What kind of spin to use on a power break. Myth debunked?

Cuebacca

Cuebacca

________
Silver Member
This post may be a little long, so if you'd like to just cut to the chase, you can just skip to the bold sentences at the end...

I figured out something interesting about tip placement on the texbook rail break, and since I rarely contribute any actual pool knowledge around here, I figured I'd share. :)

I don't mean to nit-pick what any instructor or pro has said, and assuming I'm right about this, it still doesn't take away from them at all, but I'm just posting this for whatever it's worth.

Anyway, that said...

I have read here and there that the standard 9-ball break should use approximately 1/2 tip of top spin.

Basically, the set up is where the cue ball is placed about 2-4 inches from the side rail and close to the head string. The breaker's bridge hand is placed on the rail. The 1-ball is aimed at for a full hit. If a full hit is made and the rack is tight, the cue ball should rebound back up table towards the shooter, or better yet, directly up the long string towards the center of the table.

Since the cue ball is traveling up table, at a speed that is too fast to naturally stop at center table, there needs to be a very small amount of top spin on the cue ball to get it to "die" at the center of the table.

This made sense to me, and I've probably relayed this information to a few people over time. You can see when a great power break is executed, that the cue ball does just as described above. The problem is that, personally, when I execute this properly, it does not feel like a 1/2 tip of top spin that I used. Rather, it feels like center ball.

Here is a video of Ralf Souquet demonstrating a power break:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=obUceCHVgMU

Watch the cue ball action and you can see, it bounces up table and then abruptly stops. By the time the cue ball is airborne there is undoubtedly top spin on the ball, which creates the braking action after the cue ball returns to the table.

Interestingly, Ralf says to aim a half tip below center, and it looks like that's what he used. This is what got me thinking about what's going on. If the breaker does not strike the cue ball above center, where does that top spin come from?

It is well-known that the cue ball will always be at least slightly airborne on a break, due to the fact that it's impossible to use a level cue. That's why the cue ball always bounces up at least a little bit when it hits the 1-ball on a power break. Since the cue ball is slightly above the 1-ball at impact, collision-induced spin on the cue ball is created. That is, the friction between the cue ball and 1-ball induces top spin on the cue ball. So no matter what spin is used, the cue ball will have a little bit more spin in the forward direction after hitting the 1-ball.

Well, that's it. I think it's really obvious in retrospect, but I hadn't heard that mentioned before, so I thought it was worth posting. I just wanted to share my thoughts in case anyone else finds this interesting, or has anything else to add.
 
Where Ralf aims and where Ralf hits may be two different places.

I like your line of thought, keep it up...SPF=randyg
 
I believe you're right about all but one thing: the cue ball doesn't always hit the head ball while in the air and it doesn't always pop up after impact.

The cue ball does always hop on its way to the head ball, but it can take more than one hop, and the second and later hops are smaller than the first one. So it isn't necessarily at the apex of its biggest hop when it hits the head ball, and it may be near the bottom of one (hitting the head ball dead on). That's why it's good advice to try breaking softer or from farther away if your cue ball is popping up too much on the break.

So it's not a myth; it's just not always true.

pj
chgo
 
For the cueball to hit the pack, and bounce back and die..... there can be no spin on the cueball. It is a stop shot hit at very high speed. The extra mass of the rack of balls causes the cueball to bounce off, and the lack of spin is what causes it to park. Kaiser is correct, it is a touch below center to achieve the stop shot.
Chuck
 
RiverCity said:
For the cueball to hit the pack, and bounce back and die..... there can be no spin on the cueball. It is a stop shot hit at very high speed. The extra mass of the rack of balls causes the cueball to bounce off, and the lack of spin is what causes it to park. Kaiser is correct, it is a touch below center to achieve the stop shot.
Chuck
Click to expand...
It needs some follow to stop - sometimes lots of follow. Try it with a measles ball.

pj
chgo
 
Patrick Johnson said:
- sometimes lots of follow. Try it with a measles ball.

pj
chgo
Click to expand...

