Do many pro players use back hand English? If so, who?
Pro Players Using Back Hand English
- Thread starter Tennesseejoe
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Tennesseejoe said:
Bustamante for one.
PoolFool said:
No, he's refering to the idea of correcting for cueball squirt on sidespin shots by first lining up for a centerball hit and then pivoting the cue about some point near the bridge hand. So the bridge hand stays still and the back hand moves (hence "backhand english"). It would be kind of a foolish thing to do regularly for a number of reasons. But for many people it's another device in their bag of tricks to come up with the right aim.
mike page
fargo
PoolFool said:
No no, reverse english (as you probably already know) is when you use side-spin that's opposite to the natural angle off a rail. "Back-hand English" is when you pivot your back-hand while down on a shot. Basically, the shot-routine is, you get down as though you were using center, then if you want to use right-english, you would pivot your back-hand to the left. In my opinion, this is a crude method for angling with spin but that's my opinion. Immediate observations should tell most beginners that the necessary compensations needed to pocket with spin are a bit more complex than what the back-hand method could possibly yield.
I dont know if this is backhand english or not - or if its "related" or even proper but say I am shooting a ball and I wont to put right english on the cue, I line up the shot as if I were going to shoot center ball then I line up with right english then I move my aim just a little to the right to allow for squirt. Any comments on that - right or wrong?
Efren as well.tedkaufman said:
So far we have Bustamante and Efrin. I don't think I have seen Buddy H., Mike S., Earl S., etc. use it. They seem to have a very straight forward stroke.
Jude Rosenstock said:
That may be why it isn't taught to beginners...
Who uses it? Plenty of folks, even if they don't know what it's called. How about pro players? Well, Larry Schwartz sure does. So does Colin Colenso. Just watch the pro's enough and you'll see it... Different names for a stroke that definitely has it's place.
Flex
9BallBust-O said:
That's the same thing I do. What you're doing when you move the entire cue to the right for right english is sometimes called "parallel english" because your cue is parallel to the line you'd use for center ball. Then you have to adjust for squirt, because squirt makes the ball go along a different line.
Backhand english means you move your tip to achieve the english and change the cue's angle to adjust for squirt all in one motion. You just pivot the cue to the right for the amount of english you want, and the fact that your cue is now pointing off to the right cancels out the squirt you'll get to the left. But only if you've pivoted the cue around the right point.
I think the way you and I do it is better. There are so many variables involved in side-spin shots, including squirt, swerve, throw, and how speed affects all these things, that I only trust one method of reconciling them all, and that method is to rely on my experience and my subconscious to tell me how much to adjust. You can read Colin Colenso's posts where he graphs several variables and how they affect what pivot point you should use as a basis for your back-hand english, or you can trust your subconscious to be smarter than those graphs.
-Andrew
Flex said:
Thanks for the clarification. I thought that BHE was applied during the final stroke.
The term is confusing, as it is fundamentally an aiming system, to adjust for playing with english. Aim and Pivot (pivot the back hand) is probably a better term for it.Tennesseejoe said:
As Andrew said, to try to incorporate it widely into most shots played with english requires dealing with a lot of variables such as Throw, Speed, Swerve and Bridge Length.
So, unless you've got a lot of time to study these variables and adapt them into your game, it's best to find other ways to deal with aiming for english. But, you might pick up a few standard shots that work very well for you using BHE. Such as medium speed Inside English shots of 10-40 degree cut angle.
Andrew - thanks for the reply - good to know Im thinking somewhat in the right direction. =)
If I am not mistaken, I believe Alain Martel uses BHE. I never got the opportunity to ask him, However, when I watched him play this past weekend, it appeared that he was using BHE.
I got a lesson from Paul Pottier out of VanCouver and he tought it as cross stroking. He sais you get down with center english, then cross strock to your desired english and stroke the cue in that direction with the english. I was doing this for about a year and it works, the only thing I didn't like about it was having my arm all over the place depending on what the shot was. Just about a month ago my friend showed me almost the same system but a little different....
If your going to put bottom left on the ball....line up center english on the bottom of the ball....stroke straight until the last stroke and then apply the english.
For top left......line up center english on the top of the c/b...stroke straight until the last stroke and then apply the english.
Like anything else you change in you game it messed me up fro about 2-3 weeks but it keeps my stroke straight instead of the (Cross Stroke). Now after using if for a few months I love it..You can fire balls in with extreme engligh on a tripple shim table with confidence. If you find yourself missing balls then your not lining up right.
So with that being said I practice shooting balls in w/o any english for atleast 15 minutes a day.
If your going to put bottom left on the ball....line up center english on the bottom of the ball....stroke straight until the last stroke and then apply the english.
For top left......line up center english on the top of the c/b...stroke straight until the last stroke and then apply the english.
Like anything else you change in you game it messed me up fro about 2-3 weeks but it keeps my stroke straight instead of the (Cross Stroke). Now after using if for a few months I love it..You can fire balls in with extreme engligh on a tripple shim table with confidence. If you find yourself missing balls then your not lining up right.
So with that being said I practice shooting balls in w/o any english for atleast 15 minutes a day.
Yes, I think Efren uses BHE, too. But I've also seen him align with standard english, so I guess he does whatever he feels like. Watching him you get the impression he could just hit the cueball in the center and it will go wherever he wants. Guess that's why he's the Magician.
Johnny Ervolino used BHE, and together with the prettiest slip stroke I've ever seen, moved the cueball about as sweetly as you could ever hope to see. I loved watching him play on the downstairs table at Chelsea with the 3.5" pockets covered with Simonis 760. That table was so tough it would bring me to tears. But he loved it. I saw him run 99 balls on that table, and he made it look easy. Even good players would stuggle to run a rack on it. Johnny was an awesome talent.
Johnny Ervolino used BHE, and together with the prettiest slip stroke I've ever seen, moved the cueball about as sweetly as you could ever hope to see. I loved watching him play on the downstairs table at Chelsea with the 3.5" pockets covered with Simonis 760. That table was so tough it would bring me to tears. But he loved it. I saw him run 99 balls on that table, and he made it look easy. Even good players would stuggle to run a rack on it. Johnny was an awesome talent.