My right eye has problems as well - although it's not as bad as yours seems to be. Do you still have usable depth perception? Can you stand at the head on the table and discern the different distances between the foot rail, a ball an inch off the foot rail, and a ball 2 inches off the foot rail?

If you've still got adequate depth perception, and you can see pretty well with your left eye, I think you can get used to it. You may have to become more of an FP to do it though.

I see pretty fuzzy balls from more than 3 or 4 feet away, and I've just gotten used to aiming at them. I can't wear my glasses when I shoot because it forces me to bend my neck up too much, and that puts too much strain on my neck after a short while. My depth perception is still good so I don't really have to change anything except my attitude towards aiming at fuzzy blobs of color instead of at clean crisp balls.

If your depth perception has suffered too much to keep the same stance you may want to consider raising up to get a better view of the angles when you shoot. You'll have to be more careful of your alignment since that gets harder to judge the higher your head gets.

Another option to help make up for the loss of depth perception is to raise and lower your head a few inches several times as you take your practice strokes. I know this is not "by the book" but the books assume good vision with both eyes and strong depth perception. A friend of mine who lost an eye was able to become a pretty good player by bobbing his head in this manner. The slight change in perspective allowed his mind to generate a 3D view of the table even though his body wasn't capable of seeing in 3D anymore.

Ron Shepard wrote:
> Sorry Dave, but geometry, inches, and angles are all analysis, not
> "feel".

I think analysis is quite useful when I'm not shooting. I would never think about any of this stuff in getting ready to shoot, but since it was pointed out to me I find it pretty interesting - especially since it was a completely new subject for me.

There's a bit of a misconception here. As an FP, I do not simply tra-la-la through life and then rely on my good looks to make the shots for me. I like to analyze things and try new techniques - just not when I'm shooting. Knowledge gained from books, videos, other players, etc has proven invaluable to my game. What makes me an FP is not a lack of knowledge, or even a lack of proper technique (some will disagree with that), but the fact that when I shoot a shot I rely on what FEELS right regarding alignment, speed, english, stroke quality, and so on, instead of what I CALCULATE to be right. Another big thing about being an FP is a lack of choreographed steps involved in getting into shooting position and shooting. What we lack in consistency in this area I feel we more than make up in relaxation and mental awareness.

Unless the balls are super clean I can shoot at a frozen kiss shot and either pull or push the first OB off the tangent line with draw or follow. This be very helpful in making these kiss shots that are very close but not quite "on".

Tom Bellhouse wrote:
> Very interesting, but how do you take shot length into account,
> when keeping that angle constant? Stand further away for long
> shots, closer for short ones?

I seem to be maintaining the view of the cue-ball instead of, say, the center of the cue-ball's path to the object ball. Except for stretch shots I can stand the same distance from the cue-ball while surveying every shot.

It would make more sense if I maintained perspective on a point more towards the center of the shot's action, wouldn't it? It works for me maintaining a perspective on the cue-ball. I suppose it could work equally well for other people using perspectives - object ball, cue-ball path's midpoint, etc. I think the important thing is to maintain perspective on something throughout the movement so your brain has something to tie the two images together.

A few nights ago I was sitting in the pool room having a few brews and there's this kid practicing 8-ball on the table in front of me. Someone had taught this kid some of the fundamentals of proper stance, stroke, follow-thru, etc and he appeared to be concentrating pretty well. What his tutor had apparently failed to tell him about was to keep a level cue.

Anytime this poor guy used any english he'd miss the shot. Then he'd set it up again and shoot it carefully - usually without english this time - and make it. This pattern went on for an hour or so, interrupted occasionally by him breaking the rack and sending the cue-ball flying at my head. He was trying the 8-ball break where you put the cue-ball near the side rail and hit the second ball back in the rack with draw. Since nobody had told him about keeping his cue level he was making a normal bridge on top of the rail. He was also striking the cue-ball well below center and shooting hard. After the fourth or fifth near miss I finally managed to catch his flying cue-ball in mid-air. I told him I would only give it back to him if he would listen to some advice on how to prevent it. Since he wanted his cue-ball back he had to agree.

I demonstrated a few good rail bridges and managed to convince him that he should strive to keep his cue as level as possible to prevent the cue-ball from curving or bouncing. I had to show him a few curve shots and jump shots to get my point across since he'd learned from his dad and his dad had never mentioned it.

The first time this kid broke with a level cue he snapped the eight in, so I had him hooked. We played for a while and I pointed out several small things like how sometimes he'd jump up from the shot too soon or he'd forget to chalk up before every shot, simple stuff like that.

I ran into him again tonight and he thanked me and told me that he'd learned something from just watching me shoot that was helping him even more than those things I'd specifically told him about, and that's the subject of this post. (This was before he started criticizing my stroke mechanics - that's another topic.)

Ever notice how just about all formal instruction on getting into a proper shooting stance starts with standing behind the shot, aligning various body parts with the line of the shot, then bending various other body parts to get into the stance itself? Why not just squat down and shoot? You'd have to change your alignment points before you squatted, but you'd end up with the exact same stance.

I think I know why you shouldn't just squat. The problem is going to be putting it into less than 1000 words and still getting my thoughts across clearly. But I really think this information can be valuable so I won't sacrifce clarity for brevity's sake.

First, and I hope everyone agrees with me here, shot angles are easier to see from an upright position. You don't see good players going around peering over the rails to plan their next shot. You plan your shots while your still standing up, while you can see the angles better. Once you bend into your stance, depending on how high your head is, you may still see the angle fairly well (upright like Bob Byrne) or you may only see a two-dimensional view of the balls (down low like Allison Fisher). The transition from seeing the shot well to being in position to execute the shot is critical. Ideally you want this transition to be smooth, so as you get into shooting position the view changes as slowly as possible - allowing your brain to keep up with the changing perspective. This means that information gained while standing up is (to your brain) still relevant once you get into your stance. There is no discontinuity caused by a too-abrupt change in perspective.

As an extreme example of this discontinuity, plan the shot while standing up then close your eyes as you get into your stance, then open them once you're set up. If you're like me at this point you have only a general idea of the angles involved in making the ball and moving the cue-ball into position for the next shot. The sudden change of perspective has caused your mind to throw out the information you obtained while standing. This discontinuity can happen any time the transition from standing to shooting position is too sudden for the brain to associate the two different perspectives into a complete image of the same shot.

So how do you minimize this discontinuity? By stepping into the shot instead of just getting into your stance. Find the shot while standing and keep looking at the shot as you move, straight along the shot-line, into your stance. This is what all the books and tapes say, but I've never seen any reasoning behind it, just references to choreographed consistency.

