Another in the Universities Pool Council Lectures series from Great Yarmouth.
In this section I am talking about the pool break shot, and the best way to approach the break. I also look at why the cue ball can leave the table during the break and how best to avoid that happening.
Part three of the Universities Pool Council Lectures at Great Yarmouth.
In this section I am talking about back swing,cue delivery, and the perils of gripping the cue too tight. There is also some billiard history thrown in too!
Why do Pool Players ever blame the table for playing a bad shot?Over the years I have seen literally hundreds of pool players blame the table for missing a shot. It’s also quite likely that I have also been paid to perform on more different pool tables than any other pool player, almost 2,000 pool venues and counting.
So for me, I find it more than a little annoying to hear players whine on about how a table cost them the frame or the match. In 99% of cases there is always a more obvious reason a player has lost – usually it’s because they have played a bad shot, or the wrong shot. What’s worse is when they have been outplayed by their opponent, but still insist on blaming the table for their failure to win – how disrespectful is that!
I have seen cues snapped, and bones broken as players have kicked or punched the furniture, all because a shot didn’t go as planned.
I am not saying that pool tables don’t roll out, I am not saying that the results of that could be that a player plays a shot that loses a frame. What I am saying is that anyone who has played for any length of time should know that there is no such thing as a perfect table – it is a mythical beast that doesn’t exist!
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| English Pool Table (20mm) |
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| American Pool Table (30mm) |
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| Snooker Table 50mm |
The problem with pool, specifically British Pool, is that it is a game of economics. The pool table is like a jukebox or a fruit machine. It is installed in the venue, to make money for whoever owns the space. Therefore, most venues opt to buy or rent the cheapest equipment available, often they won’t have much of a budget for maintenance either.
You just have to examine an English Pool table to realise what I am talking about. Most tables consist of a wooden box, with a slate resting on top. If you put your hand in the pocket, you will see that the slate is around 20mm deep. The slates on an American Pool Table is around 30mm, and the slates on a Snooker Table is around 50mm thick.
Slate is used because it should give a perfectly flat surface on which to roll the balls around, and for the most part it does. However, the thinner slate used on the Pub Pool table can bend slightly if it’s not properly supported. I have seen something as thin as beer-mat used directly under the slate straighten up a table – and it works. The other problem is it is still possible to move one of these tables around. If the table is on a smooth floor, it can slide into a new position as it gets bumped during play, meaning it is resting on a completely different piece of floor it was levelled on before.
That is if it’s been levelled properly in the first place! Many venues move the table when they need more space for events, and plonk it back under the lamp shade once the party is over.
Not all those who play on any given pool table are bothered about it’s care either. Players sit on tables, they flip coins onto the baize, they try masse shots when they don’t know what they are doing. They even lift them up and drop them when a ball gets stuck inside.
The more you think about it, the more surprising it is that a pool table is level in the first place!
Even those tables used in tournaments suffer from the same construction. The best professional table fitters do a fine job to get them 100% level, but it’s difficult to keep them that way throughout the whole competition.
There are some high end pool tables where these problems are less likely to occur, but it comes back down to the economics of a sport where budget is the major consideration for most venues.
So back to my main point. There is no reason that any pool player who has played for any length of time (say a couple of years) should ever, ever, ever complain about a table rolling out. If they knew anything about the sport, they should expect a table to roll out and be surprised when it doesn’t!
There is the old saying – “It’s the same for both players”. Some players will argue, that it isn’t – because they are a better player, their game is about finesse. Only they would play the delicate roll up shot the length of the table because they have the ability to judge the precise pace of the cue ball. While their opponent just hits things about.
This is an affliction that affects players of a certain standard. If it affects you – you have to get beyond it (or take up snooker). As a player you have to take responsibility for your bad shots, even if the table rolled out. If you get surprised by the way the table rolls, then it’s you fault because you didn’t find out enough about the table. A quick hit of a few balls around the table before you started your match might have given you a clue. Or were you paying attention when you opponent played a similar shot in the last frame? Length of the table dead weight shot on a strange table? – Don’t even think about it.
If you are genuinely caught out by a roll, then make a note, get over it and get on. Don’t break your cue, you fingers, or your hand. Leave that to your opponent.
Rant over.
Part two of the Universities Pool Council Lectures at Great Yarmouth.
In this section I am talking about the the importance of keeping the cue level during the shot.
