Some tips needed

[chapperzUK]

I've been trying to practice using topspin, but I can hardly get enough to get into a decent position, are there any drills I can use to improve?

Also, my break is not strong (playing 8-ball pool). I can separate the balls and spread them out well, but rarely anything goes down and when it does, I'm not left on anything. Is there a certain technique to breaking or does it vary a lot?

Thanks.

[PatBlock]

It's interesting that you're only having this problem with top, I usually find that people tend to struggle more with backspin. I take it you have no trouble generating backspin?

If you strike the cueball in the correct place, i.e.12 O'clock-ish and push the cue through properly, then you should get the reaction you're after, so it sounds like maybe you're not doing either one or both of those things quite right. Are you perhaps raising the butt of your cue at all? Remember it should be virtually horizontal with the table, striking down with a slightly raised butt would certainly not help.

As for the break-off, again of course you'll want plenty of follow through, center ball striking, and as much power as you can generate without compromising on accuracy.
No matter where you choose to break from, or which ball you choose to hit, (for me it's the apex ball) it's critically important that the cueball hits your chosen object ball full on, so that none of the energy from the shot is wasted on a uselessly wandering cueball. This should also solve your other problem, if you strike the object ball dead center from your standpoint, with center ball striking, then the white should stop pretty much dead, leaving you in prime position to capitalize on all those balls that went down off the break!

That's what works for me anyway, others may do things differently, but I hope that's of some help.

-

[DandyA]

the interesting thing about topspin is that you can't overspin the cueball by hitting it with the cue (see video below for proof) ...

so the way to do it is to hit the cueball hard and just above centre so that it's rolling rather than skidding so that when it hits an object ball, the linear momentum is killed but it's still got lots of angular momentum (because it was going fast) so it overspins and as it grips the cloth produces topspin ...

hitting really high up on the cueball doesn't help - you can't make the cueball do anything more than roll - and in fact is counter-productive as it limits the speed you can get the cueball to go ...

once I realised the topspin is produced simply by the speed of the rolling white (and not overspin) it becomes easy to produce including the banana shots you see the pros do ...

btw, backspin is completely different - it is produced by causing the cueball to spin backwards ...

here's the video I mention ... http://billiards.colostate.edu/norma...new/NVB-36.htm

hth

[chapperzUK]

Thanks for the advice. I have no trouble with generating backspin, but sometimes overdoing it can be a problem.

There are a couple of other things I am having trouble with. One is the "angles of the table", what does this mean?

Also, how can I improve my cueing action?