By paying attention to my pre-shot routine (such as it is, I'm an FP remember), it turns out that the angle formed with my eyes, the cue-ball, and the surface of the table is EXACTLY the same from the time I'm standing to the time I'm in my shooting stance. This cannot be a coincidence. It's just something I've unconsciously picked up over the years as the best way to get into position. It's like evolution. My mechanics have evolved, with no conscious thought, to the proper way to minimize this discontinuity. I think this is pretty darn cool.

My eyes in shooting position, are about 16" above and 28" behind the cue-ball. When standing my eyes are about 34" above the cue-ball. Run these numbers through some high school geometry and you can calculate the distance I must stand from the cue-ball to have the same viewing angle that I have in my stance. Plugging in numbers for other players' heights and in-stance head positions and you can figure out where they should stand to minimize the discontinuity. It turns out that more erect players should stand closer to the shot before getting into their stance and players with a lower head position should stand farther back. The chin-scrapers, in order to make full use of this, would have to stand back an impractible distance (people would think they were forfeiting the game) so they have to compensate for the increased difference in perspective by settling into their stance more slowly.

I hope this made sense. I plan to dig out my accu-stats tapes tomorrow and see if I can confirm that people are actually doing this.

I got into a little discussion with my newest student tonight about arm angles - specifically the angle between the grip forearm and the floor at the point of contact. Books will tell you that a proper stroke has the forearm pointing straight at the floor at the point of contact. My student pointed out to me that my forearm is perpendicular to the floor at the end of my final backswing, and that at the moment my cue hits the cue-ball my forearm is pointing forward about 30 degrees. He suggested that this indicated a flaw in my stroke. A summarization of the discussion that followed is here:

There are three type of strokes. One is what I call a "pull" stroke. The grip forearm is pointing down and away from the cue-ball at the point of contact. To accomplish this I would have to grip my cue at the very back end of the wrap. The second stroke I call a "coast" stroke. This is where the forearm is pointing straight down at contact, and this is what most books seem to recommend. The third type of stroke, and the one I use, I call a "push" stroke. The grip hand is nearer to the front of the wrap, and the forearm, at contact, is pointed down and forward as described above.

A pull stroke is so-named because you're still pulling the cue forward (with your bicep) at the point of contact and shortly thereafter. In a push stroke your bicep has taken a lesser role to other muscles by the time contact occurs. Your elbow drops as your shoulder continues to move the stick forward. I know this is considered by many to be a bad thing but I do have a point. The coast stroke is one in which, at contact, your bicep has no more work to do, and your shoulder doesn't get involved at all - the stick is more or less coasting.

Now I'm a feel player, and I didn't analyze any of this until years after my stroke had been established. As a feel player I just picked at some point the proper stroking style (for me). After thinking about this some I think I know why I ended up with a push stroke.

A pull stroke I feel is bad because I can't get the proper feel for the speed of the shot. I also don't think that the bicep is a good muscle to count on for the numerous tiny variations in speed that come up during play. A coast stroke affords me no feel for the shot whatsoever. There are no muscles active at contact. I could just as well throw the cue at the cue-ball and get the same feedback from the hit. I think I use a push stroke because it gives me the most feedback at contact. Everything from the shoulder down is active, and all those muscles moving gives me very good feedback - especially on the speed of the shot, but also for the amount of any spin I may be imparting to the cue-ball. Speed and quality of stroke can be infinitely adjusted with the bicep, the shoulder muscles, or a combination of both. Sometimes the triceps can even get into the act.

With a push stroke cue stick acceleration also becomes easier. Instead of relying on just the bicep to smoothly accelerate the cue through the shot, I can start with the bicep and add in the shoulder muscles as needed.

I know that the moment of contact is supposed to be so small that feedback becomes irrelevant. I know that many will feel that using a push stroke, with all those muscles involved, can add unnecessary complication to a stroke. But what I also know, and what's most important to me, is that getting a proper feel for each shot as I shoot it is a big part of my game as a feel player.

I welcome debate on this, but what I'm really interested in is what type of stroke the rest of you use. You MPs already know, but you FPs may need to actually stroke a ball and pay attention how you hit it. I'm curious as to whether any other FPs have also adopted a push stroke - possibly for the same unconscious reasons I have.

Ken,

I'm too lazy to go downstairs and get the book, but if I recall correctly what BB considers to be of "little use in actual play" is any SPIN transferred to the object ball. I think he does point out that this transferred spin can have a big impact on bank shots, but not on regular shots. I don't think BB feels that "get-in-english" is a viable tool.

Throw is of course different than transferred spin and I'd bet large amounts that BB points out many times how throw can be very useful.

Also, BB just posted here about some billiards research he's doing, so maybe he'll answer your question himself.

As long as we're on the topic of instructional books, I have a small gripe. Most, if not all, of the books I've read state that english on the cue-ball does not affect the path the cue-ball takes after contact. I've always felt this was a little misleading. The cue-ball path will always start out perpendicular to the line-of-centers at contact, right? What all of the books fail to mention (in this context) is that when you use english you've got to adjust the contact point to allow for the change in throw. This adjustment changes the line-of-centers, and that changes the tangent line that the cue-ball takes. So in a roundabout way using english DOES affect the cue-ball path after contact.

Of course, I've never written any books, let alone made any videos, so IMHO IMHO IMHO IMHO.

Mike Page wrote:
> Do you mean to suggest you can't have a stiff cue with a soft hit?

I made no such suggestion. There was no secret code message imbedded in the simple list I posted. I also made no attempt to define "Stiff Hit" or "Soft Hit". I simply listed listed the cues I've shot with in increasing order of Stiffness-Of-Hit - as I understand that term.

While of course every cue is different, and transient things like tip hardness can also affect the hit of a cue, I do think that they can be generally grouped by Stiffness-Of-Hit. Stiffness-Of-Cue is, IMO, a completely different thing and cannot generally be used to desribe any particular cuemaker's works.

As I write this there have been 53 messages posted to this thread since it diverged from the original "Stance question". And in these 53 posts, I haven't seen any outright trolls or from-the-hip responses like "FPs rule, MPs drool". We've stuck to the subject at hand, and not once has anyone stopped being polite and respectful of other peoples' opinions. This has got to be some kind of record.

I could spend the next few hours replying, one at a time, to the dozen or so messages that that been posted here since I last logged on - and I congratulate Ken B. on having the patience to do just that - but I'm taking the lazy way out and just replying to the group.

