What Happened Here?

D

DrCue'sProtege

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
ok, i had this shot, and i debated for a few moments, then decided to come across two rails for position on the 3-Ball. so i hit the shot with about a half tip of left english, and when it came off the rail - it just sort of.......dies???

i was afraid to go low left, i might run into the 7-Ball. and i hit the shot a little harder to be sure it made it across the table and back out, to around Point B for the right angle on the 3-Ball to drift down for the 4-Ball. instead, it just died and barely made it up to around Point A.

it started to come off, then it was like someone had a string on it, and slowed it down. how did this happen? i pulled it back and shot it again - and got the same result.

what is this "Dying" effect that i am talking about???

DCP

CueTable Help

 
Drawing a shot like this with outside english will put running english on the cue ball as it moves around "connected rails".

The problem you experienced is because the english reversed off the non adjoining rail on the opposite side.

You can play with shooting this shot with some spinning inside english and watch what the cue ball does when it hits the non connected rail.

I'm sorry, I misread your situation. I thought you went across table. :(

you may have had some follow on the shot for what happened to you, or you hit very full on the OB.

You can probably adjust this rebound by cheating the pocket with a thinner hit.

Sorry, but at any rate what I mentioned may be worth playing with as well.
 
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try high right on CB to go 3 rails out to B, it should compensate for your dead rail.
 
The way to get where you want is to slow roll it with high left about a tip above center. What this does is gives you enough speed but without the resisting forward spin on the rebound. To get more speed, just overcut the shot a little.

Chris
 
On this type of a shot if you hit the object ball just a little bit thicker or you play a touch of follow, the cueball will die off the rail. To avoid it, overcut the 2-ball a little bit and/or use a touch of draw. If you use draw, make sure you hit hard enough that the cueball is sliding when it hits the object ball & rail to have the draw to "bite" on the way back towards the lower long rail.
 
TATE said:
The way to get where you want is to slow roll it with high left about a tip above center. What this does is gives you enough speed but without the resisting forward spin on the rebound. To get more speed, just overcut the shot a little.

Chris
Click to expand...
Listen to TATE. He is absolutly correct. You probably had too much power.
 
dabarbr said:
Listen to TATE. He is absolutly correct. You probably had too much power.
Click to expand...

so, are you guys saying that the cue ball was "Fighting" what i tried to get it to do? on the one hand, the rail sent it backwards, but since i hit it a little too hard the follow was still trying to grab? hence the Dying effect?

if i would hit this with any low at all, or possibly stun, there is a good chance i scratch into the opposite side pocket.

so, to get it to go further, i have to hit it a little easier?

DCP
 
You COULD hit it easier...but your problem is that you're removing a lot of the speed of the cueball with the initial impact but leaving lots of topspin on it. They are saying that you can either:

1. Cut the ball thinner. This leave more translational speed on the cueball which is likely enough to negate most of the topspin.

2. Use the same thick hit, but shoot it like a stop stop so that it doesn't pick up forward roll / follow. If you do this, you can probably not use any left english at all, just 1 tip below center and medium speed.

...or any combination of these two...since you can actually blend the variables involved to suit your taste.

This is an easy shot. You should practice it both ways. Oh and BTW, you don't always need english to help you create an angle.
 
Shot

The way you shot the shot had a soft stun effect on the cue ball, taking off some speed of the shot, kind of like almost straight force follow shots. If you hit the cue ball too much towards the center, it has the stunning effect which overrides the little bit of english on it.

Like it was suggested, hitting the object thinner would keep some speed on the cueball, but really to keep the cue ball from dying on the second rail (bottom long rail), I would have use low right with some draw.
 
DrCue'sProtege said:
so, are you guys saying that the cue ball was "Fighting" what i tried to get it to do? on the one hand, the rail sent it backwards, but since i hit it a little too hard the follow was still trying to grab? hence the Dying effect?

if i would hit this with any low at all, or possibly stun, there is a good chance i scratch into the opposite side pocket.

so, to get it to go further, i have to hit it a little easier?

DCP
Click to expand...

Exactly.

As suggested, you could also use a below center hit on the cueball to counter this effect.

Playing position is playing percentages. With me, I will choose to roll the cueball with small amounts of english over most other techniques because it is a lot easier to me to control the speed.

Position play is better kept simple. The best players keep it simple to the point of brilliance.

Chris
 
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DrCue'sProtege said:
what is this "Dying" effect that i am talking about???

DCP
Click to expand...


It could be from all the crazy posts U R killing the forum with :eek: :rolleyes:

Brian
 
If it's not clear still, here's how it works.

The spin on a cueball can actually change the speed it's travelling after it touches a rail. I didn't used to believe it, but a cueball can actually leave your tip travelling at, say, 10 miles per hour, and then hit a rail with running english and boost up to 12 mph (random numbers, but you get the idea). Some of the sidespin is transformed from rotational speed to travel speed. I used to think the spin only changed the path the cueball took, but it actually alters the speed too.

The exact same thing can happen if you turn it around: A CB can approach a rail with reverse spin, and instead of coming off at 10ish miles per hour (as it would without spin) it will lose a lot of speed and maybe drop to 5 mph.

cueballspeedoffrails.jpg


I'm almost positive what happened in your example is that when the cueball went from the 2 to the rail... it didn't move 'downhill' towards that diamond as you've drawn it, it went somewhere to the right of the line... either directly perpendicular to the rail or leaning a hair towards the short rail on the right. In that situation, the CB will definitely die with left spin.

You might think "but I hit center left, it shouldn't go 'forward' like that into the rail, it should move towards that diamond"... but unless you hit firm center left, the cueball rubbed against the cloth as it was travelling and started to roll, so that by the time it hit the two, it had natural forward spin.

In addition, there can be the effect the other guys are describing where the shot has leftover forced topspin when it arrives at the rail. There are two flavors of follow/topspin: The kind you get when a cueball stops sliding and starts just rolling naturally, and the kind that is forced where the cueball is actually spinning faster than it's moving forward... think of a tire burning rubber.. the car's not moving forward very fast but the tire is spinning rapidly and the speedometer thinks it's going 60.

When you have that kind of forced spinning action, the cueball can hit the rail and still want to be spinning towards the rail it just left. The spin fights against the cue ball's urge to bounce away from the rail, and they sorta cancel each other out and it just dies. To illustrate this, set up a hanger in a corner pocket, off to the side of the pocket rather than in the middle of it. Put the cue ball 8 feet away, and just smack it hard with loads of topspin. Try to hit between the object ball and the jaws of the pocket. The cueball hits the hanger and loses some speed, hits the rail immediately after and tries to rebound back to you, but the topspin is still there and it either dies, bends forward, or even bends forward and smacks into the rail a second or third time before dying.

The solution in your case would be to hit a bit low (with your left spin also) to ensure that the cueball doesn't pick up that natural rolling topspin... and actually comes off the 2 along the tangent line you drew. Also it matters a lot how much you cut the 2. If you cheat the pocket and send the 2 closer to the 'left' jaw, you hit it fatter and the sidespin gets the result you expected. But if you thin the 2 in and send it very close to the right jaw, it's more likely to die.

Once you get these things you'll start to figure out how to avoid some common problems people have mixing sidespin and speed. One very very common example would be this (lol I'm in a photoshoppy mood):

http://www.jessescornerpocket.com/englishfailure1.jpg
 
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