Skidding balls?

[Paul Mon]

Skidding occurs when the cue ball, with some follow or natural roll, contacts the object ball at just the right angle, with just the right friction, so as to induce the opposite effect on the object ball that we are all familiar with as they touch. That being reverse or draw. Follow on the cue ball puts draw (or reverse roll) on the object ball.

In other words, the cue ball's forward roll, induces a touch of backspin on the Object ball as they touch. As the two balls contact the follow roll on the cue ball and the reversing effect on the object ball keeps them both in contact with each other for a split second longer than would normally be.

As they seem to cling together they roll off their normal cut angle as a pair of kissing balls. This throws them off line in terms of the normal cut.

The inside english adds to this effect because it prevents the cue ball from rolling off the object ball as it passes.

You'll never see cling, or skid if you hit a center ball or a draw stroke or shoot the shot with a touch of outside english. You need to create that gear effect where the object ball gets a touch of backspin from the cue balls forward roll to make them stay together.

Sometimes the effect is so noticeable that the cue ball seems to want to climb up on the object ball, thats because the object ball wants to backup into the cue ball.

When this effect happens on the newer napless cloth, with less resistance, the effect is able to become more noticeable.

REP to you. IMO, dirty ball are not required. Our pool hall cleans and polishes daily. These balls skid more often. I believe that the polish causes tha chalk to adhere to the cueball. Slow, short, straight shots with follow seem to have the greatest chance to cling and skid. I've actually wiped the chalk off of my tip when this type of shot comes up.

Paul.........try a search and you'll lots of info

 

[stevekur1]

Skidding occurs when the cue ball, with some follow or natural roll, contacts the object ball at just the right angle, with just the right friction, so as to induce the opposite effect on the object ball that we are all familiar with as they touch. That being reverse or draw. Follow on the cue ball puts draw (or reverse roll) on the object ball.

In other words, the cue ball's forward roll, induces a touch of backspin on the Object ball as they touch. As the two balls contact the follow roll on the cue ball and the reversing effect on the object ball keeps them both in contact with each other for a split second longer than would normally be.

As they seem to cling together they roll off their normal cut angle as a pair of kissing balls. This throws them off line in terms of the normal cut.

The inside english adds to this effect because it prevents the cue ball from rolling off the object ball as it passes.

You'll never see cling, or skid if you hit a center ball or a draw stroke or shoot the shot with a touch of outside english. You need to create that gear effect where the object ball gets a touch of backspin from the cue balls forward roll to make them stay together.

Sometimes the effect is so noticeable that the cue ball seems to want to climb up on the object ball, thats because the object ball wants to backup into the cue ball.

When this effect happens on the newer napless cloth, with less resistance, the effect is able to become more noticeable.

By far the most knowledgable answer. Well Done Sir! Tap Tap Tap


With all that info there is nothing left for me to say on the topic.

Rep To You 3andstop

Steve

 

[Patrick Johnson]

3andstop:

Skidding occurs when the cue ball, with some follow or natural roll, contacts the object ball at just the right angle, with just the right friction, so as to induce the opposite effect on the object ball that we are all familiar with as they touch. That being reverse or draw. Follow on the cue ball puts draw (or reverse roll) on the object ball.

In other words, the cue ball's forward roll, induces a touch of backspin on the Object ball as they touch. As the two balls contact the follow roll on the cue ball and the reversing effect on the object ball keeps them both in contact with each other for a split second longer than would normally be.

As they seem to cling together they roll off their normal cut angle as a pair of kissing balls. This throws them off line in terms of the normal cut.

The inside english adds to this effect because it prevents the cue ball from rolling off the object ball as it passes.

You'll never see cling, or skid if you hit a center ball or a draw stroke or shoot the shot with a touch of outside english. You need to create that gear effect where the object ball gets a touch of backspin from the cue balls forward roll to make them stay together.

Sometimes the effect is so noticeable that the cue ball seems to want to climb up on the object ball, thats because the object ball wants to backup into the cue ball.

When this effect happens on the newer napless cloth, with less resistance, the effect is able to become more noticeable.

stevekur1:

By far the most knowledgable answer.

