Using "Center Ball" - is it good advice or a hidden disadvantage?

straightline said:
It's already biased to one side. You know side will be THAT side give or take. Center could go either way. There is no such give or take; give or take...
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When you change where you're trying to hit the CB, your stroke doesn't change - you miss-hit the cue ball as often and by the same amounts, and the consequences are the same. When you miss to the right and to the left of your tip/ball target (as usual), your cue ball goes to the left and to the right of where you intended (as usual), just like trying to hit centerball. All you accomplish by favoring one side of the cue ball is to introduce a new aiming variable (squirt).

By focusing on the TOI tip target you might learn to be more precise in where you hit the cue ball, but it doesn't magically change the outcome of a miss hit. Some of us have been trying to explain this to CJ for years.

pj
chgo

P.S. I see Chris said the same thing. 👍, Chris.
 
Patrick Johnson said:
When you change where you're trying to hit the CB, your stroke doesn't change - you miss-hit the cue ball as often and by the same amounts, and the consequences are the same. When you miss to the right and to the left of your tip/ball target (as usual), your cue ball goes to the left and to the right of where you intended (as usual), just like trying to hit centerball. All you accomplish by favoring one side of the cue ball is to introduce a new aiming variable (squirt).

By focusing on the TOI tip target you might learn to be more precise in where you hit the cue ball, but it doesn't magically change the outcome of a miss hit. Some of us have been trying to explain this to CJ for years.

pj
chgo

P.S. I see Chris said the same thing. 👍, Chris.
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Neither addresses that TOI can widen the sweet spot. Nor the instantaneous plus or minus swing at centerball. I consider myself a center ball shooter but the harder I stroke, the more likely the ball will spin. I think a 1 mm tip would be required to even estimate center ball.
 
straightline said:
Neither addresses that TOI can widen the sweet spot.
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TOI doesn't "widen the sweet spot", and the above descriptions clearly explain why. Apparently you and CJ just can't follow them.

There may be other benefits to using TOI, but that's not one of them (and there are tradeoffs).

pj
chgo
 
OK, TOI is CJ's term. I just use it as a convenient reference to biasing side. The sweet spot is bigger because side is side no matter how much or little. You're still the one with the comprehension problem.
 
straightline said:
... biasing side. The sweet spot is bigger because side is side no matter how much or little.
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Nope. How much or how little side is exactly the same variable as how far left or right of center - and it has the same consequences: your cue ball will go right or left of where you intend it to go. Limiting your tip/ball contact to one side doesn't change that - it's a perceptual slight of hand.
straightline said:
You're still the one with the comprehension problem.
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You got me there :), but not about this.

pj
chgo
 
okay i will chime in here. cj is right that doing it his way does give you a bigger pocket if you miss by a small amount on where you hit the cue ball. similar to a golfer with a slice that utilizes the left side of the fairway for a right hander.

but where it fails to work is if you miss the spot on the object ball you need to hit. and weaker players will do that more often, as better players meaning top players will miss that spot rarely.
to hit that spot exactly all things must come together. and that is tough. it is much easier to hit the exact spot you are aiming at on the cueball than it is to hit the exact spot on the object ball. so by favoring one side of a pocket you effectively make that side much smaller, so your hit on the object ball that is off will be more devastating to you than the benefit of having a little better room on the other side.

back to the golfer. he now has a bigger fairway. a top pro golfer will have that whole fairway now to play with. an average golfer will sometimes pull his shot, miss hit it by aiming to far left, or actually giving his ball a little hook once in a while. now those things become devastating as he loses his ball in the woods.
 
maha said:
...cj is right that doing it his way does give you a bigger pocket if you miss by a small amount on where you hit the cue ball.
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Sounds almost too good to be true.

If seeing it that way helps your game, more power to you - but there are tradeoffs.

pj
chgo
 
boogieman said:
...some shots almost require a bit of deflection.
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Patrick Johnson said:
Describe one.
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magnetardo said:
When you're straight in on a shot into a corner and need to spin the cue ball 3 rails out. Bert Kinister taught me that 25 years ago.
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Deflection isn't needed for that (or any) shot. Sounds like you're accustomed to aiming it that way, but you'd quickly learn how with an LD cue too.

Each shot boils down to one thing: the force you apply to the cue ball. If the force you apply to the cue ball is identical, you get identical results - and (assuming they're angled correctly for squirt) the force is identical with either kind of shaft.

pj
chgo
 
Another part of the "Touch of Inside" system is it takes into account that a human being isn't designed to play pool (Whoever designed us made us flexible and able to do a multitude of things well)!

This means, our bodies must be put in a consistent position that won't be comfortable (at first) so, unless you grow up watching Efren, Earl, Johnny, Shane or another champion your body position can probably be improved.

Another important factor is THE HUMAN EYES ARE NOT MADE TO PLAY POOL - when we get down on the "center" of the cueball there's no assurance it actually is the center, so it's better to favor one side of the cueball because we can DO THAT EVERY TIME.

Case example:

When SKY Woodward was in Dallas playing Earl Strickland (Sky played incredibly well and rarely missed shape or shots) a friend of mine I've trained for a number of years had SKY set up on "Center Ball".......he took several pictures and guess what?!?