Huh? I've accidentally hit a few breaks with lots of follow.. the cue ball likes to take off toward the corner pockets..
 
If you use top spin on the break and the cue lands on the head ball, you are transferring backspin of the head ball. But it is very tricky...you have to hit the head ball just right, or the cue ball will fly to the moon.

Breaking with a hair of top center and controlling the flight of the cue ball to hit the head ball just right will result in a phenomenal break. I have done it about 6 times in my many years of play. My best break resulted in the cue ball plowing right through the entire rack and sending 3 object balls off the table while the others flew around the table and many found their way to pockets.
 
I think trying for center is admirable and will work fine if you pull it off. A touch below is maybe a myth because on a truly powerful break, the cue ball is airborne anyway from start to finish. It has no chance to drag against the cloth and pick up forward roll. It should go back or at least not go forward with center.

The problem with center is we all jump a little on the break, this is fine and sort of accidentally intentional... probably nobody consciously thinks "I want to jump up" but subconsciously we know that standing more erect and straightening the legs while lunging forward is a good way to generate power. When doing this the tip kinda goes up too, and so a lot of people hit with unintended follow. You almost have to start out aiming low if you plan on hitting center, or else have a very perfect, rock steady closed bridge that doesn't allow the the tip to move vertically, but somehow is loose enough to allow a good gliding action.

I don't have such a bridge and my attempts to make the CB just hit and stop don't have much success. Also on our tables you really have to hit from an angle to get the balls to head towards pockets. I actually cut the 1 ball a little, I almost have to. So I've adapted by aiming for center of the cue ball, and just letting it fly sideways into the side rail after every break. I don't try to alter its path with any sort of side or follow or draw because it tends to bounce off that rail and head basically back towards the spot or back towards the center of the rack, which is generally a fine place to be. Almost never scratches. Almost never jumps off the table. Rarely leaves me screwed.

Don't make balls as often as I would like, and sometimes I end up putting that unintentional follow on the ball, and my first shot is from very near the foot rail. Sometimes there's nothing down there to shoot and my first shot's a tester.
 
bagofpaper said:
Huh? I've accidentally hit a few breaks with lots of follow.. the cue ball likes to take off toward the corner pockets..
Click to expand...
Then you're not getting much rebound. My cue ball might rebound two feet or more from the head ball (especially on a 10-ball break) - all the way back to the side pockets. Quite a bit of forward spin is needed to stop it there. I might hit 1/2 tip above center (maybe less), but it translates to more spin than that sounds like because of the force of the hit.

pj
chgo
 
Patrick Johnson said:
Then you're not getting much rebound. My cue ball might rebound two feet or more from the head ball (especially on a 10-ball break) - all the way back to the side pockets. Quite a bit of forward spin is needed to stop it there. I might hit 1/2 tip above center (maybe less), but it translates to more spin than that sounds like because of the force of the hit.
Click to expand...

What Pat is saying about tip placement is EXACTLY correct. There are several of you arguing with him about this without actually having gone through the effort to obtain the EXACT truth from your own proper set-up practices and experiments.

Take the 9-ball out of the rack and replace it with the 15-ball (or any other stripe). Use the 9-ball as the cueball. Line up the 9-ball for your normal break. Set the 9-ball up so that the "9" is exactly vertical (right-side-up) and is at the exact "center" of the back-side area of the ball through which you would stroke to get a dead-center hit on the 1-ball.

The "9" should NOT be rotated slightly upward to become the "apparent center" of the cueball to accomodate your stroke path, but should be on a LEVEL PLANE between it and the center of the 1-ball. You can do this rotation later to personalize your own envisionment of stroke angle/tip offset to obtain more consistent results. Right now, you are looking for the EXACT truth of what type of spin/tip offset is required to cause the cueball to rebound AND SIT.