Well, it's the longest one, but unfortunately it's not true. The extra friction just moves the OB in more of a forward angle, much like the even greater friction from your cue does. No forward roll on the CB or transferred draw on the OB is required.

You'll never see cling, or skid if you hit a center ball

In fact you get more cling when the CB is sliding.

pj
chgo

 

[3andstop]

Well, it's the longest one, but unfortunately it's not true. The extra friction just moves the OB in more of a forward angle, much like the even greater friction from your cue does. No forward roll on the CB or transferred draw on the OB is required.



In fact you get more cling when the CB is sliding.

pj
chgo

I do believe the skid we are all talking about here is that effect when you sort of slow roll a cut shot and the two balls kind of thud and stick together as the cue ball passes.

You can't hit a cue ball soft enough to slide into an OB at that kind of angle to induce a skid. In fact you can't slow roll a cue ball and make it slide with no roll at all period.

If you are speaking of collision induced throw, well then, thats another animal all together.

 

[Patrick Johnson]

I do believe the skid we are all talking about here is that effect when you sort of slow roll a cut shot and the two balls kind of thud and stick together as the cue ball passes.

Yes, that's what we're talking about. It isn't caused by forward roll on the CB transferring draw to the OB.

You can't hit a cue ball soft enough to slide into an OB at that kind of angle to induce a skid.

Of course you can. But the sliding doesn't induce the skid; the extra friction between the balls does that. Sliding just makes it that much worse.

In fact you can't slow roll a cue ball and make it slide with no roll at all period.

Word games.

If you are speaking of collision induced throw, well then, thats another animal all together.

Yes, I'm talking about collision induced throw, and that's not another animal at all. "Cling" is just extra collision induced throw caused by extra friction between the balls.

pj
chgo

P.S. BTW, you can and do get extra spin-induced throw sometimes for the same reason. I assume we don't notice it because it's small and hard to distinguish from our own error.

 

[androd]

Yes, that's what we're talking about. It isn't caused by forward roll on the CB transferring draw to the OB.



Of course you can. But the sliding doesn't induce the skid; the extra friction between the balls does that. Sliding just makes it that much worse.



Word games.



Yes, I'm talking about collision induced throw, and that's not another animal at all. "Cling" is just extra collision induced throw caused by extra friction between the balls.

pj
chgo

I believe you're right about these, as for newer cloth, the balls have been skidding for at least 47 yrs. When it happens to me, my stroke is usually decelarating. ( not a good thing )

 

[CreeDo]

I think 3andstop nailed it. It's been argued endlessly but his explanation really clicks.
You can break it down into logical chunks. Correct me if any of these seem wrong.

- Object balls usually roll away after contact when hit at certain lowish speeds (the speeds where skid seems to occur). Normally if they slide at all before roll kicks in... it's so small that the naked eye doesn't spot it.

- When they skid you can very clearly see them slide before the forward roll kicks in. How is that possible?

- Well one way to make the OB slide is to hit with enough force that the CB shoves it across the cloth, making it slide a ways before friction takes over. But we're talking about low(ish) speed shots. There's not enough force to make the OB slide that way, so it must be sliding for another reason.

- Topspin on the CB putting backspin on the OB would explain it. The hair of backspin on the OB doesn't make it actually go backwards but it makes a kind of draw drag effect. I think the visual effect of the ball seeming to freeze and then go into normal roll is the reason why you'll hear some players say the ball "turned over" in place of the word skid. Because that's sort of what you're seeing.

- Normal friction between a rolling ball and the OB can't make that backspin happen but extra dirt, chalk, whatever can. But the basic idea (topspin on the CB buts backspin on the OB) is sound.

- Theories I don't like:
...Anything to do with the cloth. You see it plenty on old and new cloth. I have seen it on beat up barboxes and brand new tournament simonis.
...It's just extra throw. Yeah the ball undercuts more than you'd expect by throw, but I don't think this happens for the same reason as regular collision induced throw, and throw doesn't cause the weird visual effect of a ball that slides an inch or two before deciding to roll. Extra throw is a side effect, not the cause.
...Static or cleaning methods. Static force doesn't seem strong enough to have such a pronounced effect on something as relatively big and heavy as a billiard ball. It can cause a few hairs to lift off your arm but it can't grab a heavy object ball hard enough to keep it from rolling for even a millesecond. Also I have seen it happen with regularly maintained balls and balls that never get cleaned. If I had to pick one that's more likely to skid I'd say the dirty ones.
...Ball not being round enough. I gotta bite my tongue on that one.

