SVB's Break

A

av84fun

Banned
I've seen him play in person several times including at the DCC but hadn't noticed that he breaks with his playing cue...at least he did in the matches there that I saw.

But that's not my point. My point is to comment on his flowing almost slow motion break stroke (apparently not really) and yet how he just crushes that rack.

He does employ the "up move" that Colin Colenso discusses at length on his very interesting web site...check it out...
http://www.cue-tv.com/blog/InstructionalVideos

But I would be interested in hearing the opinions of others as to how he generates so much ACTION with seemingly so little effort.

Regards,
Jim
 
It's lethal!

Here's my 2 cents. I watched him use it affectively at the US Open. He is hitting the cueball about 5 o'clock with just a medium speed and you hit the head ball, slightly off center. He is playing the 1 ball in the corner from where you break. It goes 1 rail to the whole.

If you want to study it, get a copy of the Accustat from the 2007 US Open; SVB and Alcano. Not the finals, the match from the night before. It is disgusting how good it is.

When watching him use this break affectively, it reminded me of the Reyes/ Strickland match when Efren 2 railed the 5 ball in. In the match, Reyes broke @ 80% of his total power and was making a ball; where Earl broke them warpspeed and would miss high.

Plus, IMO, I think by not hitting them as hard, you give yourself an opportunity to make balls and not getting balls kissed out of being pocketed.

My 8 Ball break, I hit the same way, just a little harder than my 9 Ball break b/c there are more balls. Sometimes in 8 ball, I will make 2-3 balls at a time. I have increased my chances of making a ball.

Be careful though. If you hit the ball just a tad to far off to the side and it scratches.

Hope this helps!
 
He sure does crush them for someone that really doen't look like hes hitting them all that hard, I never see him wind up acoss the table or hopping up after the break-shot, or even break-dancing.

I believe someone on here or in the TAR chatroom that knows Shane said he has a belt in one of the martial arts. I have known many players (shortstops and under) that were into martial arts and they all crushed the rack making it look easy. I could be wrong but I believe that helps a lot with the break. Johnnyt
 
Johnnyt said:
He sure does crush them for someone that really doen't look like hes hitting them all that hard, I never see him wind up acoss the table or hopping up after the break-shot, or even break-dancing.

I believe someone on here or in the TAR chatroom that knows Shane said he has a belt in one of the martial arts. I have known many players (shortstops and under) that were into martial arts and they all crushed the rack making it look easy. I could be wrong but I believe that helps a lot with the break. Johnnyt
Click to expand...
Never heard anything about the martial arts thing. I will ask next time I see him.

But he does have a 98th degree Black Belt in ShootYourNutsIn-jitsu.:D
 
Johnny you are right about martial arts being an advantage. Not just on breaks, but in many ways.
 
JCIN said:
Never heard anything about the martial arts thing. I will ask next time I see him.

But he does have a 98th degree Black Belt in ShootYourNutsIn-jitsu.:D
Click to expand...

Plus he stayed at a Holiday Inn last night. Johnnyt
 
now that is funny

But he does have a 98th degree Black Belt in ShootYourNutsIn-jitsu.

i just shot diet coke out of my nose! Shootyournutsin-jitsu! priceless
 
JCIN said:
Never heard anything about the martial arts thing. I will ask next time I see him.

But he does have a 98th degree Black Belt in ShootYourNutsIn-jitsu.:D
Click to expand...

That's what I'm talkin bout
shane-van-boening-enjoy.jpg
 
JCIN said:
Never heard anything about the martial arts thing. I will ask next time I see him.

But he does have a 98th degree Black Belt in ShootYourNutsIn-jitsu.:D
Click to expand...
He does not have a belt in any martial arts.. LMFAO.. he is about a black belt at crackin crab legs however.
 
Well, when you stroke the ball correctly, it looks effortless. That's nothing new.

Not taking anything away from Shane, his mechanics are incredible. It's just that Shane does it that much better than most.

Another guy that got some REAL power into the CB with little effort was the Miz.
 
lewdo26 said:
Well, when you stroke the ball correctly, it looks effortless. That's nothing new.Not taking anything away from Shane, his mechanics are incredible. It's just that Shane does it that much better than most.