Being an FP does not mean that you lack knowledge or maturity. I don't think the MP who first suggested this meant any insult, but if someone suggested to me that my game was ignorant and/or immature to my face I would certainly take umbrage. I'd put my pool knowledge up against just about anyone, I just access that information differently than a typical MP would. As for an FPs game being immature, well that's one of those words that's insulting without being too specific, but again I have to disagree with the spirit of statements like that. How do you define maturity in a person's pool game? One way I define it is "Using knowledge, temperament, and ability to locate and execute the best shot in any given situation." Anyone who's progressed far enough has that ability, whether they're FP, MP, or whatever.

There has been some discussion here regarding memory. Some MPs have expressed the opinion that FPs lack the ability to recall shots, runouts, etc. I completely disagree with this. That fact that my mind is not focused on kinesthetic details for each shot means that I'm able to use those extra neural circuits for an awareness of the table that, IMHO, your typical MP simply does not have. I may not be able to decribe how I hit a certain shot with anything other than vague generalities, but I'll never say "Duhhh. What six ball?", and if you set the shot up for me again I'll not only tell you how I hit it, but I'll be able to hit it again, almost exactly much the same way, without needing to go through any choreographed steps to assure proper alignment, english, etc. How is this worse than an MP's ability to recall the shot in extreme detail? How does an MP objectively accurately explain shot speed, amount of spin, and amount of "punch" in a stroke? The answer is that you can't, and neither can an FP. The knowledge is, however, still there for the player's future use. Any inherent difference between MPs and FPs regarding memory is, IMHO, nonexistent. Some people remember things, and make use of that learned knowledge later, and some people don't.

Well I've managed to miss-hit a key and my browser is stuck in full-screen mode, so you people get a break for now. I'll cut this post short.

I think you've made a good point Tom. I know when my game is a little off I'll actively "practice" each shot in my head before I bend over and shoot it for real. Taking a couple of practice stroke into the air while envisioning the shot helps me complete the effect. When I'm shooting well, however, I don't need these mental rehearsals. I just see the shot, step into it, and let it go.

Tom Bellhouse wrote: (Blah)
> So I wonder if the MP vs FP dichotomy is really just a matter
> of level of analysis, conscious vs unconscious. The feel > player does analyze, but just uses different tools (imagery)
>fed by experience. None of this "1/3 tip of right English
>and a 5/32 hit on the object ball with 75% of available power"
>stuff. Just "see" the shot, and then make the real shot match
>the imagined one. Grip it, imagine it and *then* rip it.

Okay, let me see if I've got these straight. You people scoring at home can check me.

FP - Feel Player (obsolete?)
IP - Intuitive Player (replaces FP)
MP - Mechanical Player (obsolete?)
AP - Analytical Player (replaces MP)
ZP - Zen Player (hypothetical)
EP - Emotional Player

Let's add some more:

BP - Beginning Player (hasn't chosen a path yet)
RP - Random Player (keeps switching styles)
SSP - Secret Society Player
PP - What you do first thing in the morning

Ron Shepard wrote:
> Another way to tell what kind of player someone is is to ask
> them some question about some detail of a shot when they are
> in dead stroke. I think the FPs will just give you a blank
> stare and ask "what 6-ball?".

I don't think this is quite true. I can certainly recall things like where the CB and OB were in relation to each other and what path the CB took to the next ball. I'll also have a vague recollection of what english and speed were used on the shot, but to really recall those physical elements I'd have to set the shot up again, hit it again, and take note of how I hit it.

That's only for recent games and matches. Older memories are much fuzzier, although that may be due to age and alcohol. I do have a pretty good memory of some various key shots in the past, but again only circumstancial memory - not a complete play-by-play.

I think the examples you use about not knowing the day of the week would more readily apply to the hypothetical "Zen Player" than the "Feel Player".

Now, what were we talking about again?

Derek S. Ray wrote:
> lots of attention in about two hundred different directions

That's what I meant.

I figure I'll try to post this before Derek does since he and I seem to be in complete syncronization here. Maybe we should find a scotch doubles tournament somewhere to enter.

On page 133 of Capelle's 'A Mind for Pool' he lists 19 different definitions for Dead Stroke. I'm not going to enter that list here, not so much for fear of copyright infringement, but because I'm verbose enough without having to use someone else's words.

Of the 19 definitions listed, about 12 of them directly describe the FP style of play when it's going well. The other 7 are ambiguous and could apply to FPs and MPs equally. On page 134 the very first suggestion listed for getting into dead stroke is about as anti-MP and pro-FP as you can get.

Perhaps we could differentiate MPs and FPs like this: An MP is constantly striving to play their best, hoping for Dead Stroke, while an FP is constantly striving for (and expecting) Dead Stroke.

Think about it, you MPs who've experienced Dead Stroke. Did you maintain the same level of intensity, or did you "let go" a little bit and fall into a more FP style of play? I can guarantee that FPs who drop into Dead Stroke don't suddenly start analyzing everything.

Ron Shepard wrote:
> When things are working right, you can maintain mental focus
> for hours at a time. Mental exhaustion is not the main problem.

That's when things are working right, but what about when things aren't going so well? Say you're behind in a match and you know you just HAVE to run out to win. Does that force you to concentrate extra hard - even beyond the level you concentrate at when you're in stroke? I guess that's the scenario I was imagining would be mentally exhausting. Sure you feel great if you pull out the match, but can you jump right into another match with the same intensity? Also, what happens when, despite your best efforts, you fail in one of these pressure situations? That can be a pretty hard blow for the ego to take, having all that responsibility then falling short. How do you rebound from situations like that?

I've tried to play as an MP in the past myself, and maintaining that level of intensity proved to be nearly imposssible for me. Of course I also have the attention span of a three year old at a candy convention.

Richard Iachetta wrote:
> barenada says...
>> ...And don't even get me started on half-ball hits making 90%
>> of bank shots - it's like voodoo or something.

> Feel free to get started if you want. That sounds like a very
> interesting subject. Are you saying half ball hit most bank
> shots and control the rest with speed and english?

I'm still trying to figure this out myself, but of course I've got theories and (of course) I'm prepared to ramble on (and on) about them.

There seem to be 3 main categories of bank shots. One is a nearly natural shot where you hit the object ball close to head on. Another type requires a very thin hit. The third category is made up of shots needing a nearly half-ball hit.

The first category can usually be seen pretty well. The second category is usually the realm of one-pocket players and I'm not very good at them. The third category is the one that's freaking me out.

In one of Burt's tapes he keeps saying "Cue tip, thru the center of the cue-ball, to the outside edge of the object ball." Translated into regular speech patterns this becomes "No English and a half-ball hit."

After watching Burt make 100 or so bank shots, all the while repeating his mantra "Cue tip, thru the center of the cue-ball, to the outside edge of the object ball" I went downstairs and hit some banks. Anything that looked like it would require a nearly half-ball hit I just shot with no english and exactly a half-ball hit. The damn balls just kept banking in. It almost looked like I knew what I was doing. I remember telling myself that I wish I could bank like this in real life.

