Thanks, Fast Larry

kokopuffs

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
...for bringing to light the exercise developed by W. Mosconi: placing a striped ball on the table with the stripe positioned vertically, then stroking it to verify if your stroke is true or twisted. The exercise improved my stroke somewhat.
 
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kokopuffs said:
...for bringing to light the exercise developed by W. Mosconi: placing a striped ball on the table with the stripe positioned vertically, then stroking it to verify if your stroke is true or twisted. The exercise improved my stroke somewhat.

Yes, this is a biggie for sure. When I came up a zillion years ago, we used to do this. Somehow it fell out of vouge and people stopped teaching it. I am trying to bring it back. It was not Mosconi who taught this, is was a player much bigger than him, the greatest cueist and billiard star of all time, Willie Hoppe.

I have a hugh pool library and have many books from the 1800's. I read and study what everyone has taught and wrote since 1827, that is how far back my books go. Bob Byrne and Mike Shamos helped me a lot here, many of these rare books they got me photocopies of to study. What I learned from this was simply stunning. Some of what I learned was shocking. I have a half century of acquired knowledge and I am giving up everything to you guys now. Any questions asked is answered on this board.
DVD's are coming on every facet of the game on how to perform them like a champion and I am filming them now, then that knowledge will be permanant as I am not, so when I pass on, others in the future will find answers in them.

I found this drill in the book, thiry years of billiards written in 1925
by Hoppe, it is a wonderful book, it has the Hoppe story in it.
Hoppe taught 36 lessons in that book and lesson one was Concentrate, which I printed in my post on this. Lesson two was this drill on page 184 which is lag the ball up and down the table.
If you use a stripe and you do not hit the ball in the exact middle, or your stroke is not pure and does not push through the ball straight and true, the strip will not roll with the lines where they were on a good stroke, on a bad stroke the line will roll over on you at once.

I use this as my warm up stroke to find and groove a perfect back and through move into and through and beyond the ball. This teaches you to be a ball roller and the drill does not lie. Any stroke imperfection and you see it at once. I do it until I lag 10 in a row up and back down to hit my tip which I leave out on my follow through so the ball will come back to gently stop on it or deflect off of it. This teaches you also where the center of the ball is and very few pool players know or can hit the center of a ball. They think they can, but the truth is they don't really have a clue.

Bob Meucci prints this cannot be done and all pros know this and because of this they hit all straight in shots with inside english. This is frankly the only thing Bob and I dis agree upon, these pros cant find the center of the ball because nobody ever taught them how to find the center. Ray Martin totally agrees with me on this and he's won 3 world titles and is a hall of famer. Ray and me have no problem doing this drill 10 times in a row because we know where center is and can hit it. Ray put this drill in his book on page 30: The 99 critical shots in pool. Ray can do it 20 times in a row, no problem, so can I, but I feel once I do it 10 in a row, that's enough, I am grooved and locked in by then. Any more beyond that is just showing off. I like to do 3 where I want the CB to come back and die on my tip, then 3 med speed, 3 med hard, then the final 3 hard. The slow rolls are the hardest and most players fear this type of shot, do this drill and you will never fear it again. :D
 
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"...a straight in shot with inside englist.... WTF!!! Sounds like whatever english is used for a straight-in shot is neither inside nor outside.
 
kokopuffs said:
"...a straight in shot with inside englist.... WTF!!! Sounds like whatever english is used for a straight-in shot is neither inside nor outside.

Yes sir, that is correct, you shoot a straight in shot with zero english, hitting the cue ball at the exact center. Hitting that shot using inside is nuts, you are just training your self to hit a shot incorrectly and have your mind and cpu to make that adjustment. Like I said, I am not the only hall of famer who thinks that is nuts. Learn to find and hit exact perfect center ball with that drill and then that shot is never a problem ever again. :D
 
Now, concerning that very shot, I may use either left or right english depending on the subsequent desired cue ball position.
 
kokopuffs said:
Now, concerning that very shot, I may use either left or right english depending on the subsequent desired cue ball position.


Yes of course, what I was teaching is a situation you are shooting the 9 ball, its a long shot straight in, comes up all the time, you can follow softly, center, stop or draw, you must want to cinch the shot and you are not playing shape, you just want to pot the ball and not scratch or miss, use perfect center ball, no English, no side. :D
 
I have read where several top players say to always play position when shooting the 9 ball. The reason is this, you play position on every other shot on the table so why change on the ball that counts?

I have a question for Fast or anyone wanting to answer. Define "inside" english. I have heard two different descriptions and would like to know the correct one. Thanks!!

