Post a reply

Re: Transferring side to object ball.

Postby Badsnookerplayer

I have never considered something that you have mentioned here and it probably seems blindingly obvious but when you play plain ball, to what degree does the cue ball 'slide' rather than roll? I have always assumed that it is just rolling forwards

Re: Transferring side to object ball.

Postby acesinc

Badsnookerplayer wrote:I have never considered something that you have mentioned here and it probably seems blindingly obvious but when you play plain ball, to what degree does the cue ball 'slide' rather than roll? I have always assumed that it is just rolling forwards


I am sure that you already know that there is no answer to that question, or if you prefer, the answer is infinity. The number of variables from tip position on the cue ball to the strength at which the shot is played makes the answer utterly incalculable. With the absolute plain unadorned balls of Snooker, one really can't "see" what is happening at all, and can only play shots by "feel" and "intuition" and "experience". There is little or no visual feedback at all about the actual motions of the balls, cue or otherwise and you can only try to judge what they are doing spin-wise based on how they react.

We mostly think of the Game of Snooker as being two dimensional as if drawing lines on a piece of paper, but it is really much more of a three dimensional game than even most good players realize. That is why there is a plethora of "training" cue balls to give visual feedback for our brains to learn from experience. Here is a good video to demonstrate (YouTuber Tequila is an absolute genius for editing video Snooker related).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ_7FzNTOz8

In particular the stroke at about 2:05 (drag shot) and the stroke at about 3:00 exactly demonstrate action that people seem to have a hard time grasping in their mind without this visual feedback.

The way you see the balls bouncing around in the video is another common cause of kicks in my own opinion. In real time, we think the balls are rolling or sliding so we believe the points of contact are on the equator of both balls, but I believe the cue ball spends more time bouncing than we realize (another reason why screw shots tend to not kick....the cue ball is held down on the cloth by the reverse spin).
Last edited by acesinc on 03 Mar 2017, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Transferring side to object ball.

Postby acesinc

Oh, I wanted to add to the post above but I forgot.....

I am not advocating in any way that the game should change to using a spotted cue ball or something like that to assist with this visual feedback I am talking about. That should only be used for learning and practice and understanding. Some have suggested that perhaps the colours should be numbered like Pool balls to assist the colour-blind like Peter Ebdon. Those sorts of changes to me would be heartbreaking and devastating.

I am a traditionalist. I enjoy exploring the rich history of the game and paying some homage to it. I think it is absolutely horrific that in the thankfully quite distant past, people would heartlessly slaughter majestic animals such as elephants for a variety of less than admirable purposes, one of them being the manufacture of little round balls to derive some pleasure from a simple pastime because the people just didn't know any better at the time, and I believe it is absolutely IMPERATIVE that we not forget that, and that we don't make similar foolish mistakes in the future. Do you know how the various colours came into being? Of course, the ivory, like our teeth, was always white to off-white, but the various billiard games would of course require differentiation between the balls so this was accomplished by simple staining with various colours no different than grape juice may give you a funny looking smile for a while. Plain white and colour balls literally remind me of this and plain white and colour balls should always remain a part of the game.

To watch the actions that occur under the control of a masterful snooker and/or billiard player appears nothing short of magic made even more special I think by the fact that there is something going on that we cannot exactly see (due to the plain surface of the balls), but we know it is there and enjoy the mystery of it and the fact that the master is in control of it.

Re: Transferring side to object ball.

Postby Badsnookerplayer

I honestly assumed that it was rolling forward when played plain ball - never thought about it enough.

The video was excellent - the drag shot was fascinating to watch. Thank you.

I agree with you regarding kicks as any 'lift' on the object ball must deflect the object ball and reduce it's initial velocity (in intended direction). Slow motion footage has revealed what a large proportion of shots have a cueball 'off the baize' - slowing the video in youtube helps to see what an effect it has.

I agree with you regarding screw shots.