Particular type of shot

[nrage]

Hello, I am new to snooker and am working on my potting skills. I have a question about that: how on earth do you pot the object ball if you simultaneously want to put some kind of a screw on the white to get to the next ball?? For example when putting side on the ball. hen I do that, I miss the pocket by miles!

When you strike with side 2 things happen, the ball will deflect/take a different line, and it will curve slightly back. To play with side you need to learn how much your cue deflects and how much the ball, cloth and pace of the shot affects the curve back. For a short range pot with side you can ignore the curve effect, but you have to judge the deflection effect.

There are 2 technique for playing with side. The standard snooker technique keeps the cue parallel to the line of aim, but pool players often cue across the line of aim.

For example, imagine a straight pot, blue to the center pocket. To play with left hand side in the snooker fashion you would move the whole cue left, keeping it parallel to the original line of aim (through center of white, blue, and pocket). To play in the pool fashion you would move the butt of the cue right, moving the tip left, and cueing across the line of aim from right to left.

There are pro's and con's of each method and players of either game may use either technique, I am just labelling them as I think is most common

Using the snooker method, when you strike the white (cueing straight ahead parallel to the line of aim through white, blue and pocket) the white will skew/squirt/deflect to the right, off the line of aim, then over distance/time it will curve back to the left eventually coming back to the line of aim, and then passing over it and ending up to the left of it.

So, to play with side you need to adjust the original line of aim to account for the effects.

If it's a short range shot then you only have to take into account the deflection, and deflection is fairly constant (varies with power and amount of side, but only a little) and depends on your cue end mass (mostly). So, once you get used to your own cue's deflection, you can adjust the original line of aim to account for it, then you apply the side in the snooker fashion placing it parallel to the adjusted line of aim and you should pot the ball.

Once you practice it enough it will become second nature.

For a longer range shot you need to account for both deflection and curve, the curve effect will depend on the angle of the cue - flatter striking causes less curve, it will depend on the power - higher power means later curve, and it will depend on the cloth - thicker cloth means more curve. This effect is much harder to account for, and is why people tend to use side on shorter range shots (IMO). You would adjust for the deflection, then depending on distance, power and cloth you would adjust back by some amount.

Again, lots of practice, and using the same table/cloth is recommended.

Best of luck.

[Terry Davidson]

jmo:

As you can see from the long and detailed response from nrage is the reason most coaches would recommend a beginning player just learning how to play should not use any side at all and also remember side spin is a consideration on any shot ONLY when the cueball will hit a cushion. It has virtually no effect (outside of aiming differently) on a straight pot where no cushion is involved.

Terry

[nrage]

jmo:

As you can see from the long and detailed response from nrage is the reason most coaches would recommend a beginning player just learning how to play should not use any side at all and also remember side spin is a consideration on any shot ONLY when the cueball will hit a cushion. It has virtually no effect (outside of aiming differently) on a straight pot where no cushion is involved.

Terry

All good points I completely neglected to mention!

I avoid using side for anything except the break off shot, safety shots where I cannot possibly miss the object ball and just want to widen the angle off the cushion to get closer to baulk and very occasionally on pots where the object ball is practically already in the pocket. A better player would use some side spin in and around the black, if there was no better way to achieve position (using stun, screw and top spin).

A beginner should work on potting, and learning to control the pace of the white for position, adding top spin and stun and finally screw shots once they have more control.

[RocketRoy1983]

Wow can't believe my thread is still going strong 3 and a half years later!! Thanks to Terry for continuing the good work. How's everyone doing?

[DandyA]

Wow can't believe my thread is still going strong 3 and a half years later!! Thanks to Terry for continuing the good work. How's everyone doing?

hi RR, nice to see you on the forum again

[RocketRoy1983]

hi RR, nice to see you on the forum again

Hi Dandy how've you been? How's your game?

[DandyA]

Hi Dandy how've you been? How's your game?

I'm good RR ... I don't know if you may remember, but I'm a big Steve Davis fan if only cos I'm another 1957 baby ... he's trying to keep his world ranking less than his age (55) ... I'm trying to get my high break up to my age ... so me and him have a lot in common

but it's really good to see you and RGC back on the forum ... all those crazy chats we used to have ... there were about 6 or more of us who used to regularly rabbit on the chat thingy in the wee small hours ... who were the others? I'm so old I've got that forgetfulness disease (can't remember what it's called) but they were fun

there were some girls too ... maybe April Madness and Ja ... happy days

[RocketRoy1983]

There was me, you, nam, thaison, 1lawyer and johnfromlondon. Great chats til silly o clock. What's happened to the chat function anyway??

I remember your a Davis fan of course. I stayed away from the forum for a while as I started wearing glasses and it has messed my game up for good. Was very upset for a few months as I couldn't play the game I've played since I was a kid. I just can't see the edge of the ball from further than 3/4 feet and its killing me to be honest with you.

Still I've got a little boy now called Roy Jnr who is 14 months so hopefully he can take over in a few years although no pressure on him of course.

[DandyA]

gosh, you've got a good memory RR ... so much better than mine ...

Roy Jnr eh? bet he's a handful, what's his cue action like and what's his high break at the moment? I might put a bet on for the 2027 World Championship

is he as good as this little chap ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=...ture=endscreen

[RocketRoy1983]

Blimey that's a great vid!!

[DandyA]

Blimey that's a great vid!!

yeah but he didn't have a foot on the floor and there was possibly more than one brown spot on the table after he'd finished ... love the way he celebrates though ...

[Scott M]

Got comfortable with my potting and playing screw so decided to move onto putting that into practice.

Been doing a 3 red line-up between pink and black (as recommended by Neilmaxman) however this one shot is always where I break down.

The line of the shot is shown in pink in Diagram 1.

I usually play with topspin to try to get back onto the reds, however the path the cue ball takes is shown in yellow in Diagram 2. As you can see, I am not on the reds.

How should I play this type of shot to get position?

Thank you.


Diagram 1: the line of the shot, shown in pink


Diagram 2: the line of the shot (pink) and the path of the cue ball (yellow)

[itsnoteasy]

My immediate thought when I saw that shot was ,it's an above centre stun shot, say if the middle of the white is five ,hit just above say at six, this will send the white off the bottom Cush and back up the same side you are on but not too wide(if you play it centre or just below I think the white would throw too wide) this should not be hit too hard but must be a stun shot.
Maybe another way (but I'm not sure of the angle here) is play it with top but at height sixish and just play a nice plain ball shot through the white, this will not give as much spin and the white will come up the other side, Some may say this could be played with a bit of check side but I don't know what level you are at.
By the way your playing with a blue ball that's far to big lol.

[Terry Davidson]

I think the diagram misrepresents the shot. It looks to me like the cueball is midway between the black and pink and about 15" from the centreline of the table. There is no way the cueball could come that close to the top pocket on a run-through.

From the angle I see this is a straight run-through shot with no side to come off the top cushion and be on any of the reds. If you don't like that method then use the method itsnoteasy describes above to stun the white off the top cushion and get any of the reds into the same pocket as the black. I prefer the stun shot as you can hit the cueball a little harder on the black whereas the run-through is quite a soft shot if the cushions play well.

Terry

[itsnoteasy]

Aye that's why I wasn't too sure of the angle for the follow through shot Terry ,the diagram ,it looked a bit wrong to me
I would add, learn how to play stun shots around that area, they are invaluable .