Throwing in long straight-in shots
- Thread starter jsp
- Start date
There is no trick to long straight ins.
Set up the cue ball about 6 inches from the end rail, and a ball just past the middle of the table. Pocket 30-40 of these every time you play. Aim straight at them, no side spin.
If you have access to a snooker table, that would be even better.
Set up the cue ball about 6 inches from the end rail, and a ball just past the middle of the table. Pocket 30-40 of these every time you play. Aim straight at them, no side spin.
If you have access to a snooker table, that would be even better.
Cuebacca said:
I've used it. Its amazing, it fixed me in about half an hour...seriously
For straight in shots, I use center ball and aim my cue tip at the base of the object ball where it meets the felt. This works well when you have to put a lot of draw on straight in shots also.
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I just scanned this thread quickly, but did anyone suggest hitting these straight in shots with speed? Balls don't tend to throw as much when struck firmly.
monxing said:
http://www.poolvids.com/play.php?vid=210
It's not my info. Everything I learned about this stuff I learned from Nick Mannino and Ron Vitello. After checking this video out again, I think I'm gonna delete it and redo it. I can do better.
Here's another one of me doing shot#1 with a throw stroke:
http://www.poolvids.com/play.php?vid=207
Someone commented about how I drop my elbow. What I'm actually doing is tucking my hand to my chest after the cue is released and on its way.
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You're correct in that speed will minimize the transfer of English from the cue ball to the object. However in critical shots we tend to want to insure the proper speed to allow for a small degree of error in our aim.It's always nice to have the luxury of being able to rub the point of the pocket and still have a high degree of chance of pocketing the ball.nathandumoulin said:
Most shots of this type, when missed, are remembered because they were of high importance. If we're playing to just make the object and control the cue ball then we're probably talking about stopping the cue ball.
Because of all the things we're trying to do we are setting up the perfect conditions for throw on the object ball. All that is needed is a bit of side spin on the cue ball. (which in this case we don't want).
Sure we all would want to perfect our mechanics so that we can strike the cue ball dead center on vertical but we are not machines and we are prone to miss hit sometimes.
Sometimes for me if the conditions permit I would prefer to strike the cue ball at the lowest point that I think I would feel comfortable with. This does not permit me to miss hit off to the side of the cue ball enough to apply enough side spin to make much difference. Mishitting the cue ball off center when hitting very low will spin the cue ball with the axis being farthest from vertical thus less transfer to the object ball.
I also would argue that position play is mostly speed control rather than precise tip placement. Sure there are a handful of position shots that do require very precise tip placement, like stun follow and stun draw shots, but they are not the majority.Andrew Manning said:
That's interesting. I must have missed that thread, or at least forgot about it.Jal said:
I guess that's the real question. I can't say that I have definitive answer, but I can't really argue with the results that I've been seeing (it has only been a single night's results, but I feel that the results are still significant to me).Jal said:
I mentioned this before in another thread (don't have the time to find it now), but I feel there is a certain amount of "automatic correction" that comes into play when you apply a certain amount of side.
I haven't thought this through nearly enough, but it seems to me that when you attempt to hit center ball but you hit slightly off center, the effects of squirt are small compared to the amount of CB/OB throw that can result. In other words if you deviate a bit away from center ball, the increase in throw would outweigh the slight increase in squirt that would counteract it.
[I have a measles CB, and when I miss I always observe the spin on the CB (if any) as well what side of the pocket I missed. Most of the time, the spin of the CB is in the direction of the miss (eg CB has residual right spin and the OB is missed the pocket to the left). If squirt is more the culprit, then the spin would be opposite the direction of the miss, but I almost never notice that unless my alignment is way off.]
However, if you aim with enough side (not much more, but less than the amount of side you would typically use for position play), then the variations in squirt and throw roughly cancel each other out, and you get some degree of automatic correction. If you apply a bit more english, then the greater squirt would counteract the greater throw you would have. If you apply a bit less english, you would have less throw, but you would also have less squirt.
Now, don't get me wrong. Ideally I would love to have a perfectly straight stroke such that I would hit exact center ball every time I want to. But I just don't have the mechanics of a top-level snooker player. All this sounds like a hack, but if it really does help, why not do it? But like I said, I'm not sure yet if I'll actually incorporate this technique in my regular play. I'll keep you updated.
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I have been doing straight in shots for quite some time as one of my drills. I set up and shoot the ball in the corner and draw the cueball back into the opposite corner. Usually I have about 3 diamonds distance between the CB & OB. Perfectly straight the cueball scratches and you make the shot. This drill is essential to me if my stroke is off at all the cueball will come back to the rail on either side of the pocket. I usually shoot at least 25 straight in shots per practice session. I honestly do not know what percentage of shots I hit perfectly making both balls but as long as I make over 22 straight in out of 25 I feel pretty satisfied that my stroke is ok. Thanks to Joe Tucker for this drill..
