Straight in percentage

S

slach

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
My practice routine includes hitting a dozen or so of these long straight-in shots. I have a greater percentage making the 1 ball than the 2, about 90% vs 70% (my table has real tight pockets). But from what I've read these shots should be pretty much the same difficulty. How do you do with these shots? Is the 1 ball easier for you too? What percentage do you hit?

Just wondering.

CueTable Help

 
I don't see a purpose for practicing this shot. When it comes up, hit it. But messing around with this shot will get you nowhere. It's just my humbletest opinion.

I think the second shot is harder.
 
The 2 ball is further way and the cb has more distance to go left or right before contact. Now if you move the 2 ball closer to the pocket it becomes easier. Johnnyt
 
Practicing straight in shots can be very helpful to your stroke. Stan Shuffett recommends a drill where you place all 15 balls in a straight line between the side pockets, then taking the cue ball in hand in the kitchen, but keeping every shot perfectly straight, simply shoot stop shots into the two distant corner pockets. I have a crooked stroke but I have never completed the drill without a miss. Steevie Moore uses this drill as a warm up before big matches (against C. Bartrum on TAR). Little things sometimes are BIG ! Thanks Stan :thumbup:...Tom
 
2 is harder on tight pockets, but easier on buckets. Both are rather easy if you just want to stop, though.
 
Wondering is a wonderful thing, as long you are wondering on the right things.

What some other person shot percentage is has nothing to do with yours. It does no good comparing your performance to others.

What needs to be wondered about is why you are missing and correcting it.

This drill is what I call a core drill. It is a critical drill for new players, and a good tune up drill after that.

I actually do this drill stopping the CB dead in its tracks when the OB is hit or follow the OB into the pocket with the CB.

How the CB reacts and where the OB hits the pocket tells me how straight I am. If everything is correct, the OB goes center pocket and the CB stops dead at contact with the OB, meaning the CB does not roll forward, backward or to either side. For the follow, the CB would follow the exact same path as the OB , both hitting center pocket.

This is one drill in a group of drills I have I call "is everything straight drill." To achieve the results above, everything has to be straight and in alignment. If any thing is off, it shows up in the results and it is analyzing this result that will guide you to getting everything straight.

What you are experiencing is margin of error in shot making. Margin of error in where you can hit the OB and still go anywhere in the pocket. I call this the impact zone on the OB. To put a OB center pocket, there is only one point in the impact zone to hit that result in the OB going center pocket.

Since there is this impact zone on the OB, the CB can hit anywhere in this area and the OB goes in the pocket. The distance from the CB is from the OB directly affects how accurate you must place the CB to make the ball go in the pocket.

With the 1 ball placed where it is, you can be off from hitting the center point of the impact zone and still make the ball. Since the 2 ball is farther away from the CB, that extra distance the CB has to travel before it hits the 2 ball will cause the CB to hit outside of the impact zone resulting in a missed shot.

Consider this, the balls all are on the same line from the center of the pocket. If you hit the 1 ball, it goes center pocket and the CB stops dead, the CB contact patch would be on that line. If the 1 ball goes left of center of pocket but in the pocket, that means the CB contact patch would be on the right of the center line at the OB before the hit, but within the impact zone.

The extra distance of the 2 ball will cause the margin error in the 1 ball shot that was OK for the 1 ball, to be too great by the time the CB gets to the 2 ball.

The reason this is so important is that the greater the cut angle, distances involved, you have to be precise to hit center pocket let alone just the pocket.

Everyone strives for center pocket right?

Why you are missing is more important than how well I hit this drill.
 
The one ball is farther from the pocket so it has a smallet impact zone. But the cue ball is closer to the one so it's easier to hit the impact zone.

The opposite is true for the two ball.

So that's why you might say the shots are of equal difficulty and you should make both these shots at about the same percentage. If not, why not? Which do you find easier?

Just wondering some more.
 
slach said:
The one ball is farther from the pocket so it has a smallet impact zone. But the cue ball is closer to the one so it's easier to hit the impact zone.

The opposite is true for the two ball.

So that's why you might say the shots are of equal difficulty and you should make both these shots at about the same percentage. If not, why not? Which do you find easier?

