An industry insider I spoke to recently told me that some of the top billiards pros are seeking to minimize the use of English in their game, perhaps eradicating it completely. He said such a goal was possible if they were able to play position with a very high degree of accuracy.
I believe he was talking about pool, rather than snooker, the latter which I believe tends to require greater use of English (side) to play at the high level?
Any comments?
Minimize yes, but eradicate? Not even close to a possibility.
I guess the idea, for games like straight pool, 8-ball, and 9-ball, (nobody would claim this about 1pocket, I don't think) is that if you plan your patterns well enough, and always leave exactly the perfect angle on every ball, you should never really need side to get perfect on the next ball.
But it's a load of BS. There are a lot of layouts where, while there may be a perfect position you could get on a ball which would leave no need for side, the vastly higher-percentage thing to do is go for the less demanding position, and use some spin on the next shot. Further, even if that weren't the case, nobody gets perfect on every ball. Nobody comes even close on that goal. Watch the best players in the world play 9-ball, and you'll see they continuously get a tiny bit (or sometimes quite a bit) out of line and take minor (or sometimes major) corrective action on the next shot to try to get back in line.
The grain of truth is that the better your speed control and pattern conceptualization get, the less side you have to use, because you play for the right angle where a "plain ball" will get you a good angle on your next shot. So working on controlling the ball and leaving those angles such that you don't need as much english is a good thing for your game; it simplifies things and promotes consistency. Also, anyone who knows pool will tell you that if you do have an angle such that you don't need side, don't use it.
But striving to actually eliminate the use of side spin? Futile and counter-productive.
-Andrew