Dan
Dan
jsp said:
I don't think this is true, and I think your next comment shows it.
You've got the analysis backwards. Left spin means the CB squirted to the right, which made the shot miss to the left (and throw to the right wasn't enough to correct it). Spin opposite the direction of the miss means throw is probably the culprit.
pj
chgo
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All I can say is, you're not crazy and you're not the only one. For years I would spin in straight in shots, especially the dreaded long diagonal corner-to-corner type of shots.
The bad news is that even if it works, and your make percentage is higher doing it... it's a bad habit that you should break, it is holding you back more than you'd believe. Forget any theories that it somehow makes the shot easier. If you focus on taking out all unnecessary sidespin from your game it will go up. I can't say how much but I'd say my own game jumped about 25% over the course of a few months (after playing 8ish years) when I made a concentrated effort to do this. I don't even remember what prompted me to do this, maybe a post on here. Or some guy mocking my body english and wrist twisting maybe =)
The only unnecessary side I still use is on medium cut shots, where there will be a little throw just from the action of the cue ball rubbing across the face of the object ball. It makes a shot undercut slightly (like less than half a pocket) and I won't argue with anyone who uses a touch of outside english to cancel out this effect, as long as outside results in good position.
Actually, I fibbed a bit. if my CB is, say, 6 inches from the rail and near the corner, and the OB is also, but just past the side (so like 4 feet from the CB and 4 from the pocket), I have a heck of a time with the shot unless I twist it in with outside. I don't think there's any deep reason for it, just some lingering mental fear of that particular shot that makes me fall back on 8 years of bad habits.
The bad news is that even if it works, and your make percentage is higher doing it... it's a bad habit that you should break, it is holding you back more than you'd believe. Forget any theories that it somehow makes the shot easier. If you focus on taking out all unnecessary sidespin from your game it will go up. I can't say how much but I'd say my own game jumped about 25% over the course of a few months (after playing 8ish years) when I made a concentrated effort to do this. I don't even remember what prompted me to do this, maybe a post on here. Or some guy mocking my body english and wrist twisting maybe =)
The only unnecessary side I still use is on medium cut shots, where there will be a little throw just from the action of the cue ball rubbing across the face of the object ball. It makes a shot undercut slightly (like less than half a pocket) and I won't argue with anyone who uses a touch of outside english to cancel out this effect, as long as outside results in good position.
Actually, I fibbed a bit. if my CB is, say, 6 inches from the rail and near the corner, and the OB is also, but just past the side (so like 4 feet from the CB and 4 from the pocket), I have a heck of a time with the shot unless I twist it in with outside. I don't think there's any deep reason for it, just some lingering mental fear of that particular shot that makes me fall back on 8 years of bad habits.
Seems to me if I'm having trouble hitting center ball then I'll have trouble hitting consistantly 1/2 tip or 1/4 tip or whatever it is that I think will compensate for this particular shot with the balls being dirty to this particular extent and with the cb at this particular distance from the ob and with the ob being this particular distance from the target.... and on and on and on ad infinitum.
Gotta go to the source of the problem and fix that or face 'compensating' for the real problem on every shot and always wondering if I've got it right. Makes potting balls a guessing game.
Gotta go to the source of the problem and fix that or face 'compensating' for the real problem on every shot and always wondering if I've got it right. Makes potting balls a guessing game.
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Jal said:
What Jow W. says is true, but it's a more pronounced effect if you have some follow or draw rather than stun. The issue is how sensitive is the resulting throw angle to small errors in tip placement. The answer can be seen in diagram 3 of Dave A'a article 30 http://billiards.colostate.edu/
What you're looking for is the slopes of the lines. When they're steep, that's bad and means a small change in tip placement translates into a large change in throw angle.
Note that the absolute WORST SITUATION is exactly what jsp has, centerball and STUN (middle of the red curve).
Besides training to better recognize or hit center ball, as others have suggested, the biggest practical thing jsp can do to help himself is to NOT stun these shots. Hit them with follow or draw (if you can, i.e., if you're just cinching the ball) to avoid so much unintended throw
mikepage said:
Thanks for that link Mike. That explains things pretty well. Now I know why my wallet is lighter today than when I got off work yesterday!
Rep for you!
If you wade through my posts in this thread, you would know I have both of those things.mickb94 said:
Just to clarify, my alignment is pretty good. The majority of the time I do achieve center ball, and I pot the shot. It's just the times I do hit it slightly off center (which is obviously more times than I want), the CB achieves spin that throws the OB offline. When I do miss these long straight-in shots, it's because of throw instead of alignment (I think this should be true for most non-beginners).
From a statistics perspective, the distribution of my tip on the CB is Gaussian curve centered at center ball, but the spread (or standard deviation) is not as tight as I want it to be. Sorry, I've been looking at lots of statistical data here at work, so I'm kinda in statistics mode.