I think what's happening is that by taking contact point and english out of the list of variables you're only left with shot speed. Of course shot speed plays a very big part in determining the angle the OB takes off the rail, so you've still got a lot of potential paths for the OB to take off that rail. Eliminating the options for english and contact point does not have to stop the shot from going - as long as the "proper" contact is somewhere near a half-ball hit, then an actual half-ball hit, with the proper speed, can still make the shot.

The voodoo part, for me, is how effortless my banks have become. I put the OB on the footspot, the cue-ball on the head spot, and whack a half-ball hit at the right side of the OB. The OB banks back up into the left corner. I set up the same shot, but with the cue-ball two feet to the right this time, and a half-ball hit still puts the damn OB into the same corner. Obviously I'm varying my speed a lot between these two shots, since the english and the contact points are constant, but I'm completely unaware of making this adjustment.

A shot I've always had trouble with is this: Put the OB near the side rail, down-table a bit from the side pocket, and put the CB near the head spot. Try to cross over the OB and bank it into the opposite corner. I was about 25% on these shots until I started hitting them half-ball with no english. I'm probably about 70% on them now. I'm starting to look like a one-pocket player or something. Damndest thing I ever saw.

I know that a half-ball hit can produce the most throw, and that the collision speed also effects the amount of throw. Balls hit hard into a rail rebound at a greater angle than balls hit softly into a rail. So a softer half-ball hit will throw a lot, resulting in an apparent fuller hit, and open up the rebound angle, while a harder hit will result in an apparent thinner hit and a more closed rebound angle. You get an awful lot of leeway on a half-ball hit just by varying the speed.

Burt said himself that he didn't know why it worked as well as it did. I sure don't know either but it allows me to bank shots that I've never been comfortable with before. In the words of C.J. Wiley - "Hey, it works for me." And in the words of someone else - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Tom Simpson wrote:
> The best method I've found for this is to focus exclusively
> on the intended RESULT and shoot without hesitation -- faster
> rhythm. It works, but my MP side doesn't trust it. ;^)

The ego wants to take credit for any good thing you do. It has a hard time being stuck in the back seat. When a FP is shooting well the ego is constantly interrupting with "Quite a little run here, huh? Better let me take over so we can keep it going." And after a miss it's "See! I told you! You can't shoot without me. If you had paid more attention to that shot you'd still be shooting."

Every shot that works, the ego claims as its own personal victory, and every miss gets blamed on the body. More mechanical players almost never assign misses to miscalculations. Instead the blame is shifted to the physical side. Too hard, poor stroke, improper alignment, etc. Always trying to claim the credit or shift the blame - quite a little politician, that ego.

Well this is a topic that can really get me going. I'm afraid this will be a long post.

As a hardcore feel player (is that an oxymoron?) I can tell you that my game is either really on or really off. Wihout consistent mechanical elements there is much more reliance on proper and consistent mental state - and that's something both types of players have problems with. In the event of an attitude breakdown, a more mechanical (I don't like that term, sounds robotic and uncaring) player at least has sound fundamentals to prevent too much slipping in his/her game. A feel player without the proper mental state may as well have stayed home. On the other hand, I often break and run a rack of 9-ball in under 30 seconds - I sometimes even string 2 or 3 together like that - and when that happens I feel exhilarated. I would imagine that the more mechanical players would take 5 minutes and feel mentally exhausted at that point.

I'm extremely interested in how things work on the table and why. I buy books and tapes study and them for any new insights or pointers. Even thought I don't usually think about this information while I'm playing I'm sure it's still there waiting to be useful. Imagine a feel player's game as a car going down the road. The body is the driver and the mind is sitting in the back seat giving directions. Sometimes the mind can be very helpful and the body takes the advice, but other times the mind turns into your mother-in-law and gets you lost.

The proper balance between mind and body for a feel player can be an elusive thing, but when that balance is there it's awful hard for a player to miss. Watch a good feel player when they're well balanced. When they do miss they get the most amazed look on their face. If Bustamante ever misses watch him - I'm sure he'll look amazed. More mechanical players, upon missing, aren't nearly as surprised - after all it could have been a hard shot, with lots of throw and squirt to contend with. In their minds they're already justifying the miss and trying to isolate the cause. A mechanical player will replay the shot in their mind, filing away all they can remember about the angle, speed, spin, etc in hopes of using that information the next time a similar shot comes up. A feel player will will just go "Hmmm. Overcut that ball. That was weird" and that's about it. Then the next time the feel player faces a similar shot, the mind will say something like "Don't cut this one so much", and the body takes it from there.

When any of my students (that's too formal - maybe protoge would be better, but I don't know how to spell it) reaches a point where they're sound mechanically but lacking consistency I give them a stack of photocopied pages from my various pool books with descriptions of throw, swell, and cling. I also throw in pages from Jack Koelher's book - the ones talking about margin of error on shots of varying length. Ron Shepard's excellent Pool Physics paper is added into the mix. Once I've given my student a feel for the multitude of factors that all need to be accounted for in making any given shot work, I point out even commiting all that information to memory is only part of the battle. You still need to make allowances for the speed of the table, condition of the balls, the levelness of the table and, depending on how picky you want to get, things like humidity, temperature, and the cue tip thickness can all contribute to the dozens (hundreds?) of things that need to go right for any particular shot.

So say you've got access to all this information - and a Cray supercomputer to perform your calculations for you - so now you know with absolute certainty where to hit the cue-ball, what direction to hit it in, and what speed to use to make the shot work. This information is still just another part of the battle. Now you've got to get your body to execute the shot perfectly. I don't know about you guys, but my body movements are just not that controllable.

So without access to a Cray you can't figure out how to shoot the shot. And without perfect body control you couldn't hit the exact spot anyway, so the questions becomes "What the fuck are you aiming at?" At this point I introduce my students to the be the ball, may the force be with you, Obi-wan Mosconi style of play. Some people, in all honesty, decide at that point that I'm a crackpot and look elsewhere for instruction. Others take my advice and invariably move there game up a notch or two. - and enjoy themselves more because it's not as mentally taxing to play by feel.

But I ramble.

The point I'm trying to make here is that all players - even the most mechanical ones (I have one in mind but she's got a lot of fans and I don't want to offend anyone) - have to play at least partly by feel. And if you're willing to give up any part of your game to feel, why not at least try the next logical step and give your entire physical game to the right side of your brain, and leave the left side in the back seat for a while? Remember, feel players do not stop thinking about what they're doing. They just have more separation between the conscious, analytical parts of their game and the physical part of their game. A mechanical player will consciously think about things like what tip placement will get my cue-ball to a certain point for a next shot. A feel player will just trust their body to move the cue-ball correctly. It's a beautiful thing when it works.