Jeremy
 
Has to do w/ the angle made by the paths of OB/CB.

Dream if you will a picture:

The CB is @ 12 o'clock, OB is in the center of the clock- those of you that are picturing a digital clock, please restart your computer!

Anyway, you are shooting the OB to a pocket that sits @ 5 o'clock. In this example, if you hit the CB w/ right spin, that is outside, (left would, therefore, be inside).

That's how I done learned it.

-pigu
 
INSIDE ENGLISH

Indianaguy said:
I have read where several top players say to always play position when shooting the 9 ball. The reason is this, you play position on every other shot on the table so why change on the ball that counts?

I have a question for Fast or anyone wanting to answer. Define "inside" english. I have heard two different descriptions and would like to know the correct one. Thanks!!

Jeremy


Fast replies, the English do not call it English, it is called side, which is the best term to use. Right english is just that, you hit right of the center of the cue ball, or right side. Left English is the opposite of that, you strike the cue ball left of center, or inside check is what the English call that.

Wait till you guys get the DVD on the drill of doom and can put the cue ball anywhere on the table using no English, only hitting the cue ball in the center, you will not believe it, believe it, it is coming.

Yes on every shot, including game ball, position should be played and you should use a spot where you put the cue ball so it never has a chance to scratch. :D
 
kokopuffs said:
Wow, what a salesman!

I can't help it, that is my original background. I ran as GM the largest mfgrs rep sales company in the state right out of college, then went on the road after that working for fortune 100 corporations in sales. After becoming #1, promotions came to district, regional, national and finally international sales and marketing mgrs positions. I sold during the day and played pool at night on the road. This allowed me to go literally everywhere, there are few places I have not been.
I am a electronic sales engineer by trade and was pushing very high tech testing gear and computers and their hardware. I was in Vegas every year at Comdex and the president of the computer division of the ERA, electronic reps association and I belonged also to the association of engery engineers. Half of what I sold was to electric Utilities or to the government. Finally I started my own corporation, a sales mfgrs Rep company. Being the owner and having other sales people working for me I could then take off, go or do anything I wanted to being my own boss.

In the early 90's I began to do road trips with Paul Gerni and that is how I got into this trick shot thing. I had sold $l00,000,000 in sales, had enough nuts hidden away to take care of my old age, and being totally burned out in sales I wanted to finish up my life and career doing something I loved doing, not something I had to do every morning. That is when I made teaching and performing trick shot shows a full time thing. Now I travel the world doing what I love to do, play pool.
I am going back into the sales end of it, soon on my site there is going to be an entire billiards store, tables are up now, cues coming and full accessories. When I show up at places in the future I am going to have cues, tapes, DVD's, my book for sale.
I am working on soon having my own signature cue.
We are all salesmen, and just do not realize it. Every day, you have to sell somebody on something. A true salesman can no more stop selling than a ho can stop hookin or a hustler can stop coning marks, it's in the blood, it's some adrenalin rush you get, you get hooked on it. :D
 
Along with my FLUKE 75, I still use a Simpson 260 for troubleshooting. They're both great instruments in their own domain.

Now as to an explanation of inside/outside english.

Excluding shots that are straight-in, INSIDE ENGLISH is english applied to the same side of the ball as the pocket lies. Simple explanation, lifetime application.
 
kokopuffs said:
Along with my FLUKE 75, I still use a Simpson 260 for troubleshooting. They're both great instruments in their own domain.

Now as to an explanation of inside/outside english.

Excluding shots that are straight-in, INSIDE ENGLISH is english applied to the same side of the ball as the pocket lies. Simple explanation, lifetime application.

I sold hand held instruments, all of that stuff, my amprobe AM91 did a nice job, but my main thing was to be able to go in to a major corporations main cpu room where the main frames were, trouble shoot it, correct their problems, I used and sold instruments to sweep the room that sold from 25 to 50K, BMI, Drantez, put in UPS'S that sold from 1K to 250K, full generators to run a high rise building, surge suppressor net works that could take and absorb a direct hit, blow the side off of the building and take out the main panel and the cpus would not die. I sold cpus, plus motherboards and hardware to the Vars who built them.
I was into a lot of cool stuff. That was my old life, my life now is trying to understand cof.
I like the way the english describe in, inside check means that, you check the run, reverse it. Running english means just that, to runs out off the rails. Depending on the shot, running can be left or right of the ball. :D
 
Thanks FL for simply telling it like it is, you have taken a few shots for doing so, keep the faith and keep telling us your inside stuff. There are more people behind you that you could ever imagine.
 
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