Get Off The Skids

[L.S. Dennis]

I recently read an article written by Mike Sigel entiteled 'Get Off The Skids' in which he talks about the phenomena of skidding balls on the pool table. In it he says:

"Skids can potentially come up on any angled shot, especially with plastic balls here to stay, and it doesn't matter how far apart the cue ball and object balls are. There are two major causes: hitting the cue ball softly, and hitting it with follow. As you might expect, the two ways top pros override the dangers of skid are increased cueball speed and low spin".

My question is; why is hitting a high cue ball more likely to produce 'skid' than hitting a cue ball with draw? I can understand why hitting a ball softely might cause the object ball to skid some (especially if the balls aren't very clean, but I can't understand the former assertion!
Then again, who am I to argue with Mike Sigel!

Can someone give me a little course in physics?

Thanks

Draw on the CB will induce follow on the OB and therefore give it a little goose. Whereas follow on the CB induces slight draw on the OB and, under the right conditions, causes the OB to stall or skid. Makes sence, I hope.

[L.S. Dennis]

This would make perfect sense on shots that are head on, but is this really true on angle shots as Sigel alludes to?

[DSAPOLIS]

The person you should ask about skid is Bob Jewett. Also search on google and you'll find plenty of discussions about this on the RSB board, with explanations from Bob Jewett and Ron Shepard.

here's a link

Discussions on skid (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=skid&meta=group%3Drec.sport.billiard)

[Paul_Mon]

Here's a link to this topic from a few weeks ago. I was convinced that follow transfered to draw but found out it was chalk induced.

web page (http://www.billiardsdigest.com/ccboard/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=ccb&Number=65584&fpart =&PHPSESSID=)

[Rod]

Limiting it to soft or top is not quite correct, center ball will do the same. Plastic balls with even a spec of dirt/chalk etc at the contact points will slide. New slick cloth magnifies the effect. Low and throw english prevents this from happening. While top or center doesn't put draw on the o/b (it skids) because it does not allow it to turn over on contact as low does. I haven't read google or such but that's my 2 bits worth.

Rod