Three Rail Bank

Tennesseejoe

Tennesseejoe

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I want to make a 3 rail bank in to the lower left pocket. This is a common shot in One Pocket. What is a good way to calculate where to aim? And calculate variations of this with the 4 ball up the rail further.

Same questions to calculate this shot as a two rail to the upper left pocket.


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Maybe try spot on the wall. Experiment, find a spot in the distance that works, and it should work pretty well for other positions of the 4 ball.
 
Tennesseejoe said:
I want to make a 3 rail bank in to the lower left pocket. This is a common shot in One Pocket. What is a good way to calculate where to aim? And calculate variations of this with the 4 ball up the rail further.

Same questions to calculate this shot as a two rail to the upper left pocket.


View attachment 715713
Click to expand...
I urge you to make your own "spot on the wall" for your table. Find the line for the 4 ball. Put a ball on the other side of the side pocket and find its line. Those two lines will cross at a point that is the common target for both shots. It will work for a lot of other shots as well. It would be cheating if you marked that spot on the rug or placed a chair there.;)

Note that if the object ball is not frozen to the cushion, you must shoot considerably shorter because the ball will go longer off the first cushion.
 
You can solve how to hit it, by shooting backwards.

Place the cueball where it should land and stroke it off 3 rails to find the general area to shoot it from based on the rail contacts.

The technique requires some adjustments because of the rails. I find it effective a high percentage of the time.

I call it the return to sender method.
 
The three rail I know will go close if I can get it close to the 2nd diamond off the 3rd rail.
The two rail goes close if I can get it near the first diamond on the 2nd rail.
Every table is different and equipment/ environment play a factor
 
Calculations are cool and all, but in the long run, I'd recommend playing with feel.

I'd bank the shot 3 rails and see which side of the pocket it misses on,
then use that as a reference to adjust either long or short.
 
Tennesseejoe said:
I want to make a 3 rail bank in to the lower left pocket. This is a common shot in One Pocket. What is a good way to calculate where to aim? And calculate variations of this with the 4 ball up the rail further.

Same questions to calculate this shot as a two rail to the upper left pocket.


View attachment 715713
Click to expand...
9' past and 9' to the right of the far right corner pocket as you are standing at the table.
 
The "spot on the wall" method is based on visualizing mirror images of side-by-side tables (playing areas) and aiming at the visualized pocket that's the right number of rails away. Here's how that looks for your shot - the visualized target pocket is in the top corner of the diagram (about 12' diagonally from the far corner of your table). If your pool room's big enough you can measure the right distance and "mark" or memorize that spot for 3-railers to that pocket from anywhere.

pj
chgo

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3kushn said:
Where on the short rail would you aim for on a strange table and this was your 1st shot of the game.
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You could imagine the shot that everyone knows, out of the top left corner pocket and into the second diamond from the lower right. Then imagine where that shot is aiming about 10 feet away, and aim this shot at that spot.

edit: anyone else think the shot in the diagram in the first post looks pretty close to a full hit to make it?
 
Patrick Johnson said:
The "spot on the wall" method is based on visualizing mirror images of side-by-side ...
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That's not the way I do it. The simple mirror reflection way is almost guaranteed to find the wrong spot for nearly all shots. Instead find the following spot for the way you play the shot on your table:

Find the exact line for the bank from one position in the class of shots you are working on. (In this thread, the first class of shots is three rail banks for a ball frozen to the first cushion.) Since this is a one pocket shot, it must be played at a speed that leaves the ball by your pocket. Once you have found that line by repeated carefully aligned shots, mark it somehow. A piece of painter's tape on the wall along the line is one way.

Next, find the line for a second shot from the class of shots. For the diagram above, move the object ball to the other side of the side pocket, say two diamonds above it, on the headstring. By repeated, careful shots, find the exact line for banking such a frozen ball. Mark that line on the wall.

You now have two lines. One line is from the first object ball position to the first piece of tape on the wall. Imagine you stretch a piece of string between those two points. The second line is from the second object ball position to the second piece of tape on the wall. Stretch a second piece of string between those two points.

Those two lines will cross. With luck and for most spot-on-the-wall systems, they will cross within the room. The point where they cross is your spot. It is the single point that will give a target for the two shots you lined up so carefully. It is exact for those two shots.

That spot will also work well for all the object ball positions between the two shots you worked on and also shots outside that range. If you are really fanatic about this you can do the careful measurement for a bunch of object ball positions.

Here's a video about how to create your own spot on the wall system for whatever diamond system or bank system you want to convert.

 
nataddrho said:
Variations in spin and speed can cause a miss. Use feel rather than a system.
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I think it is very, very useful to start from a system that allows you to put your experience into a framework. I think it will take much longer to learn a kind of shot by simply shooting a bunch of shots without thinking about the positions and lines and such. On the other hand, if you don't add feel at the end -- so that the shot just feels good -- the system is less likely to work.

People who use systems at 3-cushion billiards often work out the required corrections for a system for the particular table they are playing on. For example they might figure out that the corner-5 (usual three-rail system) comes in half a diamond long. They will know to line up half a diamond shorter to get to their target.
 
Bob Jewett said:
I think it is very, very useful to start from a system that allows you to put your experience into a framework. I think it will take much longer to learn a kind of shot by simply shooting a bunch of shots without thinking about the positions and lines and such. On the other hand, if you don't add feel at the end -- so that the shot just feels good -- the system is less likely to work.
Click to expand...

I had a 3-rail shot last week where there was an interfering ball coming off the first rail on the "natural path". So, I hit the ball to miss the interfering ball and added a bunch of left spin to alter the path off the first 2 rails and a bit of top and hit it softly so the rails would play true and picked off my OB 1 diamond off the upper corner pocket and gently rolled it in.

a) you have to know the geometry of the path
b) you have to have a touchy feely knowledge of the rails of the table you are on
c) you have to compensate for the spin you put on the ball (or the spin you need to take the intended path)
d) you have to hit it at the correct velocity

Having been an engineer (and scientist) for 50 years gives me the touchy feely intimacy with the geometry, and physics (spin, inelastic collisions), and playing often gives me the velocity control needed.
 
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