Tips for shooting jacked up off the rail or over a ball

TrumanHW

TrumanHW

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I believe this is probably the number one run stopper for most players.

One thing I've noticed is ... when you're shooting off the rail and your cue isn't perpendicular to the rail, when you follow through, if you touch the rail, it might deflect your cue off line.

Aside from that, and some people's suggestions of looking at the CB last... who has some undeniably good drills or tips for shooting elevated?

Thanks
 
Keep your upper body as close to the same as you do when you shoot normally. Meaning, your arms, head etc are all in the same position, but you 'elevate' using the legs and hips.

Ive seen lots of guys just try to just raise the grip hand. All you are doing at that point is shooting with different fundamentals as you normally do. If you can keep the head/eyes, bridge arm and back arm in the same plane as a normal shot, I typically find I'm more successful that way.
 
Bridge hand

I think the biggest thing is that your bridge hand is solid and comfortable. If it feels off or uncomfortable it probably is and will affect your shot. If I get down on a shot and don't have a comfortable and solid bridge I stand back up and start over. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get it right if its a tough shot.

Shooting off the rail and over balls does not bother me. I played a lot of one pocket when I was younger against a guy that always left the cue ball on the rail at one end of the table or the other. I got over my dislike of the rail shots really quickly.
 
When shooting over a ball I sometimes like to lay my whole forearm on the table and put the weight there for stability. Agree with others on the other points.

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When on the rail, sometimes I only put my fingertips on the rail with weight on them in order to get my bridge further from the cue ball.

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I'll assume that we are trying to hit the cue ball as low as possible & not just a slow roller with a top hit.

As has been pointed out, over a ball & near a rail are not exactly the same thing.

There are too many over a ball situations to accurately discuss in short order other than to say get a solid & stable bridge, use a shorter stroke, & look at the tip contact point on the cue ball & hold the cue shorter when possible.

For shots near the rail the above applies, but specifically, hold the cue shorter, turn your body a bit counter clockwise for right handed to accommodate the lifting of the cue & the subsequent 'jamming' up of the strike & do the other things for over a ball.

A drill that I heard of & sometimes do when I find myself missing these type of shots is to set all the ball near the rail at the diamond locations & then throw out the cue ball. Pick a pocket & shoot it in with any of the balls near a rail, then that ball is the new object ball. Stroke firmly & try & hit as low as possible on all shots while looking at the tip contact point on the ball.

I don't like nor do drills nearly at all, but I 'like' this one because of the randomness of the shots that come up.

My nickels worth.
 
TrumanHW said:
I believe this is probably the number one run stopper for most players.

One thing I've noticed is ... when you're shooting off the rail and your cue isn't perpendicular to the rail, when you follow through, if you touch the rail, it might deflect your cue off line.

Aside from that, and some people's suggestions of looking at the CB last... who has some undeniably good drills or tips for shooting elevated?

Thanks
Click to expand...

When jacked up over a rail or ball(s), concentrate on keeping your head and upper body completely still. I improved tremendously with these shots using this one tip.

If the cueball is very near or frozen to the rail and the shot calls for a level cue, a good way to keep from miscuing is to put downward pressure on the cue with your grip hand. Keep the pressure right through the hit.

And lastly, when playing position, try to stay off of the rails by always planning to be at least a ball's width from the rail on your next shot. If you figure you're going to end up close to a rail, plan to hit the shot a little harder to bump the rail and come off a bit instead of trying to stop short of the rail.
 
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Something to consider when the angle of attack of the cue increases is where to hit the CB .

Unlike hitting with a level cue where you are using the cue to push
the CB over the table surface, a high angle of attack is now trying the push the CB down into the table surface , not push along the table surface.

This means the cue will have a longer contact time than a low angle of attack. This means the CB will not move out of the way for a easy follow through.

This requires what I call a raising tip stroke. On a high angle of attack stroke, the idea is to setup as if to apply follow. As you follow through to the end of the stroke, raise the cue tip just you stroke through the CB. This gets the ball rolling easy and get allows for a smooth completion of the stroke.

The lower the hit on the CB with a high angle of attack, you are putting back spin on the CB and causing it to squirt out because of being pinched between the high angle of attack of the cue and the table which does not happen on a level angle of attack of the cue.

This also disproves that the contact time between cue tip and cb is a constant for all shots.

Setup a CB, setup to shoot with a cue angle of 50 edges at the very center of the CB. See what happens. Then vary hitting above and below that center with the same cue angle.
 
"Tips for shooting jacked up off the rail or over a ball?"

So which tip is better, a softer tip or a harder tip for shooting jacked up off the rail or over a ball?

And does tip diameter make a difference?

What about LD vs non-LD shafts?
 
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TrumanHW said:
I believe this is probably the number one run stopper for most players.

One thing I've noticed is ... when you're shooting off the rail and your cue isn't perpendicular to the rail, when you follow through, if you touch the rail, it might deflect your cue off line.

Aside from that, and some people's suggestions of looking at the CB last... who has some undeniably good drills or tips for shooting elevated?

Thanks
Click to expand...
FYI, lot's of good advice concerning elevated-cue shots can be found on the cue elevation effects resource page, and a good drills for practicing these shots are the three versions of Drill S8 in the Bachelors, Masters, and Doctorate BU Skills Exams (Exam II).

Enjoy,
Dave
 
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Play a lot Straight Pool.. You get used to shoot over balls. Also you have to focus a lot for those shots because you don't want ruin your run..
 
Absolutely agree!


peppersauce said:
The best tip I've heard, or at least the tip that has helped me the most, came from Daz. In his Perfect Practice DVD he spends a decent amount of time discussing how he deals with these types of shots and what he sees others do that decrease their shot making percentage with the CB on the rail.

Basically, shorten your bridge by sliding your grip hand up the cue a LOT. Your back stroke will be very short and your follow through won't be very long, but it's way more accurate that way. It seemed like such a simple little thing when I saw him explain it but it works! I know my make percentage off the rail and jacked up over balls has gone up just by following that advice.
Click to expand...
 
Have you measured this "change in contact time" do you have a super slo-mo video of it with time stamps?

There is no change in contact time about it at all. It is a simple matter of the orientation of the cue tip going through the ball and having the likelihood of striking the cb when following through. It especially has to be done if the OB is close to the cueball.

In my neck of the woods raising the cuetip during followthrough on an elevated shot was called a nip stroke.


duckie said:
Something to consider when the angle of attack of the cue increases is where to hit the CB .

Unlike hitting with a level cue where you are using the cue to push
the CB over the table surface, a high angle of attack is now trying the push the CB down into the table surface , not push along the table surface.

This means the cue will have a longer contact time than a low angle of attack. This means the CB will not move out of the way for a easy follow through.

This requires what I call a raising tip stroke. On a high angle of attack stroke, the idea is to setup as if to apply follow. As you follow through to the end of the stroke, raise the cue tip just you stroke through the CB. This gets the ball rolling easy and get allows for a smooth completion of the stroke.

The lower the hit on the CB with a high angle of attack, you are putting back spin on the CB and causing it to squirt out because of being pinched between the high angle of attack of the cue and the table which does not happen on a level angle of attack of the cue.

This also disproves that the contact time between cue tip and cb is a constant for all shots.

Setup a CB, setup to shoot with a cue angle of 50 edges at the very center of the CB. See what happens. Then vary hitting above and below that center with the same cue angle.
Click to expand...
 
I don't have to measure it...I can feel it........and yes I can before you start in.

Using a high cue angle, hit just above center ball with a hard stroke and tell me it feels the same as doing that stroke when the cue is level.
 
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