Anyone who has ever played pool knows the dramatic difference in the action of a cue ball when hit by a pro as opposed to a novice. A novice can hit the cue ball in exactly the same place at exactly the same speed as the pro and get very different results. Assuming they are using the same stick with the same chalk. As a rule the pro will have a looser wrist than the novice.
I am in the midst of an argument with my pool player brother. My contention is that the pure stroke is traveling in a straighter line and generating more psi at the point of contact. His contention is that it has to do with harmonics that are deadened by a tight wrist. Can anyone give me any incite on this??
Actually, I don’t know that. That’s a bold claim, and Ray “Cool Cat” Martin’s seminal book 99 Critical Shots In Pool would be rendered useless if that were the case. However, I’ve worked those shots a bunch of times and they work.
Yes. My insight is that your brother is, like many pool players, deeply misguided. Especially on this point.
Shot-making, position play, may have some relationship to classical mechanics…entire methodologies have been presented in the form of highly regarded books and “systems” of various repute.
But actually playing pool on live equipment, against an opponent, is far from it.
I play 14.1 and the other usual pocket billiards games regularly at a decent pool hall, but although I’m not a great player I’m pretty confident 100% of the players I meet, some of whom actually do tournaments and all that, would regard the harmonic distortion argument as nonsense.
It is a point of good form and approach at the table, though: IIRC about any “pool” book will show pictures of a good grip and a good stance when addressing the cue ball. I’ve never heard or seen anybody who can play a bit grip the butt of their cue tightly.
It sounds a lot to me like some of the mythologizing among musicians: you know, things that couldn’t possible make a difference, but, for example, at an acoustic piano or a harpsichord, trying to “shape” the sound.
But perhaps I’m wrong: if so, I’d like to know.
Actually playing pool on live equipment against an opponent is absolutely 100% classical mechanics. What else could it be? It’s more complicated classical mechanics than usually shows up in the textbooks, of course, but only slightly. And that just means that textbooks are simplified, anyway.
To the OP, sound propagation within the objects (including harmonics) is relevant to any collision, especially one very close to elastic. But I’m not sure what you mean by a “pure stroke”.
I would consider a pure stroke simply a stroke that traveled in a straight line. The less distortion in the straight line at the moment of impact might play a part in how many square inches of poll tip is pushing the cue ball and where it is directing it’s energy.
Point taken. But we’re dealing with crude instruments, like various pool tables and qualities of felt, which are unknown largely to the player much ahead of time. Even the player’s cue is a pretty crude approximation of the ideal, no matter how much care is taken.
And, as well, it’s a psychological game, as are all. Granted, that’s not this topic, but it can explain some of the difficulty in recording data.
Well, that sounds correct to me! As an abstraction, using classical mechanics, hit 1/8th of the target ball at medium speed…anything else is adding or subtracting from that basic calculation.
Therefore, the original goal (let’s say a break-shot in 14.1 “straight” pool where the goal is to basically move the 15-ball rack to its original position without fouling) is changed.
A stroke is a stroke, is it not? Contact with the object ball at the correct speed at the correct spot is what matters. IMHO.
There are all sorts of adaptations one is forced to use or might be desirable in order to achieve that goal, but those seem not relevant to the basic proposition.
yes to a point but speed and angle of impact are also important and would require a good stroke
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Yes. That’s why it would be a good stroke! At the abstraction of basic mechanics, you want contact with object ball at a certain speed at a more-or-less precise location.
How one can actually manage that, especially in a pool hall or some bar, well, that’s the art.
I suspect that’s why any player I’ve ever seen uses a loose grip at the butt-end of the stick…more flexibility.
But you can’t change the ultimate fact of making contact with the object ball at the right spot and at the right speed.
How one can reliably do this? Well, that’s a different question!
Nonsense. Absolute utter nonsense.
It is to laugh.
I used to play competitively, albeit only at the State level. 14.1 to 150 points. I didn’t win always, but plenty of contenders got just one turn at the table, win or lose. Me included.
