard enough to
find "the spots" without making tiny adjustments IMO
I doubt many pro-players really understand this in all its details. Instead, they learn to memorize a wide range of shots and how to align to them.
Doing it that way, you need to keep in mind during the alignment what speed and spin you will be applying and then search the feel database. In my own experience the brain sends a message such that 'on this shot I tend to aim too straight...adjust thinner' based on past misses and successes.
But I think this is a slow and awkward process and requires immense memorization and familiarity with many shot types.
I expect that someone who can use an alignment system based on the real physics aspects as noted above, can quickly become highly proficient in finding the pot angles for the medium speed follow shot, and then make pretty accurate adjustments based on that angle such that a pretty full range of shots become consistantly executable and better yet, understandable (so that intellegent adjustments can be fine tuned).
There will always going to be a range of shots that require lots of practice and intuitive adjustment based only partly on an understanding of the physics knowledge such as masse, swerve, drag shots, CB positioning and how all those vary according to cloth and cushion conditions.
Funny thing is how many bangers I've seen who can pot the lights out. They achieve this by hitting most shots on the CB in the same place (usually just above center) and similar speed on nearly every shot. It's when players start trying to control the CB and table planning better with varying spins and speeds that their potting confidence starts going down the drain.
So I think this knowledge, combined with a knowledge of your cue's pivot point characteristics for applying BHE can allow an average banger to quickly step up to the next level of play.
And it may even allow an advanced player to improve their consistancy on some of their problem shots.
Note: One thing I didn't show in the video, or mention is the OE when played hard also straightens back toward where the other hard shots go. Here again the increased speed between surfaces reduces the effect of spin in inducing throw.
