Patrick Johnson opined... > Less squirt.

Of course you're right. When I took away most of the squirt then the swerve became the dominant factor, whereas with my old shaft I had them working in pretty good harmony.

After several hours tonight I've got my stroke adjusted to eliminate the swerve effect (for the most part), and so I reran my spin test. I can now report no appreciable difference in sidespin range between the new 314 and my old shaft. I did notice a tendency to over-draw the ball alot with the 314, but I'm prepared to assign responsibility for that to the fact that the 314 has a softer hit than the Schon shaft.

I still can't do a valid squirt test with the 314. The pivot point is somewhere in my butt (of my cue :)) and the friction caused by the finish, along with the very awkward stroking position, makes a consistent squirt test impossible.

Another thing - I'm unable to jump very well at all with the 314 on my cue. Even with the Schon shaft I'm no Sammy Jones, but I can clear most reasonable obstructions. With the 314 it pretty much needs to be a Hellen Keller jump shot for me to be able to clear the obstructing ball.

And another thing - When I first played with this thing this afternoon it was 52 degrees in my basement. Tonight for my practice I had the temperature at a more reasonable 70 degrees. This certainly affected my cushion performance but I'm not sure how.

I have two. First is a "stun-run-thru" shot where you hit slight above center and firm to, in theory, follow a short distance. This is supposed to be better than slow-rolling in many cases. My control of the amount of follow with these shots is laughable.

Also, controlling the amount of draw when I have to elevate my cue is very tough for me. I can stop the cue-ball, and I can draw it back the length of the table. Anything in between is pretty much random for me. My draw control is fine unless I have to elevate my cue.

Just purchased a 314 shaft for my Schon from Joe Salazar's table at the Derby City Classic. After I got home I knocked some balls around with it. Here are my initial impressions:

1. Sound. The sound is a lot quieter than with my old shaft. The familiar "tink" is gone, in fact there is no metallic sound at all. It sounds like my cousin's McDermott.

2. The squirt test. I couldn't get the CB to spin in place before I ran out of shaft to pivot from. I guess this means that it's a lot less squirty than my old shaft, which had a pivot point of 14".

3. Maximum spin. I put the CB on the foot spot and shot at the center of the head rail with maximum right. With lag speed, and using a conventional straight stroke, I consistently hit about 4" to the far side of the side pocket. With my old shaft the best I could do with a conventional stroke was to hit the point on my side of the pocket (to my great shame). With a swerve stroke and my old shaft I could hit the far side of the pocket by 4" fairly consistently. With a swerve stroke and the 314 I can regularly hit the rail 8" to the far side of the pocket. I am getting more english with the 314.

4. More squirt. When shooting the shots in #3 with the 314 I noticed that the CB was hitting an inch or so to the right of the head rail's center diamond. With my old shaft, and a swerve stroke I hit the center diamond dead-on. I could not see any obvious CB curve to the right with the 314, so I don't know why I kept hitting to the right of my aiming point.

5. Things that make this unscientific. My 314 shaft is about 12.5mm, and my old Schon shaft is about 13.25mm. The 314's tip is tighter than a dime radius, and the Schon's tip is right at a dime. The 314's tip was a little thicker, but my Schon's tip is only a couple of weeks old so it's still pretty thick.

6. Things that bias the observer. I bought the 314 expectng it to behave exactly the way it is, except for the noise which I had no preformed notions about. It is possible that I subconsciously modified my stroke to favor the 314 in these tests.

One of two great lines I heard this past week. Perhaps Fred remembers the other one.

Old guy is playing Tang Hoa in 9-Ball, losing badly, and says, "You're a pretty easy opponent."

Tang jerks his head around and asks, "What makes you say that?"

Old guy responds, "All I have to do is kick every now and then, and rack. Pretty easy."

My first table was a 3x6 bar table. Heck, for a while I had it shoved into a corner of my living room and I could only shoot from two sides. I think any pool table is better than no pool table. In the case of a 3x6, I think you'll find it makes for pretty good practice of cue-ball control and cluster breaking. If you play a lot of 8-ball on a 3.5x7 then practicing on a 3x6 could help your game a lot. If you play a lot of 9-ball then it won't help you as much since cue-ball control is not as critical, but again, even a small table is better than no table, IMO.