It seems to me that the easiest way to prove any of these is to just find a scientific test where someone tries to get a ball to skid every time, over and over. It seems weird to me that nobody has apparently tried or succeeded in that. How about the guy running this page records it (may take a zillion tries) so we can have some additional visual clues as to what's happening?

 

[Patrick Johnson]

- Theories I don't like:
[...]
...It's just extra throw. Yeah the ball undercuts more than you'd expect by throw, but I don't think this happens for the same reason as regular collision induced throw

Why not? Why introduce a new reason when the old reason explains everything?

...and throw doesn't cause the weird visual effect of a ball that slides an inch or two before deciding to roll.

You're right about this, but draw the wrong conclusion from it.

Extra throw is a side effect, not the cause.

Neither sliding nor throw are causes; they're both effects of the same cause: greater friction between the balls.

pj
chgo

 

[satman]

Thanks Jay

Slow shots, inside english, napless cloth and dirty balls are all the culprits. I've seen it happen to everyone. :sorry:

Those are the real culprits of this problem. It happens to everyone at some time. You can adjust for this in almost{ I did say almost} every chance of it happening. But occasinally, you get stuck and have to shoot the shot and put your turn at risk to get the shape you need.

 

[desmocourtney]

How about the guy running this page records it (may take a zillion tries) so we can have some additional visual clues as to what's happening?

Look at clip 4.7, there is a little skid there if you study it.

 

[steveharn]

Cory Deuel Valley Forge

Did the 5 skid or did the miss in the final game of his match against John Schmidt?

 

[houmatroy]

I think corey just missed !

Did the 5 skid or did the miss in the final game of his match against John Schmidt?

I watched the match on the net & it looked like Corey pulled up a lil & didn't quite stay down & follow thru on the shot even tho some might say different.

 

[donny mills]

From my experience, "skidding balls" is usually an excuse from someone who can't admit that they hit the shot bad.

No skids are real. It always bothered me when a ball would skid on me and a railbird would say no it didn't skid you just missed it.

I can dirty up an object ball real good and shoot at it and guarantee that it skids, or i can shoot at it and guarantee it doesn't skid.

 

[Tillman345]

I would say that the only thing that may have changed it from old days to new days is the weight of the balls maybe. I would think that the older clay balls may have been a little heavier than the aramith balls used today and that may have something to do with it. Dont know but just a guess.

 

[CreeDo]

patrick: If I'm reading you right you feel it's just the usual CIT, but at a much stronger degree due to dirt/chalk/etc. but I think it's more than that because of the point 3andstop made about it never happening with draw or a sliding center ball. That rings true to me, but mostly cuz I remember that's how it always seems to happen. I don't have a test that proves it never happens when shooting with draw.

If you're saying it's extra throw due to the combination of dirt + the rolling ball transferring some spin, then I guess we're on the same page and it's just semantics.

A few people seem to be claiming it happens even under clean conditions... ?

steve: tough to be sure from the video quality but it looked like corey missed. He left himself way too thin on the ball. Let's just say that if he didn't dog the shot, then he dogged the position before the shot. Not to knock him though, every player (even pros) will have those moments. They're pros because of what they usually succeed at doing, not what they occasionally fail to do.

 

[Patrick Johnson]

patrick: If I'm reading you right you feel it's just the usual CIT, but at a much stronger degree due to dirt/chalk/etc. but I think it's more than that because of the point 3andstop made about it never happening with draw or a sliding center ball.

He's wrong about that.

That rings true to me, but mostly cuz I remember that's how it always seems to happen. I don't have a test that proves it never happens when shooting with draw.

"Memory" can be a poor witness. Freeze two balls together and hit the first one at an angle with the cue ball (so you produce some throw). Then do the same thing with a chalk spot between them. Do whatever you want with the CB; it won't matter.

pj
chgo