The best player in a 14.1 league I play in avoids rollers because he feels they have more tendency to skid compared to whacking the ball. It is a very conscious decision with him and based on tournament experience.
Rolling The Cue Ball
- Thread starter peppersauce
- Start date
Very good post...
I'm glad you approve.
Lately I have been alternating venues for practice. I remember you saying your home table was 4.25"'corners and 4.75" sides. Those are the same dimensions as my home table as well.
Over the last few months, after spending a year and a half solely on my home table, I have been trying extended training sessions at the pool hall on their gold crowns with the 4.75" corners and 5.5"sides.
I started to realize that shots at home, with a very small angle of approach- I was punching and powering my way through to get position (or at least manufacturer an angle to get position). But at the pool hall, a whole new world opened up in that I had shots available to me that I could never find on the home table.
I could run out a pattern, rack, or drill sometimes entirely through soft/rolling cue ball. I always chalked that up to the "easier" table but after your post, I started to think that maybe this is the way pool was intended to be played.
Could it be that the tight pocket table craze has hindered training/playing the game more than it helped? I am a better at ball pocketing because of it but I noticed the same tendency to go for the punch/power pattern instead of the more elegant rolling cue position - just because the shot is not typically available at home.
Peppersauce, have you found different results when going outside the home table and playing on more standard equipment? That patterns change and you have the opportunity to roll more? I have noticed on the 4 1/4" pockets, rolling is futile because the pocket just couldn't be cheated enough.
And
Instructors, do you feel that pool should be played on a certain size pocket table to be played right? Is there a point as to where tight pocket hinder training and advancement by naturally limiting options?
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I'm not sure that soft rolling the cueball is what they mean. I think you play position like normal with follow, draw, stun etc. I think the difference is "rolling" is a smoother stroke.
I've been trying to figure it out and I have some ideas, but I honestly don't really have a clue, so I could be wrong.
Rolling cue ball style is more reverse engineered, and punch style is more forward engineered.
Rolling, you start from where you want the cueball, to how to get there, what spin, what speed, finish, back-swing, set. And then play it all forwards. Everything seems timing related.
If you want stun by the time you get there, you add more bottom and time it out. That sort of thing.
Punching seems more like adding ingredients. You figure how much speed you'll need, how much spin etc and you cook it up and see what happens. If you're recipe is off, you take that into account for the next thing you cook.
Rolling kinda feels like you know the speed you're going to stroke at, so you take a nice gradual acceleration, and you're finish tapers off gradually as well. And it feels like the cueball just happens to be in the path of you're cue.
Punching feels like you are actively trying to hit the cue ball to make it do what you want.
Again that's just a guess.
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Nicely done.
I like this drill for rolling the cue ball. Since it's the most effective way to make the ball, it forces you to play the shot correctly (or miss).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsGFc0puuBI
This might be considered a bit of a tangent, it depends on who gave the "advice" to pepper... there are some very fine players who punch/pound everything, a habit that comes in part from playing for dollars on every conceivable type of good or bad table. If you ask them and they feel like telling you, they smash the balls in because it helps with (avoiding) every local roll and curve...
In my mind rolling the QB is the ability to have the QB roll forward with absolutely no slide from the impact of the cue on the QB.
I have practiced this and to me it is a touch (feel) type shot and would require an upward type stroke, like pitching a softball under handed and the tip of the cue coming up (clearing the cue) after contact and follow thru. Rolling a ball across a floor. Focus should be on not sliding the QB but rolling it. The feeling that you have the QB in your grip hand and trying to roll it to the OB.
What would be interesting is to have Dr. Dave film this in slow-mo.
I do use the stroke on some shots.
John
I have practiced this and to me it is a touch (feel) type shot and would require an upward type stroke, like pitching a softball under handed and the tip of the cue coming up (clearing the cue) after contact and follow thru. Rolling a ball across a floor. Focus should be on not sliding the QB but rolling it. The feeling that you have the QB in your grip hand and trying to roll it to the OB.
What would be interesting is to have Dr. Dave film this in slow-mo.
I do use the stroke on some shots.
John
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In my mind rolling the QB is the ability to have the QB roll forward with absolutely no slide from the impact of the cue on the QB.
I have practiced this and to me it is a touch (feel) type shot and would require an upward type stroke, like pitching a softball under handed and the tip of the cue coming up (clearing the cue) after contact and follow thru. Rolling a ball across a floor. Focus should be on not sliding the QB but rolling it. The feeling that you have the QB in your grip hand and trying to roll it to the OB.
What would be interesting is to have Dr. Dave film this in slow-mo.
I do use the stroke on some shots.