Another guy that got some REAL power into the CB with little effort was the Miz.
Click to expand...

Not really. Johnny used to (less so now) look like he was going to dive head first out onto the table with his follow through.

Busta still just about kicks himself in the back of the head when he breaks.

Seems to me that other than hitting the rack squarely, he must have a fabulously perfect wrist snap going on. I'd love to see some super slow motion photography of his right arm mechanics.

Regards,
Jim
 
he just seems to have the timing dead on. buddy hall is another i've noticed, you don't hear much about his break and there were'nt any acrobatics, but he could really crush them and hit them dead square, and it looked effortless.

there again the words, 'buddy hall', 'stroke', and 'effortless' being used together isn't all that new or surprising!

also i don't think shane hits them THAT hard tbh. i think there's two factors here. one, he gets a consistently VERY square hit on the one ball, and two, like somebody mentioned he employs a vertical motion as part of his stroke to lengthen it out to give him more time to generate speed - well because he is coming down with the cue he is jumping it slightly so the cue ball jumps up when it hits the one ball a lot. the trademark SVB sweet 'pop' to his break.

anyway what i am trying to say is because the cue ball jumps up on impact with the head ball it makes it seem like they are being hit harder than they really are. from what i've seen xao pan ting, (whichever order you say her name) is similar, she breaks at the start of this video.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oygGCEFIoqo&feature=related)

obviously shane does it better but it serves my point, you can break harder and not have the cb leave the bed of the table barely if the cue is kept level. earl always keeps a more level cue on his breaks.
 
Yes Shane has perfected the break, and FINALLY people are seeing the advantage of various break speeds. Shane knows how to adjust the speed to make different balls in the rack. Watch him when he has a dry break and points to where the balls collided or missed the pocket. When He's playing 10ball I saw 4 balls that he had dialed in to go at any given time. Hit the break too hard and all the balls just wad up.

About 12 years ago Nick Varner did a study by breaking 1000 racks of 9ball with the balls in order and they charted the results. The best info that came out of it wasn't the ball placement sequences we all know but the hardness, or lack there of that made the break lethal.

Right after that study I realized how much of a factor the break was in 9ball. At this time I was working at a pool room a few nights a week and had extra time. I did my own "testing" on the results Nick got over about a year or so. I would break 50 or 100 racks a nite and chart my results. Needless to say in short time I had a killer break...not the most powerful, though I can crush em', but I could very quickly figure out a tables break position, and speed. This one thing moved me up 2 balls minimum and I became a MUCH stronger player. Shortly after that time, I was teaching my break to players that could give me the 6. To this day I still break with an open bridge....to keep me from trying to hit em too hard!

My point?...we all know Shane practices the break daily, that's why he is so good at it. Obviously he practices EVERYTHING else too! :D

After all this I realized that concentrating on one given factor at a time was MUCH easier than trying to improve my total game all at once.
 
Last edited:
av84fun said:
I've seen him play in person several times including at the DCC but hadn't noticed that he breaks with his playing cue...at least he did in the matches there that I saw.

But that's not my point. My point is to comment on his flowing almost slow motion break stroke (apparently not really) and yet how he just crushes that rack.

He does employ the "up move" that Colin Colenso discusses at length on his very interesting web site...check it out...
http://www.cue-tv.com/blog/InstructionalVideos

But I would be interested in hearing the opinions of others as to how he generates so much ACTION with seemingly so little effort.

Regards,
Jim
Click to expand...
Disregarding the folks who will always chime in about less movement being better, I'll give an answer to your question. Bustamante had an article on how he (Busty) breaks. Shane does everything in that article as well. Where Bustamante has reached over 30 mph on his break, Shane doesn't approach that speed. But, because of his technique, I'm sure he could if he wanted to.

From the technical side, it's about momentum and timing. Shane moves his entire body forward during the break shot, so the momentum and energy come not only from the speed and mass of his stick, but also the speed and mass of part of his body. Since there is much more body mass, he doesn't need to move as fast. That's why it looks effortless. Because he can get great speed with less effort, he can concentrate on accurate hits.