In February 2011, I was invited to attend the Universities Pool Council Finals in Great Yarmouth at Vauxhall Holiday Park. For a couple of hours I gave a talk on some of the fundamentals of the game, and the importance of getting the basics right so you don't run into problems later on.
We had a camera running, and in the coming months will be posting snippets here on stevedaking.com. In this section I am talking about the correct stance, and how to establish which eye is dominant.
What makes British 8 Ball Unique?
This article is from my regular column in WorldPool – The magazine of the UK and International Pool Associations. The magazine is packed with all the latest tournament news from the pool world.
You can download a copy at www.propool.org
What makes British 8 Ball Unique?
Many of the coaching materials on offer in the UK have their origins in the game of Snooker. Not surprising really – as the more ‘high profile’ sport, there have been lots of books & video throughout the years. A lot of this knowledge gets passed into the game of pool at grass roots level. Every player who starts playing at league level, will no doubt have had a more experienced team player, bursting with sage advice, dishing out hints and tips to try to help new players along. In the USA, much has been written about American Pool, and some of this has filtered over here too. (for example: you can’t play up the table following a foul)
Of course, any advice is welcome, and many things in other cue sports transfer quite readily to pool. However, there are some real differences too. If the way you play is based on snooker knowledge, you will only get so far before those differences catch up with you. Pool is unlike Snooker at a very basic level, and so you require new skills to get consistent results.
So lets look at a few of the differences, and more importantly, what they mean for you the pool player.
The Cue Ball
Ask any pool player what makes pool different from snooker and they will tell you that the cue ball is smaller than the object ball. The question is, how many know what that actually means to the way the ball behaves on the pool table?
This smaller cue ball arrangement really is unique in cue sports, the standard size cue ball is 1 7/8”, which makes it a full 1/8” smaller than the object ball it makes contact with. The reason it is smaller is to allow the ball to be able to pass through a coin operated table while the object balls are retained. This became such a part of the game, that even when top level matches are played on tables with no ball mechanism, we still use the smaller cue ball. It is something that defines our sport.
What it means is that the cue ball is the lightest in cue sports, it is very easy for the cue ball to leave the bed of the table. By that, I don’t mean fly over the side and on to the floor, I mean jump a few millimetres while it works it’s way to the object ball. Most of the time you would not even see it happening. The jump is very small, the ball probably bounces a few times as well on it’s way. This creates some problems.
Firstly, if you have applied any spin to the cue ball, it will spin at a different rate in the air, as it does on the bed of the table. Second, if you wanted that spin to do something you probably anticipated that the cue ball would be on the bed of the table all the way to the object ball so you will get a slightly different reaction than you had hoped for. Finally, if the cue ball is in the air when it strikes the object ball it could cut the ball in the wrong direction (even if it stays on the shot line) or worse, could fly off the table.
So the light cue ball is one problem. The other problem is the cue ball’s small size. Spin occurs on the cue ball when you strike it off centre. The further out from the middle you hit, the more spin gets applied to the cue ball. Having a smaller cue ball means that you can’t apply as much spin as you can to the larger cue ball used in Snooker or the massive cue ball used in American Pool. On top of that, it is the rotation of the balls surface against the baize that is responsible for the spin having an affect on the path of the cue ball, and the balls size means a single rotation is much less than the other cue balls, so it has to rotate more to get where it’s going.
Table Size
There is much more to playing on a smaller table than just the balls are closer to the pockets! It also means that the overall shot length is going to be less too. The cue ball is closer to the object ball which is closer to the pocket. To the laymen, this makes the game of pool look easier, but the pockets are tighter than on a snooker table, and the crowded table means that players often have to be more accurate with positional play. So while some pots may well be a little easier, there are plenty of other considerations making things harder.
In the game of snooker, most of the time you can get your bridge hand on the bed of the table. In pool, that is an infrequent occurrence. If the cue ball is away from the cushion, then there could well be object balls in the way preventing a standard bridge. More likely, the cue ball is at a distance to a cushion where it is not comfortable, or possible, to make a bridge without cueing off of the side of the table. Bridging off of the side of the table means that you are cueing down into the cue ball, which means it is going to jump, even slightly, and that creates all the problems with spin and direction we have already discussed.
So those are just some of the problems which are unique to pool, next time I will be looking at the strategies you need to adopt so that you don’t get tripped up by the very things that make our game unique.
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