John
This is exactly what I took it as. With a punch stroke, the cue ball is sliding, and taking the tangent line to the rail and out. I always saw snooker players as sliding cue ball artists (Ronnie o, Alison Fisher, etc). Then there are some power pool players that utilize this extremely well (Dennis hatch comes to mind).
Strenuously agree on the rolling cue ball as more of an art with the touch and feel. Bustamante or Efren...and with the rolling cue ball, more English is used and takes better off the rail with the softer hit.
They will have such great timing, they can be down table, hitting low on the cue ball, that it goes from back spin to slide to gentle roll just as it makes contact with the object ball and into position for the next shot. There's an art in that, another level of play, and I took it as this was what the pro player was talking about when conversing with Sergeant Peppersauce. :thumbup:
That is outstanding play on that drill, sir.
And yes, I saw where you had to go punch to get back in line. I think we are definitely speaking the same language.
As far as pocket sizes, in this drill by Joe Tucker....
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PjPqwyFukx8
He utilizes the different parts of the pocket to achieve the two rail position, but as he moves to the fuller hit (around the last three balls), he explains the softer hit (the roll) achieves more off the rail for position. I do believe this type of pattern play was what the gentlemen was talking about with you. What do you think? I have recently noticed between practice sessions on my home table and standard pockets, those different parts of the pocket just seem more plentiful on the 4.75" pockets.
I would call that a stun shot rather than a punch stroke.
I'm the opposite, as I started out mostly playing golf on the snooker table and was a pure "cue ball roller" for a long time until I finally learned to play with a punch-style stroke. Going from one to the other was tough, because cue ball speed affects the amount of contact throw so I had to readjust my aim for that.
Personally, for rotation pool, I would much rather be a puncher who's not as good at rolling the ball, than be a ball-roller who's so not good at punching.
Personally, for rotation pool, I would much rather be a puncher who's not as good at rolling the ball, than be a ball-roller who's so not good at punching.
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I think I got it:
Punchers: Use Speed and Angle, to minimize Spin
Rollers: Use Spin and Angle to minimize Speed
Punchers: Use Speed and Angle, to minimize Spin
Rollers: Use Spin and Angle to minimize Speed
I think I would put it more like this:
Punch players: Prefer to use force (and angle) to move the cue ball with less spin.
Spin players: Use spin (and angle) to move the cue ball with less force.
this is a great thread.....but some of the nomenclature can be confused imop
a punch stroke brings to mind both the jabby type that barely makes CB penetration with the Tip (regardless if pendulum or pistion ) but also makes me think of a "firmer/harder" stroke......
would it be better stated at "CB Hitters Vs CB Rollers"
generally i find that players with a firmer stroke use more english than those who dont.......which in my mind makes sense because if your CB's squirting out enough then you can make her go straighter along the natural aim line basically by increasing the speed of the shot.
if your rolling your balls, then myself and from what I've seen others do....generally i find them playing more in the core of the CB and they are using the angles of the shot to move the rock to the next destination.....english is sparingly used left or right of center and I'd call it more "help to the position & direction intended for the CB next. As opposed to the english being the dominate underlying influence or "force" behind the positioning of the CB.
so in my mind....."punchers" as they have been called are FORCING the positions.....generally w/spin.....sometimes both speed & spin.
rollers.....dont force the positions with the extra english or speed.
rollers force as little as possible on the shots by way of speed and spin, particularly MUCH EXTRA spin......
tho in general I do find that the rollers use english MORE often......just in much smaller quantities.
somethings always make sense though.....like if you have a stop shot, obviously its easier to hit firmer and have it just STOP than trying to shoot the same shot by rolling the CB.....
but you have say events on unlevel tables.......that will make a player HAVE to play "punch" style.......because if you roll the balls.....they roll off!
so in the least its best to learn to use both styles....no matter which connotation or definition we are trying to try and give it.
As such either type of hit can be provided by either piston or pendulum stroke of course goes without saying. The punch style people talk about that is an actual deceleration and stopping of the stroke short....has very little place in the game as a whole if at all.
remember when a pro fighter PUNCHES or JABS.......its with full extension "through" what they are hitting.........the arm comes back after, just to reload for the next........this isn't the same idea as that half stroke, spring loaded to the reverse jabby thing you see some do when the CB and OB are very close proximity.........which isn't much differient than many beginner/intermediate strokes.
Stroke should always be an upwards accelerating event to and at least "mentally" through the CB face.....no matter which type you use. Never decelerating.....this takes extra muscle and will throw a players stroke offline very easily.
nomenclature is brutal,
-Greyghost
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I agree. But I think a key factor is the object ball speed. As you said, you have to adjust to different conditions. Slow rolling is fine as long as the table is level.