> while the FP's are held back by carelessness and too little
> knowledge.

I'd say that that statement is half true. Lack of knowledge is not what's holding me back. Carelessness is one of those words with too many meanings, but caring about each shot is definitely a problem for me at times.

Tom Simpson wrote:
> This is not stance. This is shooting with a shaft that has a
> pivot point around where his bridge is, and not
> understanding what that means. You might want to check Deja
> on this.

Thanks, Tom. I understand that what Burt's doing is very similar to the latest squirt test. I brought it up because the original poster mentioned that Burt's tape said that one of the main goals of a proper stance was to allow for a perfectly straight stroke with no "steering". I also brought it up because my Schon has a pivot point of 14" and my bridge is between 6" and 8" - but using this steering method still works very well for me. Even with my normal bridge in front of the pivot point the deflection is reduced enough to allow me to play these shots the way I like them - by feel, without having to estimate the deflection and curve, if any.

All of the points you made about various body parts being in alignment are correct and right out of the book(s). In my own personal experience, however, paying attention to where things like your chin and nose are in relation to your foot and elbow, while also trying to pay attention to the shot-at-hand, can be counter-productive.

I know there are probably a lot more good players with "correct" stances than there are players like me with a more casual interpretation of a proper stance so IMHO IMHO IMHO.

If 100 people respond to your questions you'll probably get 100 different answers. Here are the general guidelines that I use:

1. Be comfortable. You need to be able to get in and out of the stance for hours if necessary. For example I can't have my left arm locked straight for very long without tension appearing in that elbow - so I keep it as straight as I can without locking it.

2. Have freedom of movement in your grip hand and arm. Whether you're pushing/pulling the cue during the stroke or just letting gravity do most of the work is not nearly as important, IMO, as making sure that your own body doesn't interfere with your cue's motion. I, for example, cannot play for any length of time with my head way down like a snooker player - it just causes too much tension in my right shoulder after a while.

3. Have your head over the cue and your eyes level wth the table. A lot of people will talk about finding your dominate eye then having that directly over the shot, but I've found that for me the proper position is with the right side of my nose over the cue. The main thing here is to be consistent. Shoot some long straight shots without paying attention to your alignment. When you've got the shot locked in pretty well have someone look at you and tell you what part of your head is directly over the cue.

4. Be balanced. I like to have my weight evenly distributed between both legs, so I end up bending both knees slightly instead of, say, bending my left knee and leaning forward from my straight right leg. I could jump straight in the air from my stance. Some people prefer a different weight distribution. I don't have hardly any weight on my bridge hand - just enough to keep it on the table.

5. Stand close enough to the cue-ball that you can follow-through without inducing any stress into your grip arm.

I do think that having your torso perpendicular to the line of the shot is a bad idea since that would make you lean over to the side to get your head over the stick, and then you'd have to crick our neck the other way to get your eyes level. But hey, I've seen some pretty good players with stances a lot stranger than that. Regarding Burt's advice, in The Deflection Tape he changes his tune a little bit about steering the stick. I'm still trying to figure out how it works at all - let alone as well as it does. And don't even get me started on half-ball hits making 90% of bank shots - it's like voodoo or something.

LePheaux wrote:
> Foxx led in with>
> I play a dead stroke game of 9-ball your supposed to say, ya
> dead stroke fer sure , so dead I can smell the stink from here.
> were gonna have to work on this a bit Dave, when I do the set
> up, you step up

Trashing someone's game just for trashing's sake has never been my style. I have to assume that they're always trying their best. Why take a chance that they'll be offended by my joking remarks? Well, there's actually one guy in Kent that needs the trash talk to keep his ego somewhat in synch with his abilities. So I'm constantly teliing him things like Helen Keller says she'll give him the 8 but the 7 is too much so stop asking. Or (referring to his $1500 custom cue) that I saw his cue was on sale at KMart. Or my jack-handle broke can I borrow his cue for a minute.

With anyone else about as far as I'll go is something like this: You shoot a ball in the corner, using high-right to move Whitey around the table three rails to break up a cluster. It's a beautiful stroke, but you miss the cluster by 2mm. "Most people would have tried to break that out", I'll say, or "Do you need a do-over?" Things like that are obviously well-intentioned.

You and I can (obviously) disagree on several things and debate them with varying levels of intensity, but we don't know each other well enough to start trashing each other's game when we're not even at the table, IMO.

Ken Bour wrote...
> Ahhhhh, another proponent of cueball last aiming.

...because I had written:
> I've found that when I'm shooting my best I focus on the
> cue-ball. My eyes hardly ever leave the cue-ball from the time
> I shoot a shot until I get ready for the next shot.

Actually once the cueball stops moving I shift my focus to the object ball and the line of the next shot. I confirm my tip placement by just flicking my eyes down to the cue-ball a few times, but from the time Whitey stops moving until I hit the next shot my focus is on the object ball.

On break shots I do just the opposite - I look mainly at the cue-ball and just flick my eyes up to the rack to verify my alignment. On the actual break stroke I'm staring a hole in the cue-ball. I need to do this on the break because otherwise I have a hard time hitting the cue-ball correctly on such a hard stroke.

LePheaux wrote:
> I went through a winning streak at the beginning of that 9-ball
> session, and was expecting to go up. didn't happen. I also went
> into a loosing streak lost 6 out of seven matches and it didn't
> go down. oh well.

I really can't help you with the 9-ball system, as I know nothing about it except that I don't think it should be called 9-ball when the main goal of the game has shifted from making the 9 to ball count.

> I would like to think that a LO , would go by the books and
> wait to see what the #'s are before setting an average.

They do go by the books - the League Operator Manual and the franchise agreement. The handicap system is more than a series of equations where you plug numbers into a computer and out pops a skill level. Things like handicap review boards and yes, LO evaluation are an integral part of the system and one of the best ways to prevent handicap manipulation.

I'm sure there are less-then-honest LOs out there who play favorites. In fact I seem to remember hearing about an LO who was threatened with losing his franchise over it. I think you are quite lucky to live in an area with a LO like Gene.

Do me a favor, Rick, and try to put yourself into an honest player's shoes for a second. Imagine you're a 6 playing a lower-rated player, and after your match you feel that your opponent was under-rated. You bring your concerns to the LO. What would you rather hear at that point - That the scores are the scores and that's it, or that the LO will look into it and determine if your concerns have any merit. Take away the League Operator's ability to adjust inappropriate skill levels and you give the sandbaggers a free rein.