The problem is that since he's moving, it can be hard to control the stick. He can so after thousands of hours of practice. And I'm sure it wasn't like he was all over the place to begin with. For the rest of us, it would take as much time to really lock down the timing. It's not just natural talent. He works hard, so I'm told. A hundred break shots on the BreakRAK per session. That's dedication. He should pipe in and confirm or deny that rumor.

So, here's the process flow:

  • Aim and warm up strokes low in stance, very low on the cueball
  • Final back swing, raise elbow and lock
  • Drive hips forward and begin to rise the stance
  • While driving forward, stroke the stick forward. The elbow is dropping slightly.

Most of Shane's breaks, the cueball hops in the air and has a lot of follow on it after it hits the one ball squarely, and it skids to a stop or rolls forward. I think some follow on the cueball must be from where his tip actually hits the cueball, but some could be transferred to it because the cueball is in the air when it hits the head ball. I've seen him hit a flatter break, with no hop, and the cueball came straight back.

Fred
 
CornerFred:
From the technical side, it's about momentum and timing. Shane moves his entire body forward during the break shot, so the momentum and energy come not only from the speed and mass of his stick, but also the speed and mass of part of his body. Since there is much more body mass, he doesn't need to move as fast. That's why it looks effortless.
Click to expand...

It sure seems that way, and when I try it, on the few occasions I get it semi-right it feels that way too. But I wonder if we can really get body mass into the break or if that's just part of the timing, like a pitcher's twisting body.

Reason I wonder is that I think I've heard (from Bob Jewett, Ron Shepard, Mike Page, etc.) that you can't really even get much arm mass into the break, much less body mass. Maybe you know better than I do, or maybe one of the physics Grandmasters will chime in.

pj
chgo
 
Patrick Johnson said:
It sure seems that way, and when I try it, on the few occasions I get it semi-right it feels that way too. But I wonder if we can really get body mass into the break or if that's just part of the timing, like a pitcher's twisting body.

Reason I wonder is that I think I've heard (from Bob Jewett, Ron Shepard, Mike Page, etc.) that you can't really even get much arm mass into the break, much less body mass. Maybe you know better than I do, or maybe one of the physics Grandmasters will chime in.

pj
chgo
Click to expand...
In Ron's technical paper on it, I think he was a little vague on body mass. That is, in his discussion on optimum break cue weight, it was part of the conclusion that the proper weight is dependant on how much body weight is part of the break stroke. Big armed men might only put arm weight into it, while body breakers would get more body weight into it.

That's how I read it. That is, it's not that you can't get more body mass into it, but that many players' techniqes don't get body mass into it. I could've read it wrong.

In my own experience, I can't get anywhere near the good break that I can when I shift my hips forward. I think bigger armed guys have quite an advantage. FWhateverIW

Fred
 
Last edited:
I think bigger armed guys have quite an advantage.
Click to expand...

Larry Nevel would seem to support that idea. But if not, then you and I have a possibility of developing killer breaks too (yeah, right).

An interesting thing I've noticed lately: I've always broken from the side rail. In the last few months I've been trying different starting places and found that I got more power when off the rail. Something subtle about my stance or delivery must have changed that changed the dynamics of my break stroke. So I stuck with it for awhile before going back and trying breaks from the rail again and, lo and behold, the increased power stayed even when breaking from the rail. The lesson for me? Try new things.

Wish I could figure out what exactly changed... One thing I did notice and have kept: a distinct pause at the back of my break stroke. It kinda gives me a second to "focus my force".

pj
chgo
 
SVB Break / How he does it?

Remember Hank Aaron? "Hammering Hank" as he was called. Its all in the wrist snap. The late great Hustler, Harry "Poochy" Sexton had a break like Shane's. He could stand up a coke bottle flush against the rail and place the butt of his cue flush against the bottle. He would then bet that you could remove the bottle while he kept his cue in position and without anymore backswing than the distance to the rail (approx. 2 1/2 inch) make at least one ball. I watched him do it many times on a nine foot table. It was all in his amazing ability to generate power from the wrist snap. Granted, he couldn't do it every time but you would go broke betting against him.

Cross-Side-Larry

"Learn from the best, and beat the rest"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top