Chalk up your cue real well. Do your normal break shot, attempting to make the cueball hit dead-center on the 1-ball, rebound 1'-2', then SIT IN PLACE somewhere near the center of the table, neither rolling forward nor backward. Pick up the 9-ball and look at where the chalk mark is in reference to the "9".

Repeat this a few times until you get at least one break as described in the above paragraph, making sure to wipe the 9-ball clean after each observation, and also to properly re-chalk your cue before each ensuing break attempt. On each of these SUCCESSFUL breaks, note where the chalk mark is -- it will invariably be about 1/2 tip ABOVE the CENTER of the "9".

Why? Because, the cueball rebounds BACK off the rack and TOPSPIN is required to counter this directional motion by creating opposite directional FRICTION upon the table surface. The ball SITS exactly at that point in time when motion and friction become exactly equal, cancelling each other out.
 
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Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I suppose that "myth debunked?" was the wrong term to use. I really didn't present enough evidence for any claim like that.

I could see where the special cases that Pat mentioned might require a high hit on the cue ball.

For me personally, I haven't experimented with such breaks yet, at least not while consciously thinking about how high my tip is.

Normally, I hit the balls hard enough that the cue ball will be bouncing, at least a little bit, when it contacts the lead ball. Whether I break from the side near the rail, or in the center of the table, 9-ball, 10-ball, or 8-ball, I found that for me, a center ball hit or even slightly below will produce an end result of top spin on the cue ball after contacting the rack, making it stop after rebounding back.

It didn't make sense to me at first, and for a while I assumed that I was hitting the cue ball higher than what I was aiming for. Then it dawned on me that when the cue ball hits the lead ball, the friction causes it to pick up top spin from impact.

I actually did try the experiment that you (Mailman) suggested before posting this thread. Unfortunately for me, the chalk didn't stick on my stripe, so I couldn't draw any conclusions. I'll try it again though.

If you haven't watched the video of Ralf that I posted above, check it out. To me, it definitely looks like he's hitting the ball where he claims to be, which is about a half of a tip below center.
 
Cuebacca said:
This post may be a little long, so if you'd like to just cut to the chase, you can just skip to the bold sentences at the end...

I figured out something interesting about tip placement on the texbook rail break, and since I rarely contribute any actual pool knowledge around here, I figured I'd share. :)

I don't mean to nit-pick what any instructor or pro has said, and assuming I'm right about this, it still doesn't take away from them at all, but I'm just posting this for whatever it's worth.

Anyway, that said...

I have read here and there that the standard 9-ball break should use approximately 1/2 tip of top spin.

Basically, the set up is where the cue ball is placed about 2-4 inches from the side rail and close to the head string. The breaker's bridge hand is placed on the rail. The 1-ball is aimed at for a full hit. If a full hit is made and the rack is tight, the cue ball should rebound back up table towards the shooter, or better yet, directly up the long string towards the center of the table.

Since the cue ball is traveling up table, at a speed that is too fast to naturally stop at center table, there needs to be a very small amount of top spin on the cue ball to get it to "die" at the center of the table.

This made sense to me, and I've probably relayed this information to a few people over time. You can see when a great power break is executed, that the cue ball does just as described above. The problem is that, personally, when I execute this properly, it does not feel like a 1/2 tip of top spin that I used. Rather, it feels like center ball.

Here is a video of Ralf Souquet demonstrating a power break:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=obUceCHVgMU

Watch the cue ball action and you can see, it bounces up table and then abruptly stops. By the time the cue ball is airborne there is undoubtedly top spin on the ball, which creates the braking action after the cue ball returns to the table.

Interestingly, Ralf says to aim a half tip below center, and it looks like that's what he used. This is what got me thinking about what's going on. If the breaker does not strike the cue ball above center, where does that top spin come from?