> his job is to be UN-BIASED.

Assigning a skill level that he thought you deserved is not being biased. If he had assigned you a level he knew was either too high or too low, due to some altruistic or antagonistic feelings towards you as a person, then that would be biased. It sounds to me like your initial skill level was pretty close to the mark since you say it remained constant throughout the session. I guarantee that you were not locked into your initial rating. If your play had improved or degraded enough then your skill level would have shifted accordingly.

> I go with black and white, the actual #'s of the score sheet.
> To decide a persons average otherwise is dis-honest. cut and
> dried.

I'm sorry, did you just say that using anything other than the scoresheet numbers is dishonest? Aren't you the same person that recently admitted sandbagging to put false numbers on the scoresheet?

> some times I would start a season out as a 10, and loose a game,
> once ya go down from a 10, it's almost mathematically impossible
> to go back up do to the win lose system.

I had the same thing happen to me a couple of times, and it's true - it's really hard to go back up. Is this supposed to be a good thing? I imagine a guy who's a legitimate high 9 in BCA. He starts out as a 10, loses a couple games, then drops to a 9. Now he goes out and gets lessons, plays tournaments, whatever, and improves his game to the point where he's now a legitimate 10-level player. Because of the way this and similiar systems calculate the ratings this guy gets to play under-rated for the rest of the season - and you can't even call him a sandbagger UNLESS he dumped those early games on purpose (and we both know that never happens, right?)

> and there's no runaways because the other teams are in the same
> division are loading up there teams as well.

This works as long as you stay local. Will you at least admit that a team of 9's and 10's from, say, Maplewood Indiana, would probably get their hats handed to them by a team of 9's and 10's from Chicago? The win/loss systems do not give any indication of any given player's ability to play - just their ability to win against other players from their own division/city.

> I personally think in the long run the APA will graft ideas from
> other leagues and vice a versa.

There will (not) be a perfect handicapping system in any sport as long as there are people out there willing and able to sandbag. Well this thread has turned into quite the Rick and Dave show, hasn't it?

Mountain Mike^^ wrote:
> Dave, is it a fact that *innings* are the only criteria for your
> SL? For example, if a guy loses every match, but only takes 2
> innings per game, does his SL go down? What's the reasoning,
> please?

A few years ago I got into some legal troubles for being way too specific on how the system worked, and I'm not going to risk that again, but I think I can be vague enough to answer your questions and still keep the lawyers away.

In your example, if a player ends up with a 2 innings per game match for the night - whether he won 1 game in 2 total innings, 3 games in six total innings, or whatever, that's still shooting pretty good. It really doesn't matter how many games his opponent won, or who won the actual match. Our hypothetical player won, on average, every second or third trip to the table. If his opponent just happened to win, on average, every first trip to the table that takes nothing away from the fact that the first guy still shot pretty good.

Now this can be a bad thing at times. Several years ago I played against a 2, so it was a 7-2 race. I broke and ran the first 6 games, then made an early 8 in game 7. In game 8 my opponent didn't make anything on the break, and I ran out. While my 7-in-1-inning score did not affect my rating snce I was already a 7, that 1-in-1-inning score haunted that poor 2 for her next 19 matches. In fact she went up to a three because of that match. Some L.O.s will correct fluke scores like this to help eliminate this type of problem, but it's not required, and the L.O. in Omaha at the time did not do it.

Win/Loss is not a big factor in APA - it's mainly used to help prevent sandbagging, and I'm not going to get into how it's used.

The best, but not necessarily the easiest thing to do is just play and not worry about the handicap system. One thing that happens as a result of people like our friend Rick is that legitimate and honest players begin to fear they may be mistakenly over-rated, and that can naturally start people questioning the system and its reputed fairness.

Hope this helps.

LePheaux wrote:
> So your saying your a 6.

If I hadn't been frozen into being a 7 for the past 10 years, then yes, I'd say I'd probably have been rated a 6 when we met since I was at the tail end of a two-year funk.

> one good night or one bad night and blah, your rating is fixed
> for fucking ever doesen't go up or down,

Unless you've been frozen at a skill level your skill level can go down. There are several ways to get frozen. Unless you're a 7 your skill level can always go up as you either improve or stop sandbagging.

> what kinda cliquish shit is that all about, it god damn sure
> isn't the way an average is supposed to be obtaind.

It is the League Operator's right and responsibility to assign appropriate skill levels to skilled players, either as they enter the league, or as it becomes apparent that their current level is too low. Some L.O.s are more diligent at this than others.

> Nothing special there dave, I was called a sandbagger before the
> fact. so I didn't want to make Gene, and Kim and all your good
> buddies out to be liers.

Yes, I'm friends with Gene the L.O. You'll never meet a more honest and straightforward man. I don't know Kim nearly as well, but she's always struck me as honest as well. Both of them play at a strong 6 level and are more than capable of telling when somebody is dumping innings on purpose. Unless you showed them some speed I didn't see I can't imagine either of them thinking that YOU were a 7 sandbagging down to a 6. Your team-mates I don't know so I can't speak about them.

> Hell ya, I took three people who didn't have a snowballs chance
> in Miami. of ever going to the end, and showed them how winning
> feels.,

You showed them how cheating to win feels. You showed them how their team captain didn't think they head a legitimate chance to do anything.

> now now dave, it's nice to see your still such a staunch
> supporter of the APA. even after your shafting and all.

Funny, I don't ever recall being shafted regarding league play. I played that league for almost 10 years, and enjoyed all but my last session. Any shafting that took place was in the business side of things.

> But there are no monies in that goofy play off. just a little
> bitty trophey.

I'm not sure what kind of playoff money Gene's giving out these days. I do know that a large amount goes to paying teams' way to Vegas.

> by the way, when the sniveling little shit that lost to brian,
> wanted to see his ID. (Like i was able to pull one of my old
> aquantances from Florida all the way to Seattle to play in a
> league,ya right) That was it, in all the years of league play
> i have never ever been asked or even heard of someone being
> asked for an ID.

It's right in the APA rule book - you need an ID. And unless the laws in WA have been relaxed quite a bit since I left you also need an ID to even be in a bar there.

> were talking about a match previously played prior to the
> playoffs.

So you had warning that you'd need this guy to produce an ID before the playoffs, and you chose to ignore that warning. Then it bit you in the ass. Want some cheese to go with that?

> call me or my team sandbaggers before it happens, then they should
> expect it to happen.

Good thing nobody accused you of being a bunch of funloving, honest people, then you wouldn't have had any excuse to cheat.

> call me an asshole , well when provoked, I can be one major
> sphincter. Personally Dave I like you, and respect your pool
> playing abilities, and your opinions.