SKY was cueing every shot slightly to the inside, and didn't Real Eyes it!! What an epiphany for him because even though he trusted what I had taught him he still needed to see it for himself.

I used to watch opponents warm up before big gambling matches and if they were cuing slightly to the inside I'd be bummed because I knew it was going to take longer to win, and often it took 8-10 hours......sometimes 20, I had another trick up my sleeve, my stroke was extremely efficient and I never wore my arm out......this is why nobody in the Country would play me 20+ hour sessions, only races and with a time limit.

There's more, and that's some points to ponder.

The Game is the Teacher
 
I was just contemplating how to answer your title question when I had my thoughts mirrored. So here goes.

Players using side prematurely have added another variable to the equation. So upon missing there is confusion as to why. My morning practice starts with a shot making drill based on Colin’s shots in his drill. In each miss I analyze whether it was mechanical or optical.
My answer would be to ‘take your medicine’ if you find center ball boring. Find a way to make it a challenge. I have by using a phenolic tip with no chalk. It is just one aspect of my practice and yes I can spin my onion.

ok the mirror was another player telling me that they were not sure when they missed what went wrong. I went on tilt in the middle of my greatest tournament accomplishment. 1989 bar table race to 7 nine ball. In the semifinal winners match I caught my opponent at 6, broke and ran to the 9. Missing the 9 but was handed the match by my opponent missing. Playing for the point, I was tilted because I didn’t know why I missed the 9 in the last match. I handed him game after game until he was ahead 6-2. I finally gave myself the virtual face slap and accepted the miss as ‘unknown cause’ and won 7-2.(edit) Ooops 7-6

Back in that time my favorite game was against a player that loved to spin their rock.🤷
 
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boogieman said:
...perhaps it's dead simple to do a half masse around a blocker or to come into the edge of a thin cut, but I've had no luck with doing so on LD equipment....
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I find these shots easier to do with low squirt shafts. But then, I've been using one since 1980.
 
Let's face it Low Deflection Shafts aren't the solution for stroking errors, deflection should be your friend, not something to be afraid of.

Professional players, like golfers want to "work" their shots and intentionally force them off line to create zones.

The real solution is to calibrate your stroke, on a length of the table shot it will alter the object ball ONE HALF POCKET. This is ideal because when you have to "cheat" the pocket, you can by simply moving your TIP slightly, you don't want to change where you're aiming unless the shot speed is exceptionally fast or slow.

I will usually get a 12.25mm shaft (at the tip) practice for a couple hours and keep sanding it with 600 grade sandpaper until it "clicks" and deflects ONE HALF POCKET on a full table shot on a 9' table.

Low deflection shots are fine, but like the professional players in golf and pool say "you can't buy a great stroke!"

The key to consistent deflection and accuracy is the tempo, the tip must POP at the moment of contact so that it goes incredibly precise.....too many players try to go through the ball "smooth" with a long follow through and you can tell watching Shane V and SKY they POP nearly all shots. (you must slow-roll balls occasionally, but I'd recommend keeping it to a minimum expecially playing rotation games)

The Game is the Teacher
 
Patrick Johnson said:
Was it custom made for you? ...
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I had a shaft with a loose ferrule. I tried to twist it off to reglue it. The entire tenon came off. I said what the heck and glued a tip to the flattened shaft. At the time it seemed like all of the squirt had gone, but of course it was just cut in half or so. Gradually that shaft wore down and presumably had less and less squirt. Like the frog in the pot, I adjusted without knowing exactly what was going on. The 314 was not a new thing for me.

What I didn't know that sent me along that path is that Balabushka threaded his tenons and his ivory ferrules and heat was required to release the glue.
 
straightline said:
It's just what I get from CJ's explanation and my own epiphanies. Grey area for sure but it just makes sense. The thing about error from center is it's very easy to get into unfavorable spin. IOW if you're aiming with visible inside, it's not likely you'll end up with outside. With your finest center hit, you have left and right catastrophe zones.
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You will get a better feel from. your shots with a "Touch" of inside or outside. Remember, you should play the game with the edge of your tip, not the center, like hitting something with your fist, you want to use your first two knuckles, not the flat fist......the smaller, harder area makes more precise contact with the cueball and the ball with move around the table easier. (a masse shot is a good example of what the edge will do as far as spin is concerned).
 
CJ Wiley said:
Remember, you should play the game with the edge of your tip, not the center
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Maybe you mean when using more spin. Hitting the CB a "touch" off center doesn't use the edge of your tip - both the ball's contact point and the tip's contact point are a "touch" off center.

pj
chgo
 
Patrick Johnson said:
Maybe you mean when using more spin. Hitting the CB a "touch" off center doesn't use the edge of your tip - both the ball's contact point and the tip's contact point are a "touch" off center.

pj
chgo
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It's the top edge, not the edges on the side, that's why the champions all appear to be cueing the bottom of the cueball. It's like hitting it with our knuckles, you can't do that with a level cue. Buddy Hall told me about this many years ago, that was his secret to generating so much "quick spin" on shots. Buddy also used the same side by marking his shaft and always having that side up. Buddy Hall was best of em all!
 
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