Just wondering some more.
Click to expand...

You are correct about the size of the impact zones of the 2 ball and 1 ball being of different sizes because of the differences in distance from the pocket. I didn't want to address that here, but since you brought it up, there are two more factors that affects the OB impact zone size. Those are the size of pocket opening and the angle the OB ball is to the pocket center line.

Take the 2 ball. Keeping the same distance just change the angle to the pocket, will cause the impact zone to get smaller even tho the distance is the same. Leave 2 where it is, but change the pocket opening will change the impact zone size.

This is why striving for a high level of center pocket hits is so important. Knowing how distances and angles affects the OB impact zone can help making adjustment and how much of a adjust might be needed.

The devil is in the details.
 
hmmmm

slach said:
My practice routine includes hitting a dozen or so of these long straight-in shots. I have a greater percentage making the 1 ball than the 2, about 90% vs 70% (my table has real tight pockets). But from what I've read these shots should be pretty much the same difficulty. How do you do with these shots? Is the 1 ball easier for you too? What percentage do you hit?

Just wondering.

CueTable Help

Click to expand...


Because you are only 70% on the 2 ball, that tells me you have some serious mechanical/stroke flaws you really need to correct. You are NOT hitting center of the cue ball, so either you don't have the correct contact point at the time of delivery of the cue, or you are hitting the shot with a stroke that is not straight and inadvertently putting left and or right english on the ball. Which means you may be hitting dead center on the cueball, but because of your stroke, it is coming at an angle, and immediately after contact is now "pushing" the cue left or right which can add the unneccessary English, or squirt that you don't want on this shot.

Pretty easy fix with a good instructor or at least a very good player than can recognize your mechanical flaws, or a really BIG mirror or a nice video camara to see what is going on behind you (wrist, grip, shoulder/arm alignment, etc.) Good Luck.
 
Last edited:
duckie said:
Wondering is a wonderful thing, as long you are wondering on the right things.

What some other person shot percentage is has nothing to do with yours. It does no good comparing your performance to others.

What needs to be wondered about is why you are missing and correcting it.

This drill is what I call a core drill. It is a critical drill for new players, and a good tune up drill after that.

I actually do this drill stopping the CB dead in its tracks when the OB is hit or follow the OB into the pocket with the CB.

How the CB reacts and where the OB hits the pocket tells me how straight I am. If everything is correct, the OB goes center pocket and the CB stops dead at contact with the OB, meaning the CB does not roll forward, backward or to either side. For the follow, the CB would follow the exact same path as the OB , both hitting center pocket.

This is one drill in a group of drills I have I call "is everything straight drill." To achieve the results above, everything has to be straight and in alignment. If any thing is off, it shows up in the results and it is analyzing this result that will guide you to getting everything straight.

What you are experiencing is margin of error in shot making. Margin of error in where you can hit the OB and still go anywhere in the pocket. I call this the impact zone on the OB. To put a OB center pocket, there is only one point in the impact zone to hit that result in the OB going center pocket.

Since there is this impact zone on the OB, the CB can hit anywhere in this area and the OB goes in the pocket. The distance from the CB is from the OB directly affects how accurate you must place the CB to make the ball go in the pocket.

With the 1 ball placed where it is, you can be off from hitting the center point of the impact zone and still make the ball. Since the 2 ball is farther away from the CB, that extra distance the CB has to travel before it hits the 2 ball will cause the CB to hit outside of the impact zone resulting in a missed shot.

Consider this, the balls all are on the same line from the center of the pocket. If you hit the 1 ball, it goes center pocket and the CB stops dead, the CB contact patch would be on that line. If the 1 ball goes left of center of pocket but in the pocket, that means the CB contact patch would be on the right of the center line at the OB before the hit, but within the impact zone.

The extra distance of the 2 ball will cause the margin error in the 1 ball shot that was OK for the 1 ball, to be too great by the time the CB gets to the 2 ball.

The reason this is so important is that the greater the cut angle, distances involved, you have to be precise to hit center pocket let alone just the pocket.

Everyone strives for center pocket right?

Why you are missing is more important than how well I hit this drill.
Click to expand...

Then you gotta wobble all the way back.
 
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