Well some of my best friends are assholes, just honest ones. I can also be turned away from my usual easy-going personality, and bringing up sandbagging is an easy way to do it. I really doubt that your posts are a good indication of your overall personality since I'm usually pretty good at first impressions, and my first impressions of you were positive.

Frankly I just don't understand this 'win at any cost' mentality. The second I found out that 7 was the highest skill level in the APA (then Busch) league, I knew that's what I wanted to be - a 7. Some people feel they'll have more fun if they can keep their rating down - and therefore win more matches. My theory has always been that if I could only play good enough, they could rate me a 17 and I'd still win. I'd much rather be a 7 with a 90% winning percentage than a 5 with a 100 percentage - especially if I had to be dishonest to stay at a 5.

> but the way Gene runs the APA here it is not Honest. so the direct
> insults you bear unto me should be redirected towards Geno.

I defy you or anyone else to give me any example where Gene has been dishonest - in running the league, playing, or in life in general.

> I did not start the feud, I only did what they accused me of
> before it happened.

Inner-city minorities have been using this excuse for decades in lame attempts to shift the blame for their crimes to someone else.

> and alas it would not happen at all if the average system was set
> up on a win loss record instead of an inning system.

I'd be happy to compare different handicapping systems with you. I've long thought that the APA's system, based on average innings per game, was pretty clever, and potentially quite fair. The problem with systems based on win/loss records is that each division/league/area has it own average level of ability. For example you could be a BCA "9" from a weaker area but if you moved into a stronger area you might only be able to hold a "7" rating. With an innings/game system it doesn't matter how strong your area is. A "6" in a weak area has roughly the same skills as a "6" form a strong area. Since the APA maintains its handicapping throughout the playoffs all the way to the National level tournaments, a straight win/loss system just wouldn't work - Teams from the stronger areas like Florida and Illinois would eat the weaker areas' teams for lunch. So what happens is that the win/loss based leagues like the BCA have to toss out their handicapping at the national level tournaments - which is only great if you're a strong team.

Well, I've gone off on another rant. I'd still like to grab some beers next time I'm up that way. Let's just agree not to throw them in each other's faces.

LePheaux wrote:
> The first season I played APA. My rating had been decided
> before ever pocketing a ball, Huh Dave.

Your skill level was established before you joined the league - because you and I spent three hours playing 1, 2, and 3 inning games in front of the League Operator at the Sports Pub.

(Blah)
> I decided to show the locals what sandbagging really was, so
> I taught the neighbors and coached my pal, on how to play
> safes, and up there skill level some.

Playing safeties is not sandbagging...

(Blah)
> it's as simple as playing a safety, and just not calling it.

...not calling them is not sandbagging. Not MARKING them is sandbagging, but it only works if neither scoresheet has the safeties marked.

I don't want to go off on a rant here, but it really takes a special type of asshole to sandbag. I mean, you not only need to be willing to cheat to beat players of your own caliber and above, you also have to be willing to cheat the beginners, social players, and serious in the league. So you sandbagged your way into the playoffs. Are you actually proud of that? Does it make you feel good to know that there are honest players who didn't make the playoffs because of your sandbagging? Some people join handicapped leagues because they're told they'll have a realistic chance of winning. Others see it as a great opportunity to help introduce beginning players to the game in a wholesome and fun way. And still others see it as an opportunity to cheat, lie, and swindle their way into prize monies and recognition they're too lazy or stupid to try to earn honestly.

Of course that's just my opinion - I could be wrong, but I don't think so. All handicap systems have their flaws, and all handicapped leagues have their sandbaggers. At least with the APA system sandbagging can be prevented. Just have the guts to mark any "non-performance" shots as YOU see them, and if the other team/players objects, tell them (nicely) to kiss your ass and mind their own scoresheet.

Keith D wrote:
> Focus on the table as you walk around it, I have knocked over
> a waitress and barely mumbled an apology (I apologized later
> and gave her a large tip) because I would not take my eyes
> off the table.

I've found that when I'm shooting my best I focus on the cue-ball. My eyes hardly ever leave the cue-ball from the time I shoot a shot until I get ready for the next shot. Often I find myself confirming that the object ball went in simply by the sound of it dropping, so great is the hypnotic power of the cue-ball as it moves into position for the next shot. I play and move around the table fairly quickly, and many times I find myself down in position ready to stroke - only to have to wait for the cueball to arrive at its intended location.

Trying to force this level of concentration by intentionally focusing on the cue-ball sometimes works, but usually not. I think for me the focusing is a symptom of my concentration level - not a cause. So it's not quite a chicken/egg thing for me, more like a chicken/chicken sandwich thing.

(This post is much too long - especially for the first serious thread I've tried to start in years. My apologies in advance)

I'm not sure where to start here - it's probably going to sound nutty no matter where I start.

I recently bought a house with an 8' Steepleton table in the basement. I didn't pay too much attention to the table until I had it leveled, shimmed, and covered with Simonis 860. Now it plays as well as can be expected.

I have a Schon cue that I paid $1000 for ten years ago, and a Joss that I just bought for $300 in December - mainly just to have something to shoot with while I was in Seattle on a business trip. My Schon weighs 20 oz. I'm used to this cue. The Joss weighs 18.2 oz, and it feels pretty strange in my hand - like there's nothing there.

I have a set of Brunswick Centennials, and also a set of generic balls that came with the table. Both sets of balls are in quite good condition, with similar levels of cleanliness and polish.

When I first started playing seriously on the table I didn't do very well at all. My speed-control was nowhere to be seen, and even the simplest shots seemed to be no better than a 50/50 proposition. This was with the Schon shooting at the generic balls. After a few days of playing like a chump, I started looking for excuses. I decided to change the tip on my Schon - even though the LePro on it was only about two months old and was holding up fine. While the glue was drying I decided to knock some balls around with the Joss. I hadn't played with it much in Seattle and was trying to decide whether I wanted to sell it or keep it. Playing with the Joss, and the generic balls, I fell straight into dead stroke and stayed there for two hours. It was like the damn stick had shape turned into it on the lathe, and shotmaking added in with the finish. I literally hadn't shot this well in over 10 years.

I figured I had finally gotten used to the new table. I invited my cousin - a pool newbie who, despite conflicting "advice" from several people who think Tom Cruise is a Pool God, has managed to focus on my instuction enough over the past several months to actually run a rack of 8-Ball now and then - over to shoot some games. Since this was to be the first official pool session in the new house, with the newly-recovered table, I broke out the Centennials for the special occasion. By this time my Schon was ready for use, and this time it didn't disappoint. I did not have the cue-ball on a string as I'd had earlier in the day but I shot what I'd consider my normal game. After the night's session was over I boxed the Centennials back up and put the generics back on the table.

