In the desert

[yegon]

I just stumbled upon the BSACA website yesterday and remembering the discusion from about a month ago I went through the material there. One thing came to my attention a rung a bell with me. It was in a review of their instructional videos. In a part talking about aiming was this:

("let's say there are no rails on the table; let's say we're in a desert")

as soon as I read that a picture from my last tournaments came to my mind. I lost almost all of my matches because of too many pocketing errors. Most of them were cut shots (nothing severe 5-30 degrees) with object ball in the center part of the table. After reading this I realized that the reason why I can pot much harder cutshots with object ball near the rail is that I use the rail as a reference point that helps me to zero in on the contact point on the cue ball.

So how can I help myself when the object ball is far from the rails? Any ideas?

[Rod]

Use an imaginery rail extended to the pocket. Just imagine your hitting the o/b and the rail at the same time. This is what you do when a shot goes in down the rail when frozen.

When you shoot rail shots pay attention to how much of the o/b you hit at various angles. When the o/b is at a 30 degree cut on a rail, it's the same contact point in the center of the table at 30 degrees.

It may help you to know at 30 degress it's roughly a 1/2 ball hit. Once again it's the same on a rail as it is in the center of a table.

Rod