Why CTE/Pro One Works

[LAMas]

How do you calculate and recognise the angles ?

Free help.​

Bob Jewett​

AZB Osmium Member​

Gold Member
Silver Member

• Nov 11, 2020
• Add bookmark
• #1

One aiming method is to imagine the 2-D overlap of the cue ball as it lands on the object ball and connect the amount of overlap to the cut angle. The common fractions and their approximate degrees of cut are:

full ball -- 0 degrees -- straight shot
3/4 full -- 15 degrees
1/2 full -- 30 degrees
1/4 full -- 45 degrees
1/8 full -- 60 degrees

Except for the half-ball hit which is 1/2 full and a cut of 30 degrees, those numbers are all slightly off, but the errors are not important for this first part of the discussion. Another factor that must eventually be considered is throw which varies with the speed and spin of the cue ball but that gets very complicated and it is better to completely understand the simple fundamental ideas of the situation before we get into all the nasty details. Those details are important and we'll get to them.

In the diagram you see a shot off the spot and five different areas where the five fractional aims will be useful. Let's consider the straight shot or 0 degree cut. How wide is that area? The pocket is two balls wide (more or less) and the two extreme arrival positions of the object ball are shown by the 2 ball and the 3 ball. If you draw straight lines from the centers of those balls back to the 1 ball, you get the angular width of the pocket. It is about 4 degrees. If the object ball is sent more than 2 degrees away from dead center of the pocket, it won't go in. (Again, this is not perfectly accurate. From this approach angle, the pocket is larger for very hard shots, so the pocket size varies with the shot conditions. Pick your own number if you don't like 4 degrees of pocket width.)

Where can the cue ball be in order to pocket a straight shot to that pocket off the spot? It is pretty obviously the red shaded area marked "0°". If the cue ball is anywhere on the bottom/right side of the shaded area, with a perfect, full hit the object ball will pass over the position of the 2 ball. If the cue ball starts on the top/left side of the shaded area the cue ball will pass over the position of the 3 ball. If the cue ball is anywhere outside the red shaded area, a full hit won't pocket the object ball.

The same argument applies to the other standard fractional cuts. It is not hard to see that all the triangular areas for the different cuts are 4 degrees wide. This means that the standard fractional cuts for a shot as hard as a spot shot cover only about 1/4 of the area of the table. The "good" triangles are 4 degrees wide and 15 degrees apart.

But it is a really, really bad idea to wed yourself to exact fractional ball hits. Just consider the straight shot. If the cue ball is on one edge of the red shaded area, and you use a true fractional aim, you will send the 1 ball all the way to the extreme side of the pocket. If your stroke makes a small error in that same direction, you will miss the shot. Since most of us make small errors most of the time (and large errors the rest of the time ), you will end up missing about half of such shots.

The lesson from this is that the "good" triangular areas for the shot are actually considerably smaller. If you are willing to give up half of the allowed error to your aiming system, then the triangles will shrink to 2 degrees wide and the percent of the table that is covered by these fractional aims drops by a factor of two to roughly 1/8th or 12.5% of the table surface.

Bob Jewett
SF Billiard Academy

 

[JB Cases]

I was thinking about how Pro One works as a visual system and it occurred to me to think backwards from the shot.

Question: What would happen if you we're down on any shot, aimed correctly (compensated for throw) and ready to shoot, but then you reversed your motion and stood back up in a Pro One reverse sweep motion to ball address (fixed cue ball)?

Answer: You would see the visuals of a CTE line and/or the cue ball edge aligned with one of the object ball aim points: 1/8, A, B, C or 7/8 overlap. Which ever aim point would depend on the shot you were making. Lucky for us, there are only a few aim points needed for all shots.

Now reverse again. If you start with the correct visuals at fixed cue ball, and sweep to CCB, you will make the ball. The hard part is establishing the correct visual perspective and sweep needed to make the shot. No real mystery, just visual calibration to fixed points during the execution of a sequence of motions.

In other words, take any center pocket shot on the table and reverse your motion using one of two Pro One sweeps and you will be at fixed cue ball where you can see visuals; CTE and one of three aim points or one of two aim points and no CTE visual. So it stands to reason that if you begin with the correct visuals and use the correct sweep to CCB, you will pocket the ball. If you know the system, think about it in reverse.

Now here is a real mystery...

This is basically how I tried to learn CTE way back when information was very scarce. I have early videos of my experiments along this line of thinking.

 

[canwin]

National Board Certification, Masters of Ed, experience in the field, grants awarded, etc. And honestly - he may be one of the most respected people in pool, but that does not make any single person above constructive criticism. His ability to sell himself is quite obviously lacking. As I said - if he's above constructive help because he's "old school" and "better" than other people, so be it. But as an independent customer I couldn't help but note that he comes across as an angry and unapproachable person online. I don't care who you are, is that really good for business? Is he really making the multiple hundreds of thousands per year you'd imagine someone should be from selling the most innovative training/aiming method in a sport of thousands upon thousands of players? From what I can tell, and as a sponsored professional working with a wonderful and customer friendly company in another skill game, he's just hurting his own sales.