It is well-known that the cue ball will always be at least slightly airborne on a break, due to the fact that it's impossible to use a level cue. That's why the cue ball always bounces up at least a little bit when it hits the 1-ball on a power break. Since the cue ball is slightly above the 1-ball at impact, collision-induced spin on the cue ball is created. That is, the friction between the cue ball and 1-ball induces top spin on the cue ball. So no matter what spin is used, the cue ball will have a little bit more spin in the forward direction after hitting the 1-ball.

Well, that's it. I think it's really obvious in retrospect, but I hadn't heard that mentioned before, so I thought it was worth posting. I just wanted to share my thoughts in case anyone else finds this interesting, or has anything else to add.
Click to expand...

Nice thread!

I think that where you THINK you hit the cue ball may be different for different people, expecially people of different heights. I like to break off the side rail hitting a little high on the horizontal axis but because the cue is angled downward, there is no noticeable follow that occurs on the cue ball after contact with the one, providing I hit it square.

The best thing to happen to my break is the Predator Break Cue. It allows for a minor crooked stroke like mine and I squat the cue ball more than I have ever done in the past. I can also do the cut break better than ever without flyingoff the table. No i'm not the best breaker in the world but i am a better breaker because of the cue I am using.

I think each person has to break balls at slower speeds to control the cue ball. As they increase the speed and the cue ball starts going places you don't want it to go, you have to adjust your speed, your technique, your point of aim, where you think you hitting the cue ball etc. It is a work in progress for most of us and it changes with each table and each set of balls from day to day.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I think of the successful break to be a sort of STUN FOLLOW shot with not much follow. If you aren't able to stun follow a single ball, you're going to have trouble squating the cue ball, although you will not always want to squat the cue ball when breaking. You also don't want the cue ball hopping all over the place either, even though jumping the cue ball two feet in the air, looks cool (ala Danny Medina). :-)

JoeyA
 
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Cuebacca said:
Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I suppose that "myth debunked?" was the wrong term to use. I really didn't present enough evidence for any claim like that.

I could see where the special cases that Pat mentioned might require a high hit on the cue ball.

For me personally, I haven't experimented with such breaks yet, at least not while consciously thinking about how high my tip is.

Normally, I hit the balls hard enough that the cue ball will be bouncing, at least a little bit, when it contacts the lead ball. Whether I break from the side near the rail, or in the center of the table, 9-ball, 10-ball, or 8-ball, I found that for me, a center ball hit or even slightly below will produce an end result of top spin on the cue ball after contacting the rack, making it stop after rebounding back.

It didn't make sense to me at first, and for a while I assumed that I was hitting the cue ball higher than what I was aiming for. Then it dawned on me that when the cue ball hits the lead ball, the friction causes it to pick up top spin from impact.

I actually did try the experiment that you (Mailman) suggested before posting this thread. Unfortunately for me, the chalk didn't stick on my stripe, so I couldn't draw any conclusions. I'll try it again though.

If you haven't watched the video of Ralf that I posted above, check it out. To me, it definitely looks like he's hitting the ball where he claims to be, which is about a half of a tip below center.
Click to expand...

You're right about this: IF the CB hops upward off the one ball, then it will pick up topspin if it's not spinning, or its backspin will decrease if it's spinning back. However, I break from the bed of the table (not off the rail), and my cue is much closer to level then the average rail break, and I rarely get much CB hop on my breaks, even when I smash the rack really hard. I do aim above center on the CB, and when I hit it just right, this does cause the CB to come to a stop in the center of the table after rebounding from the rack.

-Andrew
 
Im saying this based on visual observation, and experience with my own break. If the cueball is picking up topspin on the hop.... that is one thing. But I hit the cueball below center and get a bounce off the head ball and stopping action on the cueball.
For me to hit the break with topspin, the cue would have to be more level, and therefore the hopping after contact would not be signifigant. When Im hitting them hard, I always get a hop. I angle down on the cueball and drive through it less than a tip below center.
I will experiment with using a stripe to check myself, but I would be very surprised if I am putting any topspin on the ball.
Chuck
 
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