Another thing about smaller tables - there aren't any long shots (duh) - so you'll probably have more runouts than you might have on a bigger table. This can really help your confidence and make solo practicing more fun.

I wouldn't pay much more than $300 or so for a 3x6 table. Most of the time when these things go up for sale it's because either the owner (a)bought a bigger table, or (b)just didn't want the table anymore. In either case they're usually pretty anxious to sell.

barenada wrote...
> Patrick Johnson wrote...
>> What does "takes a different angle off the OB" mean?
>
> I was talking about the fact that, using this method, I
> don't have to allow for squirt, so I don't have to
> compensate in selecting my CB/OB contact point. I can
> use the same contact point I'd be using with no english
> at all. So the path the CB takes off the OB is different
> than it would be if I had allowed for squirt and moved my
> contact point accordingly.

Dave you don't know what you're talking about. The CB/OB contact point can't change if you still want to make the shot. Saying the contact point was different just because you weren't allowing for squirt was just plain stupid. If you had gone to the trouble of actually going and shooting some shots you'd have realized that the reason that the path the CB takes off the OB when you're using this fancy new swerve stroke is different is because you're not getting as much follow/draw as you would with a more conventional stroke. This can be confirmed by using your fancy swerve stroke on some plain-jane english shots - no follow or draw - and noting that in these cases the CB path off the OB is identical to what you'd expect with a regular stroke.

tom simpson wrote:
> Dave,
>
> How are you doing the Kinister/Hall et al swerve without
> involving your wrist? As far as I know, curling the wrist is
> the whole idea. It's how they pivot the stick on the hit
>stroke.

I'd say when I do it my it's my forearm and elbow making the swerve. I haven't had a chance to tape myself to see what's really happening yet, but I'm sure it's not my wrist because when I tried to do it with just my wrist I was barely able to hit the cue-ball at all. I just kind of swerve the tip like I'm trying to "rub" the english on. I'll tell you it's a lot easier to do that it is to describe. My tip stays pretty level during the stroke - at least as level as it can for someone with a push stroke like me. I have no trouble hitting the CB high and getting the desired results, so there mustn't be too much of a dip - other than the shooter himself :) - involved.

tom simpson wrote:
> I'm wondering whether the twisting motion it takes to
> execute this stroke might be causing additional CB curve? In
> both the outside and inside twists, the wrist is curling
>sideways and UPward, which will make the tip swipe sideways
>and DOWNward into the CB. This additional curve effect (if
>it's real) would wash out against the squirt. Anyone?

I can't really comment on this, since I don't really get my wrist involved. That takes more coordination than I've been blessed with. It does make sense though that introducing a downward component to your stroke could cause a bit of a masse' effect. If this is happening, I'd say that a curve is even less desirable than squirt (At least squirt is straight). Of course for shorter distances the curve may not have time to "take" so this may still be better than having to allow for squirt when using a more conventional stroke.

Just thought I'd throw in my $.02 here.

After watching Bert's deflection tape I tried his technique out on a type of shot I've always had trouble with - hard hit shots nearly straight-in with top right or top left.

The fact is, for me, that steering the cue tip into the cue-ball contact point instead of using a straight stroke into the contact point has GREATLY reduced squirt-induced misses for me on these shots.

The amount of english seems to be the same, but the CB takes a different angle off the OB (don't have to allow for squirt) so it's kind of hard ot tell for sure - it's certainly very close to the same amount.

As Tom just pointed out, the physics here are very similar to the squirt test in the FAQ. What I found is that for me at least my bridge doesn't need to be at the pivot point. Perhaps the difference is because I'm not shooting straight along the revised line, I'm curving my tip into the CB.

Tom's right. Just because it's in a book (or a tape) doesn't make it gospel. But then again, just because Tom doesn't do it doesn't make it undoable.

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.