The next day I went downstairs, hoping to recreate the previous day's exhilaration. Instead I was right back to where I'd been 24 hours earlier. I could hardly make a ball, and when I did manage to rattle one in my cue-ball would end up in a different zip code than the one I'd intended. This, again, was using the Schon with the generic balls. Unwilling to become the Roy Hobbs of the pool world I set out to determine the cause(s) for my inconsistency.

Now I'm not a scientist, and while I do know a little about scientific methods, I'm not claiming to have used any of them here. I just tried some stuff and I'll report the results along with one possible interpretation. In two consecutive outings with my Schon and the generic balls I'd managed to stink up the place. I'd shot very well with the Joss at the generic balls, and I'd also shot well with the Schon at the Centennials. I was starting to sense a pattern, but I ran thru each scenario to make sure.

I like to practice a version of Bowlliards (sp?). I get a free break shot at a rack of ten balls, and I get ball in hand after the break. Scratches on the break are not penalized. I get two innings to run the ten balls, and it's scored like bowling. Most people on this group have probably heard of it. I like to use it for practice, and for me I think it gives a pretty good indication of my current overall offensive skill level. I decided to use my favorite practice game to test myself with the two different cues and with the two different sets of balls. I played five "games" with each pairing. After each "game" I would switch to a different pairing so as not to get stuck in a rut with a certain pairing. Here are the results:

Scenario 1 (Schon and generic balls) 85,174,123,130,151 = avg. 132
Scenario 2 (Schon and Centennials) 204,244,190,237,213 = avg. 217
Scenario 3 (Joss and generics) 272,266,201,199,230 = avg. 233
Scenario 4 (Joss and Centennials) 112,127,128,160,153 = avg. 136

I should probably throw out the 85 score since that was the first set I played, and I should probably also throw out the 272 since my cat jumped onto the table and broke up a small cluster for me in frame 6. But even after throwing out the high and low scores for each set there's still a pretty huge difference between the four scenarios. So what was the deal? Was my $1000 Schon to good for the generic balls? Were the expensive Centennials somehow intimidating the $300 Joss? I know the caste system is alive and well in many parts of the world but I didn't expect it to show up on my pool table. I looked for a better explanation.

I did some squirt-comparision tests with the Joss and the Schon. The test I use is to freeze an object ball to the middle of the foot rail, and place the cueball on the head spot. I then track where I need to aim to "cut" the object ball into the far corners. I used the generic balls for these tests. The Joss requires a point-of-aim that is about 1/3 of the way into the object ball. The Schon does not seem to need quite as much compensation but it is very close to being the same.

As I mentioned before, the two sets of balls are of the same playability. I did some throw tests shooting frozen combination down the length of the table and both sets throw about 4.25" over that length. The size and shape of all of the object balls and the cue-balls are as identical as I an tell by eye. Their difference is in weight. I don't have a scale, but I can tell by a blind pickup test that the Centennials are all heavier than the generics. I did this test enough times to convince myself that this is true - the generics are lighter than the Centennials.

The cues I do know the weight for - I had the Schon weighed years ago after I put a heavier weight bolt in it, and the MBE people weighed the Joss when I shipped it from Seattle.

Looking at the results from my practice sets again, this time taking into account the relative weights of the objects involved, and it turns out that:

1. I shoot the heavier balls better with the heavier stick, and I shoot the lighter balls better with the lighter stick.
2. I suck if I shoot the light balls with the heavy stick, and I also suck shooting the heavy balls with the light stick. Those are the observations I have made. Now is where I have to come up with a possible explanation for them.

The main thing that remained consistent between all of the stick/ball pairings if, of course, the shooter. Things like my stance, follow-through, chalking habits, and the like did not change noticeably just because I was holding a different cue. Likewise my arm speed remained constant, and that, I think, is where a clue to the solution to my conundrum lies.

Again, I'm not a scientist, and it's likely that the scientists who frequent this group will pick my logic to shreds, but here's what I think is happening.

Assume that these generic balls that came with my table are the lightest balls I've ever shot. This may be the case but I haven't been carrying a scale around for the last seventeen years so I don't know. Now, since the generics are the lightest it (duh) follows that every other set of balls are heavier. So every other set of balls I've ever shot with has been (weight-wise) more like my Centennials than my generics. Since I've had my Schon for ten years that means that I've been shooting at heavy balls with my Schon for ten years. Everything about my stroke is tuned to shooting balls with approximately this same weight. My body naturally knows how hard to shoot to get a certain amount of draw, follow, or whatever. My body is able to automatically allow for squirt or swerve with these balls and this cue.

Now take the same shooter (me), and the same cue (Schon), and stick in some lighter balls. Since the shooter is using the same built-in be-the-ball shooting style his arm speed is the same as always. But since the same stick is being driven with the same speed into a LIGHTER cue-ball that cue-ball is being driven forward HARDER than it should be. All kinds of things result. The main thing to go wrong is position play. Since every shot is really being shot harder than it feels, draw and follow seems to mysteriously increase, and the shooter's heretofore automagic squirt compensation doesn't work right either. Hand the shooter (me again) a lighter cue (Joss) than the cue (Schon) than he is used to, and have him shoot at these same balls.

Now the shooter can use his tried-and-true shooting style with much better results. The cue-ball speed is back down to where it should be. Proper position play is restored, and even squirt compensation feels more normal.

Continuing to torment our shooter (guess who), we now force him to shoot at the heavier balls (Centennials) with the lighter cue (Joss). With the same stance, stroke, arm speed, follow-through, blah, blah, the shooter still feels like everything is fine mechanically. But now the lighter cue is transferring LESS energy to the cue-ball. All shots are actually SOFTER than they feel. This appears as apparent understroking of shots, and results in position play at least as bad as the overstroking from two paragraphs up.

At last we allow our shooter some dignity, and let him shoot the heavier (Centennial) balls with the heavier (Schon) cue. His game returns to it's former glory, since this is after all the weight pairing he's been shooting with since 1983.

Well to anyone who's made it this far into this post (without cheating and just skipping to the end) I thank you. I think I can sum all of above into a couple of questions:

1. Can a different stick/ball weight ratio than one the shooter is used to seriously mess up a person's game, especially if they shoot, like me, with the Obi Wan Mosconi play-by-feel style.
2. Remember those el-cheapo cues with the removeable washers for quick weight changes that the chumps were all carrying 10 years ago? Does anyone know if Tim Scruggs makes a cue with this feature? ;)

This post is meant to be serious, but since I am the same person that used to carry different chalk brands around for different type of shots I guess I'll understand if nobody takes it seriously.