I kind of messed up my wording when I started the thread but I like the input it has generated thus far. The spirit of the idea behind the thread was supposed to be stroking the CB in such a manner as to move the CB with little effort and, at the same time, send the OB to the pocket with a good rolling speed that negates table roll (for the most part) and still allows the OB to reach the pocket at a speed conducive to falling even if it's slightly mishit. It's tricky...harder than it sounds.
It's kind of like listening to woodwind or brass instruments in a symphony playing softly. Most don't realize it actually takes MORE control to play well softly than it does to just belt it out.
I don't know if I'm making any sense...Too much whiskey, lol. But it's ok because I work nights and this is my Friday night, lol.
no one really messed up any wording....as for most part theres no official nomenclature of some of this........like i said about 'punch stroke' i've seen it described as mulitple things.....
and pretty much every connotation for it imop isn't right......but i do understand what people are trying to convey.
your thoughts on 'soft' are totally on point and well recieved at least by my mind. one of the students at the lsmsa billiards program i started last spring, upon working with a speed control drill 1-9 speeds from lag to hard break speed........
i was having him do it in tandem with keeping the CB staight, like the one many do and CB back to the tip..........
well he was on the 10ft snooker table using the snooker balls or pool balls....whichever he liked that day. i had him just working on the 1-5 speeds.....because he had no stroke whatso ever
after a week he said that he was having great success hitting the 3 speed, and having the CB land pretty perfect distance traveled, along with staying striaght up and down.....
but he had lots of problems shooting the basic lag and the 5sp.......
i told him thats EXPECTED......your stroke is most stressed generally at its slowest and most delicate, and by its higher speed self......
the ends of the extreme......OF COURSE WE FIND THE MOST BALANCE IN THE MIDDLE of our skill set......
along with many tables not being level out there esp in the barbox world.......i can see why most players have no ability in regards to "confidently rolling the ball"
i do this more often than most ignoring the fact that the table may lean.....and imiss the dam shot.....then i'll make mental note, dont shoot this particular style shot on this pos table that softly.......
so i may go from rolling to 'punch' in the same darn game......generally if i do....its only so i can control the CB's movement PRIOR to contact with the OB more....and sometimes its also for its movement after.....as i may want to KILL it dead in its tracks via power.......
as an example....shooting a ball length of table......and ob is sitting in the corner....shooting about a half ball hit with some high follow will boucne the CB off the short end rail and its ROTATION will kill the progression and stop it right off the rail....(also a famous trick shot for making CB curve around a ball on the rail to pocket the other ball in the other corner directly to the left or right of the corner you shot into.)
if you hit this too soft and enough high...it just rolls back up table......it you hit it too hard, not enough high....it rolls back down table
decent firm speed, good top spin.......itll stick like glue or itll curve around a ball on rail and go sideways off its originally struck position.
making it sort of 'follow stun'
smh....sometimes describing happenings and events on a table is even more an art than playing the darn game lol
-greyghost
To me the factor that creates the greatest gap between how a CB hitter vs CB roller plans their shots is the CB-OB distance they're comfortable with -- and it may change how they grip the cue.
A really good hitter who prefers stun and draw to get position from one shot to the next can usually get himself closer to the next object ball, at the sacrifice of risking a small error in position turning into a bigger error in angle, because they'll just force shape with another aggressive shot. And, at any rate, they'll usually set up for a wider angle on each shot because that's how they move the ball around, so they very rarely run into the problems they would otherwise face from their stroke tending to require several inches before the CB develops natural roll.
Someone who instinctively rolls the CB (hitting however many tips above CB center so the ball takes off from the start with natural roll for a given speed) will generally have a much better idea of how much roll the CB will have left after it contacts the object ball than someone whose CB takes a little while to develop natural roll.
I'm personally more comfortable rolling but that may because I grew up playing on a 9ft table with some very slow cloth which made follow a lot easier to use for position than trying to kill or stun the CB. I play in a bar league sometimes now and it's forced me to change my game around to be more aggressive with CB punching to navigate cluttered tables that don't take kindly to slow rolls.
I've noticed that when I'm playing a lot of close-in stun and draws to control the CB on small tables I'll tend to wrap my fingers under the cue more, with my index finger and thumb nearly touching. When I'm playing on a bigger table I fall back to my rolling strategy and not much more than my fingertips will be on the cue.
Maybe some of what will help you develop a feel for rolling will be matching your grip to the power you're asking of your stroke, just whatever helps you feel the contact more and gives you the most control over the softer tip contact used for rolling CB shots.