If you'd like me to get snippy - okay. This is the internet, welcome. It takes me all of a minute and a half tops to make this post. Don't put yourself under the impression that I'm spending any significant time making posts like this. It is a quick conversational bit. Trust me - I've read everything on the Dr Dave site, I've been reading this forum. This is an internet forum, I made a very very minor criticism of his use of intelligences - he has been retired for years, if he got his masters any earlier than 20 years ago then his information is long out of date. What do I receive for a minor constructive criticism? Massive flak and attack, for no reason at all.

So the equation didn't work to help you. What we're looking for is a "bridge" in understanding, hence the idea that an equation can be useful. No one is saying that anyone is going to walk up to a table with a protractor and a ruler and measure out their shots and their angles. No one is bringing a calculator out. What you're looking for is understanding. When someone says to me "30 degrees" I can perfectly visualize it. When someone shows me an equation directly relating spin-speed ratios and thickness of contact to levels of english I can take that an better apply it than I could if someone simply said to me "okay now if you hit the ball more left but you take a little off of it you can kick it out more that way." - I am not going to understand that as clearly.

My point was entirely related to his statement that one needed to take themselves out of the mathematical-logical intelligence in order to use the visual-spatial intelligence. It was in no way related to aiming system expertise, and entirely related to comments that, whether he intended it or not, do alienate an entire group of learners. In what way, regardless of Stan Shuffett's experience in the billiards community and respected status as a teacher of the game, in what way is that good business practice for someone looking to sell an undoubtedly brilliant learning tool?

This is how the real world works. My students learn. Both in the classroom as a biology instructor, as well as outside of the classroom as a disc sports instructor. As someone who has multiple amateur national championship level pupils in another skill game, as well as one at the very top of the national tour in the disc world. I made one little comment regarding intelligences, which is valid teaching theory - and you all chose to blow up at me.

I'll bugger off these aiming threads. You guys are bonkers, and entirely lack civility.

Filter out the snippy,snarky,smarmy, egotistical hyperbole you'll find there's not muc

National Board Certification, Masters of Ed, experience in the field, grants awarded, etc. And honestly - he may be one of the most respected people in pool, but that does not make any single person above constructive criticism. His ability to sell himself is quite obviously lacking. As I said - if he's above constructive help because he's "old school" and "better" than other people, so be it. But as an independent customer I couldn't help but note that he comes across as an angry and unapproachable person online. I don't care who you are, is that really good for business? Is he really making the multiple hundreds of thousands per year you'd imagine someone should be from selling the most innovative training/aiming method in a sport of thousands upon thousands of players? From what I can tell, and as a sponsored professional working with a wonderful and customer friendly company in another skill game, he's just hurting his own sales.


If you'd like me to get snippy - okay. This is the internet, welcome. It takes me all of a minute and a half tops to make this post. Don't put yourself under the impression that I'm spending any significant time making posts like this. It is a quick conversational bit. Trust me - I've read everything on the Dr Dave site, I've been reading this forum. This is an internet forum, I made a very very minor criticism of his use of intelligences - he has been retired for years, if he got his masters any earlier than 20 years ago then his information is long out of date. What do I receive for a minor constructive criticism? Massive flak and attack, for no reason at all.

So the equation didn't work to help you. What we're looking for is a "bridge" in understanding, hence the idea that an equation can be useful. No one is saying that anyone is going to walk up to a table with a protractor and a ruler and measure out their shots and their angles. No one is bringing a calculator out. What you're looking for is understanding. When someone says to me "30 degrees" I can perfectly visualize it. When someone shows me an equation directly relating spin-speed ratios and thickness of contact to levels of english I can take that an better apply it than I could if someone simply said to me "okay now if you hit the ball more left but you take a little off of it you can kick it out more that way." - I am not going to understand that as clearly.

My point was entirely related to his statement that one needed to take themselves out of the mathematical-logical intelligence in order to use the visual-spatial intelligence. It was in no way related to aiming system expertise, and entirely related to comments that, whether he intended it or not, do alienate an entire group of learners. In what way, regardless of Stan Shuffett's experience in the billiards community and respected status as a teacher of the game, in what way is that good business practice for someone looking to sell an undoubtedly brilliant learning tool?

This is how the real world works. My students learn. Both in the classroom as a biology instructor, as well as outside of the classroom as a disc sports instructor. As someone who has multiple amateur national championship level pupils in another skill game, as well as one at the very top of the national tour in the disc world. I made one little comment regarding intelligences, which is valid teaching theory - and you all chose to blow up at me.

I'll bugger off these aiming threads. You guys are bonkers, and entirely lack civility.

 

[canwin]

much that doesn't confuse and invite discord as far as this touted breakthrough. There are many many of us that think a round barn is where they belong.. how can you make this stuff up

 

[Dan White]

much that doesn't confuse and invite discord as far as this touted breakthrough. There are many many of us that think a round barn is where they belong.. how can you make this stuff up

Holy ancient thread! Chris got roughed up by the usual crowd. I wonder if the guy ever reached his goal of pro level play.