Quick quiz by Sharivari

All of the curved lines are curved from the start. It is not so apparent with the curves that are broader. It is a common mistake to think the initial path is a straight line. The shape of the curve is a parabola and those don't have flat spots.

That having been said, the path with draw/follow is initially a straight line if the cue ball has left the table. If you jack up and hit a draw cut shot hard you can get the cue ball to bounce forward. If you view that path from above, it looks straight until the cue ball lands and then it takes a jog, and if it keeps bouncing, you get a series of jogs rather than a curve. But that's a totally different situation. And the initial path is forward of the tangent line.
14.1 players know that on a cut shot of say 20°-40° the initial path of the cue ball can be slightly altered back or forward, particularly on a firm stroke. This knowledge often comes in to play on a break shot, and the initial path of the cue ball is actually opposite of what one might think.

If your break ball lies towards the bottom of the pack to where you’re not even sure if the cue ball is going to contact the corner ball (after contact with the object ball), hitting the shot with a firm stroke and extreme draw will actually decrease your chances of catching a part of that corner ball, whereas hitting it with a firm stroke with extreme follow will give you a better chance of contacting that corner ball.
 
14.1 players know that on a cut shot of say 20°-40° the initial path of the cue ball can be slightly altered back or forward, particularly on a firm stroke. This knowledge often comes in to play on a break shot, and the initial path of the cue ball is actually opposite of what one might think.

If your break ball lies towards the bottom of the pack to where you’re not even sure if the cue ball is going to contact the corner ball (after contact with the object ball), hitting the shot with a firm stroke and extreme draw will actually decrease your chances of catching a part of that corner ball, whereas hitting it with a firm stroke with extreme follow will give you a better chance of contacting that corner ball.
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. I assume you are talking about the object ball being between the rack and the side rail but closer to the bottom tall than I would like, and the cue ball near the side pocket? I've just always felt like draw pulls the ball behind the tangent line, closer to the shooter, and follow pushed the ball forward of the tangent line, away from the shooter. This must be a subtlety that I haven't detected yet in my game. It may also explain hour the cue ball wound up THERE instead of there.
 
14.1 players know that on a cut shot of say 20°-40° the initial path of the cue ball can be slightly altered back or forward, particularly on a firm stroke. This knowledge often comes in to play on a break shot, and the initial path of the cue ball is actually opposite of what one might think.

If your break ball lies towards the bottom of the pack to where you’re not even sure if the cue ball is going to contact the corner ball (after contact with the object ball), hitting the shot with a firm stroke and extreme draw will actually decrease your chances of catching a part of that corner ball, whereas hitting it with a firm stroke with extreme follow will give you a better chance of contacting that corner ball.
Huh? As far as I can determine, that's impossible. I think you are proposing a break shot where the tangent line passes below the corner ball, so a stun break shot would miss the low side of the corner ball. But, as Bob Jewett pointed out, with a follow break shot the CB immediately starts curving towards the end rail side of the tangent line--no matter how hard you hit the CB. Therefore, a fast speed follow break shot will miss the corner ball as well because it will never cross to the rack side of the tangent line. As far as I know, the fast speed follow break shot can never get closer to the the corner ball than a stun break shot. If a stun break shot will miss the corner ball, then so will a follow break shot at any speed.

It seems to me that when you have a stun break shot that will just miss the corner ball, the best way to ensure a hit on the corner ball is with a slow speed draw break shot. Of course, you might want to hit the rack with more speed, so you might choose a medium speed draw break shot. However, with a fast speed draw break shot you might still miss the corner ball because the curve towards the corner ball is so gradual.

Explanation?
 
Last edited:
Huh? As far as I can tell, that's impossible. I think you are proposing a break shot where the tangent line passes below the corner ball, so a stun shut would miss the corner ball. But, a follow break shot starts off curving the CB towards the end rail--not matter how hard you hit the CB. Therefore, a hard follow break shot will miss the corner ball because it will never cross to the rack side of the tangent line. It seems to me that with a stun break shot that will miss the corner ball, the best way to hit the corner ball is with a soft draw break shot. You might still miss the corner ball with a hard draw break shot.
That's how I understand it. Ok a related note, watching Efren play straight pool, I learned that blowing up the rack is not necessary. A lot of times he would just chip off four or five balls, shoot them in, and chip off a couple more. More room to maneuver, and if you have his knowledge, insurance balls aren't as necessary when going into the stack.
 
