November 2009 page 15
Big Table to Bar Box
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position play was a tad shaky because draw and follow took differently than the side spin did off the rails. He doesn’t require new, slick cloth to play well, just the same cloth for the bed and the rails. A light cue ball is a problem as well. All pool balls wear down with use. After all, they are hit with micro sandpaper in the form of chalk impregnated tips (only the cue ball, of course). That is why players hitting object balls with their cue tip is highly discouraged at finer billiard establishments. Object balls accumulate chalk from both the bed cloth and the cue ball, which can wear them down too. Cue balls have them all beat. I’ve seen and played with sets of balls where the cue ball was a full eighth of an inch undersized. This smaller lighter cue ball draws easily and follows reluctantly. Understandably, it doesn’t break out clusters as effectively as a heavier, regular sized ball does. The size of cue balls also affects cut shots. Smaller cue balls tend to overcut shots because the diameter is smaller, as the line at impact is slightly off. Likewise, oversized cue balls hit everything too thick. This, combined with the heaviness/lightness of the ball, makes predicting the tangent line (the final path of the cue ball after impact) almost like a guessing game. If you can run out, do it. The game at its highest level is very aggressive. Top players will try to run out even if they have two or three problem areas to deal with. Many times they’ll put on the brakes if their first crack at a breakout doesn’t work, but sometimes they’ll keep firing away. Why the testosterone overload? Players know that a safety is only so good on a bar box. Balls are so easy to kick, jump, or bank in on 7-footers that the shooter would rather go down firing than lay down a paper thin safety. Making a good hit on a ball isn’t that tough on a bar box and the chance of getting lucky looms large. The table can be in worse shape than pre-safety. After a kick or jump, foul or no foul, balls may be rearranged and un-runnable. The worst case scenario is the player making a lucky hit and magically getting safe. Many players have scratched their heads and thought to themselves that perhaps the safety wasn’t so wise and a run out would have been more likely to win the game. All of these adjustments can seem daunting to the small table game. Keep your head up. Many advantages make the game seductive. Larger pockets and less distance on the bar table make every shot makeable. Aggressive and creative play are rewarding and satisfying. Faced with a tough situation, you might dig up some low percentage kiss or carom and open up the rack perfectly. Bank shots are ill advised on tough 9-footers, but may be the correct shot on a bar box. Make some slight changes to your thinking and start running racks on the bar box.
Raising Your Sights
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side cushion in which you hit the one ball full. From a tight rack, the "wing ball" will usually go in for this break, and sometimes the one ball will go straight into the side. The problem with the cut break is control since the cue ball retains a lot of speed due to the cut angle. The solution is to turn down the speed -- the wing ball seems to go even more often for a somewhat softer break -- and use draw and outside english to bring the cue ball back to the center or top of the table. The problem was that some players turned down the speed too much to keep the officials happy. I don't think any player lost his turn for a soft break, but some were warned and cranked up the speed a little to comply. There were many great matches A few that I saw were the loss in the second round of Mika Immonen to Chris Bartram and the final three matches -- Mills v. Souquet, Mills v. Immonen and Immonen v. Souquet. All were well-played and close, with a variety of styles. If you have never seen these great players live and in person, you really need to take a trip. If Virginia seems like too long a trip and too far away, consider the Mosconi Cup -- ten champions fighting for the title in Las Vegas, December 10-13. The next US Open will be October 16-23, 2010.
The Elevator Shot - Go Up and Down By Bill Smith “Mr3Cushion”, Old School Pool.net
WHY DO SO many billiardists play around the table shots when up-anddown shots would suit them much better. Start taking a closer look at your around-the-table opportunities, especially when the second object ball isn't "big" in the corner. You can turn small target areas into huge ones. In Diagram 1, for instance, the third ball is positioned in a small, unforgiving area; an around-the-table shot would have to score on the way in or not at all. Also, you'd have to hit the first ball very thin, using extreme English, and avoid a kiss in passing the first object ball. But play the same shot up and down, and you have far more control of speed; you're assured of leaving the first ball in a high scoring zone; and that final ball is much, much bigger. Hit the first ball with enough speed to bank it twice across the table to the side cushion; use minimum 2 o'clock English with a slightly elevated cue to create a little curve on the cue ball. In the shot of Diagram 2, most players not only choose an around-the-table shot but the wrong one to boot: four rails instead of five or six. There's a kiss there, too. So why not go up-and-down again, going four rails in behind the second ball as shown, and getting good position too? Hit the first ball thin, with minimum 1 o'clock English, and again, a slightly elevated cue. The first ball is banked cross the table to a "big ball" position in the corner for the next shot. Diagram 3 shows another often-overlooked option. Most average, and even skilled, players will try for five to seven rails around the table, and just about always get a kiss after the third rail. Instead, bank that first ball cross-corner the long way, and go up and down with high center ball, a level cue this time and an eighthof-a-ball hit on the first ball. You get a high degree of success of scoring, plus simple position for the next shot. Again, four rails work slightly better for position than three. The important thing to keep in mind is that these up-anddown shots give you a much bigger target — plus simple opportunities for great position play.