(CBC) About Cue Ball Control and How to make it work

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I wrote this book to reveal how easy it is to control the cue ball and move it around the table. It is amazing how easy it is to get precise shape when you know how to use carefully applied cue ball spins and speeds. Control of the cue ball is really easy to learn – when you finally realize you need to know how to precisely hit it with your cue tip.

Each Cue Ball Control exercise/post provides ways to successfully play a common layout. Each layout describes how to get the best results. With study and practice, you will rapidly learn how to master and manage the cue ball.

Instead of casually learning through thousands of failed shots, these layouts rapidly teach you how to intentionally manage cue ball position and shape for the next shot.

CBC Clock System

If you look at the cue ball from the viewpoint of the cue tip, you can divide the ball into a clock image. In the example, lines show 1:30, 3:00, 4:30, 6:00, 7:30, 9:00, 10:30, and 12:00. When shooting the shot,

ALL shots with clock hits are exactly 1 cue tip out from center. This is precisely consistent through every shot in the book. Here are the examples of the spins:

12 o'clock spin	1:30 spin	3 o'clock spin	4:30 spin
6 o'clock spin	7:30 spin	9 o'clock spin	10:30 spin

Shooting with spin

When you are shooting the cue ball along the vertical center line, aiming at the object ball is fairly straightforward. Generally, you can use one of the various aiming techniques, such as ghost ball, equal slices, line of sight, contact points, or even (after shooting enough balls), instinct. These all work fine for stun, 12:00 and 6:00 cue ball hits.

But, what happens when you start contacting the cue ball to the left or right of the vertical center line? Suddenly, you have to take into account squirt, deviation, curve lines, all of which are affected by stick speed. With side spins, the old aiming standbys don't work anymore.

There is only one real and practical way to guarantee you can make a ball with various cue ball side spins and speeds. Set up an easy shot and shoot it using a graduated series of shots that rotate through the various cue ball spins at one speed. You are successful when you can constantly make the object ball without regard to spin. Then increase the speed of your series of shots to a faster level. Repeat until you are consistently successful regardless of side spin.

To expand your abilities, move the cue ball a diamond further away and repeat. Do this until you can easily handle side spin on shots up to four diamonds away from the object ball.

This will take a lot of effort to make adjustments even for a separation of one diamond. It can require several hundreds (even thousands) of shots under these controlled circumstances to master and automatically adjust your aiming.

Nonetheless, if you want to advance your abilities on the table, there are times when you must be able to play a shot with carefully applied side spin. Do not be discouraged by misses in the beginning. Your mastery will take time and effort – but you will eventually have the control you must own.