Question 1: The tangent line changes when... the object ball is moved. This takes a little thinking but his explanation makes it clear -- if you know what a ghost ball and a tangent line are and how they relate to each other. I hope everyone here has those last parts covered. This is a good question to ask beginners when you are teaching them tangent line to see if they understand. I think I'll steal it.
Technically speaking, if there is an angle between the ghost and object balls, the tangent line is always a 90º line. The path/angle a ball might take after making contact with another ball will vary depending on lots of things, but the tangent line is still a 90º line ;)
 
Technically speaking, if there is an angle between the ghost and object balls, the tangent line is always a 90º line. The path/angle a ball might take after making contact with another ball will vary depending on lots of things, but the tangent line is still a 90º line ;)
Angle between the ghost ball and the object ball? The ghost ball, the object ball, and the pocket are centered on the same line. What angle are you referring to?
 
Couldnt make it past the first minute.

The spoken English is using challenging ideas of physics, its mind breaking.
I didn’t last a minute either

Not sure why,

Hope it helps people

I’m not knocking it
 
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. I assume you are talking about the object ball being between the rack and the side rail but closer to the bottom tall than I would like, and the cue ball near the side pocket? I've just always felt like draw pulls the ball behind the tangent line, closer to the shooter, and follow pushed the ball forward of the tangent line, away from the shooter. This must be a subtlety that I haven't detected yet in my game. It may also explain hour the cue ball wound up THERE instead of there.
I’m going to experiment with setting up some shots to try to confirm what I am saying. Unfortunately I’m not familiar with how to post diagrams on here, but I’ll try to explain it once I’ve experimented to try to prove what I’m saying. I’m specifically referring to shots hit with considerable force, either draw or follow.
 
I've never had the pleasure of meeting Sharivari, but if he's even half the man and instructor that Ralf Souquet says he is, he must be very special, for there's nobody in our sport whose opinion I respect more than Ralf's.
 
I've never had the pleasure of meeting Sharivari, but if he's even half the man and instructor that Ralf Souquet says he is, he must be very special, for there's nobody in our sport whose opinion I respect more than Ralf's.
I'm very surprised that people have trouble with his English. He speaks English better than many Americans. I think his production values are the best of any pool instruction channel I watch.
 
I've never had the pleasure of meeting Sharivari, but if he's even half the man and instructor that Ralf Souquet says he is, he must be very special, for there's nobody in our sport whose opinion I respect more than Ralf's.
I find his videos entertaining. I usually watch the whole thing, which I can't say for most people who post content, even if it's about a topic I generally like. His sincere enthusiasm just shines through.

He was at DCC. I wanted to say hi to him and that I enjoyed his videos but the opportunity never really presented itself.
 
I agree to an extent.

Too much white noise is never good

The quiz could be improved for feedback. Instead of testing pool principles, it could have asked: Based on how a shot played out and missed, can the aiming line, stroke power or other been adjusted for correction.

Show an attempt that misses, then ask how to fix it. This puts the burden on players to learn how to recognize obvious faults. It puts burden on better players to provide remedies.

Anytime I hear quiz I think the DMV and how they pass everyone. The pool community can be held to a higher standard.
 
Angle between the ghost ball and the object ball? The ghost ball, the object ball, and the pocket are centered on the same line. What angle are you referring to?
Yeah, that could have been said better.

Angle between the path of a moving ball and any other ball it comes into contact with?
 
Yeah, that could have been said better.

Angle between the path of a moving ball and any other ball it comes into contact with?
(about question #1) Sharivari used illustrations of what he meant by moving the balls around, so the question is pretty clear. For what he showed, the tangent line only moves when the object ball moves. (And it always moves when the object ball moves.)
 
The tangent line is never anything other than a 90º line. The path the cue ball takes (unless it is a 100% full hit) moves forward or backward of that line, but the line itself doesn't move. I'm probably just being overly semantic here.

Other than the banking question being a bit easy to get confused on, I think it is a great quiz.
 
Speaking of that infamous 90º tangent line... It took me a long time to realize how rarely a cue ball will actually rebound an exact 90º from the hit. I find the stun shot to be the most challenging, you can't teach it, it is all feel, and I have to be in really good stroke. It got in my head when I was first picking up pool that shots should follow a right angle from the contact, and that rarely really happens. Took me a while to realize that.
 
I've never had the pleasure of meeting Sharivari, but if he's even half the man and instructor that Ralf Souquet says he is, he must be very special, for there's nobody in our sport whose opinion I respect more than Ralf's.
I agree. I’m amazed that the main theme of the comments to this video seem to be negative. I’ll ignore those comments about his language, until those posters reply in German!
I think Sharivari,Dr Dave and maybe Neils are the goto pool teachers online.
Sharivari is very humble , makes high level production videos and maybe has a few tiny issues with his language skills but I certainly don’t come to AZ billiards to brush up on my grammar and syntax!

Well done Sharivari, keep them coming!
 
Last edited:
Back
Top