A novice can think they cued the ball like a pro. They didn’t. A skilled pro can deliver the same stroke 40 times with negligible variation. A novice will be all over the place and clueless about how their stroke wasn’t what they intended.
Absolutely a pro handles the cue differently that does a novice. And stances differently, bridges differently, etc. A soft grip and a strong arm able to accelerate quickly over a very short distance is invaluable to delivering sharp stick-to-ball impacts when needed. It’s the difference between controlled violence and flailing uselessly. But sharp isn’t what’s needed all the time. What is needed on every stroke is precision. Of placement, of aim, of force, and of sharpness. Get all 4 right and you can run table after table. Given good table sense. Lacking any of those you’re done early. Real early.
'Zactly. You can always tell a goof because they grip it like an axe and hit the cueball hard. A pro has a soft but sure grip, like a fencer with his epi, and hits the ball half as hard but gets the results he/she needs, not just a lot of random noise.
In some scruffy bar playing $1.50 nineball on a badly unlevel 3.5x7 table, some galoot who slings the balls might well dominate the local competition. That doesn’t mean he’s any damn good in any objective sense.
My question is actually more specific. I am only curious about the point of impact at the time of impact. What is happening at that level that gives the cue ball so much more action than a novice. I tend to think it is a more pure straight direction that could only be attained using a loose grip.
Well, there’s an easy test! Set the cue ball on a table, and stroke it a hundred times. See what happens.
Even just trying to mimic lagging for break.
Or go three rails and see where the white ball ends up.
It should be pretty close to exactly the same spot each time. Not always, but cue ball control is the alpha and omega of playing. Making contact with an object ball makes things more complicated, but the principle doesn’t change.
Or set up the shots in 99 Critical Shots and try it. Those shots work, and some of them are not easy. But they’re not trick shots, either.
There’s an old drill for practicing a break shot at straight pool where you pocket the break ball and try to move the rack where normally the remaining fourteen balls would be. And any number of other drills, all of which are repeatable and emphasize cue ball control and therefore stroke.
This should be easy to test, but I think you’ll find a consistent stroke is what separates the men from the boys (and women…I would not play a game for money against even a strong league player at APA rules who happens to be a woman…it’s most definitely a co-ed sport these days!)…however it’s achieved.
'Zactly. If you can drive the cue accurately and repeatedly you get the results you want. If you can’t then stuff goes everywhere and you start talking about grip or harmonics or something beyond the basics.
Because novices can’t stand the idea that they suck at the fundamentals. But they do. At least for (semi-)pro levels of fundamentals.
The OP might be half-right that the reason pros can achieve what they do is simply that they can shoot straight. Bar-room boyz are all cockeyed, with the cue skittering unnoticed sideways or vertically as it makes contact. Or well off-center unwittingly. So shit happens from there; object balls go hither and thither and post-impact the cue ball goes nowhere near where it was expected to go.
The usual thing with the strong-grip boys is they can’t see that as they practice stroke the cue tip first digs low then climbs as it approaches the cue ball. And when they draw back extra for the actual stroke versus practice, then bear down going forward hard for the impact, the tip’s vertical motion is double what it was on the warm-up strokes. It’s as obvious as the paintjob on a black-and-white cop car and they can’t see it. But it’s wrong; dead wrong.
If you can practice-stroke straight and power-stroke through the exact same line as seen on recordings of your work, you’re a lot of the way to playing consistent billiards, pocket or otherwise. Until then, you’re hacking. Most folks never graduate past hacking.
The only things that affect the result of a cue ball hitting another ball are the point of impact, the velocity of the cue ball, and its spin. The path that the cue ball took to arrive at the point of impact is irrelevant (except as it affects the velocity and point of impact), and the “grip” that the player used is equally irrelevant. A robot or a ball-shooting gun that produced the same velocity and point of impact would produce exactly the same result. And the only reason a ball would NOT travel perfectly straight is if it has spin, or if there are imperfections in the table or the ball.
