Making Extreme Bank Shots
9/30/2006 3:30:11 AM
Making Extreme Bank Shots
Hello,
I am looking for help, tips, suggestions, or whatever on making bank shots. Specifically, I am looking for help with extreme bank shots where the object ball is tight on the rail and you have to perform an extreme cut shot to be successful. Thanks!
Making Extreme Bank Shots
Replies & Comments
Ross on 9/30/2006 3:37:44 AMAhh the beloved bank shot! I generally try to avoid them whenever I can, but some of the other guys I play with have no problem. I don't like them because of the degree of difficulty they present, and the lower degree of success they offer as compared with other available shots.
The shot you described, where the object ball is frozen solid to the rail, is one of the toughes ones to make. Play it with too much force, and you'll end up double-kissing the cue ball.
But to answer your original question, there is no secret or trick. You just need concentrated practice at the table. Do practice drills for this type of shot, and before you know it, you'll be making them more often, and with more accuracy.
jana on 9/30/2006 3:45:37 AMExtreme cut shots are difficult to play when you're not banking. If you can acheive a success rate of over 45% on this type of bank shot you are certainly doing well; go out and attend to your groupies because you must be a pro player.
The question you should be asking is this: Should I be playing a shot with such a low success rate?
Sometimes you will have no choice, but mostly you'll have other options.
kyle on 12/14/2006 8:02:55 PM
When you cut a ball the colision will put spin on the object ball (ei. if you're cutting the ball to the left, the object ball would pick up counter clockwise spin) if you were banking this ball you'd miss it fat. To compensate for the imparted spin you can, over cut the shot,hit the shot firmer to straighten the angle, use "outside" spin (on cue ball) to check the spin on the object ball.
kellystick on 5/5/2007 8:07:49 PMWell I'm confused. Are you banking or cutting down the rail? Frozen balls are very problematic for banking. In fact, is it really frozen or is it 1/4"? 1/2" away? These are very different shots potentially. There are numerous banking systems that can help. One thing you need to know is when the bank is nearly impossible or otherwise just plain VERY hard. When a double kiss is inevitable don't bank. I know this is not much help but this one is hard to describe. My shortest advice is don't expect to make a bank that is impossible. Somoene will take exception to my word imnpossible so let's call it EXTREMELY low percentage shot. Are you cutting or banking?
Plumb on 5/19/2007 9:04:18 AM
If it's a really extreme cut, you can actually try to just miss the object ball then kick it towards the pocket off the rail with spin. It has to be frozen for this to work though. It's actually not a crazily difficult shot to try, but very difficult to play with real consistency.
To give an example, say the object ball is frozen to the middle of the end rail and the cue ball is down the table a ways and a little bit left of middle. You can cut the object ball by playing the cue ball with heaps of right hand side spin (aim has to compensate for deflection, heh, it's not easy), aiming to hit the rail just to the left of the object ball. The right hand side spin will kick the cue ball off the rail sharply, cutting the object ball into the right corner pocket.
Act nonchalant if you pull one of these off with pool novices, like it's just another easy shot.
In general, if cutting frozen balls into corner pockets, you should use a little bit of check side to keep the object ball from kicking out away from the rail. So if you were cutting a frozen ball to the left, use a little bit of left side spin to compensate for the kick, the kick where as already said the cue ball would spin counter clockwise and away from the rail. This also means you can cut the ball a little fatter since the check side is throwing the ball in the direction of the rail.
Oops, my mistake, the question is about bank shots, not cutting frozen balls down the rails.
The rules for banking are fairly simple in my experience. Aim and hope. No seriously, never hit a bank shot too softly if you want to aim it true, I'm not sure why but when you hit them too softly the object ball will straighten off the rail and you lose the angle you played for.
It's got something to do with how the rail reacts with the object ball, it always bends slightly as the ball impacts it which effects how the ball moves away from it. Not sure of the exact physics involved though.
It's not that they can't be played softly, but doing so effects the line of the shot for banking into the pocket.
It's especially necessary to play the shot with pace if the ball is frozen against the rail and you need to make an extreme reverse cut to bank it. I'm not actually sure why, but if you hit the ball softly the ball won't bank much back towards you.
In terms of aiming them, I'm not one much for aiming systems, I do have an aiming routine though, it is as follows:
stand behind the pocket, looking at the object ball, then move to the side until behind the cue ball maintaining eye contact with the object ball while doing this. Hopefully, if you maintain eye contact with the object ball while moving from pocket to cue ball, your brain will see and remember the line that banks the object ball into the pocket.
one last thing, the rule of hitting the ball with pace while banking changes if you're trying a double bank, or a triple as I know it, i.e. banking off two rails. You need to hit this shot as softly as possible to keep the ball from reversing off the second rail. For some reason the sharp rail edges of the nine-foot style of pool table induce this effect. You can test this easily by playing a triple with pace and seeing how the object reverses off the second rail, coming back towards you.
- kellystick on 5/22/2007 9:21:33 PM
Well you have not even responded to your own post and responses to you post. I'm still not real clear on your question. As far as I;m concerned no response from you (cuebald) means we don't really need to try helping you.
cuebald on 5/23/2007 4:32:58 PM
Sorry for not getting back, as I've been busy, but I have been reading the replies and they are really helpful. I was talking about bank shots specifically, and ones that are either close to, or directly touching the rail.
Thanks though for the other info on doing hard cut-shots and sending object balls direct down a rail. I've been able to successfully perform these shots now.
- kellystick on 5/23/2007 9:25:51 PM
I think I might understand your question... Maybe. bank shots, OB close to rail, "Extreme bank shots" are the words that confuse me and also "where the CB is tight" on the rail. What I think you are describing still covers a lot of territory. If I have a bank where the OB is "tight" or close to the rail I like to first go take a look at it. As in, walk over to it and look down at it directly from above it to see just how "tight" it is. To me this "tightness" can be very critical to how you shoot. The amount of "tightness" changes the shot potentially immensely. Also, the angle is critical. A back cut is OK maybe. A near-ish head on cut can approach impossible due to double kiss. You have to learn what is impossible.
Close to the rail shots are what I call "deceptive shots". They don't follow the normal intuitive rules of physics that some other shots do. You need to learn these by practice and recognize them. That's why you look at the OB very closely. This is not necessarily to be able, at least early on, to know exactly what to do. But rather to recognize that this is a "deceptive" shot and try to compensate. Speed, spin, and of course stroke affect how the OB will rebound. Avoiding the double kiss can be critical. Don't pretend you can avoid it if you just do something improbable, know you can. OF course you have to experiment. Often draw away from the OB can help. But it is not a cure all.
So, Look at the OB, mentally store the distance from the rail, mentally store the angle of rebound of the CB and the required OB angle to the pocket, take aim and try to figure the right shot, shoot the shot, watch what happens, Shoot easy enough to see what happened, analyze what happens, think about what happened either good or bad, try to understand what happened, make sure you had enough control to know exactly how you shot the shot... Pull all this together into your own personal pool shooting database in your head. When you miss don't walk away disgusted! Think! Watch! Pause and try to understand or at least store all the variables and make sure you don't repeat the same mistakes.
Making Extreme Bank Shots
- Title: Making Extreme Bank Shots
- Author: cuebald
- Published: 9/30/2006 3:30:11 AM