I am talking about the English generated on the cue ball. Not the speed of the cue ball
Deliberate English, stop, or follow, is useful stuff. Random inadvertent any of those just increases trajectory dispersion and player confusion. And reduces effective power delivered to the ball. So they hit it harder and goes the wrong way even more forcefully. That’s a lose-lose proposition.
Yes, correct! There’s always spin on whitey, whenever it contacts a rail or another ball, or the tip of the cue. Forward roll, normal roll, and any kind of deliberate action one puts on the cue ball, of course.
And IMHO, speed is one of the best, most reliable ways to change properties of the way the cue ball rolls. It is its own kind of “action” on the cue ball, and obviously is 100% dependent on the stroke, like everything else.
I can’t run 150 points in straight pool…maybe on the best day of my life, sometime in the future…but I still know this.
And, yes, you put Efren Reyes with a warped cue made of firewood, and a tip made out of some used bathroom tissues, on a table with the legs sawed off by a blind barfly, he’ll still accomplish the same thing, more or less.
Why? Because he cares! 
There is a lot of intuition involved, but that’s really the art of the game.
The basic skills don’t change, IME.
I’ve been playing some pool with my son In a couple of months, he’s gone from me killing him each time to regularly beating me. Such is the power of practice. The only thing keeping me in the game is that I’m 6’ and he’s still only 5’ so he can’t reach the cue ball as well when it’s in the center of the table.
Here is the answer.
The linked videos by this school show that the contact between the cue and the cb is too short for the grip to matter.
There is a video at that link with a high speed camera (24,046 frame per second).
In short, according to the high speed videos, your brother is wrong.
Going back to th original question as to why a pro gets so much better cue ball action than an amateur. I believe that the loose wrist facilitates a straighter stroke, more similar to throwing the stick at the ball. Even the slightest movements at contact with the cue ball would be received as a direction change. When you look at the tip of the cue it is ground at about the radius of a dime. Lets suppose the footprint of the cue ball on the tip is about 1/8", The high point of that radius will be the first to make contact and carry a higher percentage of the load than the outer point of the foot print. Thinking of it this way it is easy to imagine how even the slightest variance of direction could have a dramatic effect on the direction of the energy. .
'Zactly.
The pro has the cue tip traveling exactly parallel to the cue shaft, with no pitching or yawing action on the cue shaft. As well, the cue tip impacts the ball exactly on center, not merely close to on-center. Unless of course the pro is adding follow, draw, or English on purpose.
As well, the pro can provide a very high velocity impact without much apparent effort. But only when appropriate. E.g. on a slop break the amateur takes a great big backstroke and makes a large exaggerated arm movement. Which doesn’t couple well to the ball and although the shot is forceful, the cue ball merely plows into the rack, scattering much, but not all of it.
The pro seems to do almost nothing different than on a soft shot but the cue ball leaps across the table and shatters the rack six ways to Sunday. That’s all down to being able to accelerate their shooting arm/hand very, very quickly without (much) loss of precision.
I think you may be thinking about impact on the ball and raw speed of the ball. I am talking about left,right, up and down english that a pro applies so much better…
Points given for referring to “Dr. Dave.” He may have more than one book, published, but I got a lot out of a rather dense textbook-like book he wrote (don’t have it near me)…his main, “basics” book, I guess. I believe he’s a professor of Mechanical Engineering down in CO, but IIRC he’s not a “system” pusher, like the old-style “diamond system[s]” and various other geometrically-inclined (eh?) systems of play and all that. Very sensible fellow!
What’s the difference, exactly? Aside from miscuing due to not using one’s equipment (the cue, or, more precisely, not taking care of the tip or applying chalk correctly, or both hands/arms) correctly, it’s still that perfect, consistent stroke that makes one move up from being a “shotmaker” at barroom rules 8-ball to running racks or playing clever safeties.
Not that a “perfect stroke” looks the same for every shot, such as when the cueball is frozen to a rail, and when one is trying to draw the cueball after contact quite a bit…every stroke will look a little different, depending on the obstacles in place, but it takes a steady hand! That’s all I know!
Well, of course there are other differences, namely in temperament and gamesmanship, but that’s well outside the scope of this discussion!