[pool2da]

I was watching a bank shot instructions last night on utube by a name of forcefollow or I think that was the name but it was pretty interesting and some thing that I did not know. He was saying that there are many ways to figure out a bank but most pros try to stay away from banks because there is so many variables and the percentages of making that shot is lower. With that being said how do you go about figuring a bank shot?

[Pin]

There are a lot of variables in banking:

- Cushions on different tables, and even sometimes different parts of the same table, can react very differently.

- The roll on the ball will affect how it comes of the cushion - try banking the cb, first with stun, then with follow, then with draw, and see how they affect where the CB ends up.
- Then try it again with runnning and reverse english.
- Then try with a combination of running top and reverse draw.

- If it's the OB banking, people tend to feel the power of the shot dictates the angle. In fact, the influence of power is mostly indirect: If you slam the ob, it's probably sliding when it hits the cushion. Play it soft and it's probably picked up natural roll by the time it gets there.



It's really a lot to manage, so I try to play these shots by feel instead.

First I work out what pace and roll I want on the OB, then I look at the cushion and my target, then I try to feel how the ball has to come off the cushion.

Then I trust my instincts, get down, and shoot (with the power and cb action I have planned).


For me it works. Experiment with it, start with simple banks and try to get a feel for different angles and different power and roll on the balls.

Let me know how you get on. If it works for you, keep it. If it doesn't, think about trying another system.

Or just ask Fast

[Pelican]

Throw 15 balls on the table. Take ball in hand and set up a bank. Keep track of how many shots it takes to sink all 15. If you don't have a good bank move something. Do this everyday for 6 months and watch how dramatically your shot count will drop. It works.

I agree with Pin. I do not use any system, I just 'see' the bank and shoot it. Study long study wrong.

Later, Pel

[pool2da]

That is exactly the way I have always shot it, just by looking and seeing the angle. The system that forcefollow showed he actually laid all of the angles out with chalk on the table. It looked easy enough and I never though of it. Of course you would have to visualize the lines during a game as well as no one is going to let you mark their table up. I have not got to a table to try the system out. It will still be a couple more weeks before I get home to try out some of this stuff .

[Kenster]

Learned a nice bank in a tournament frozen on the rail nice shot

[pool2da]

Kenster, on Jan 14 2008, 02:13 AM, said:

Learned a nice bank in a tournament frozen on the rail nice shot

In a tournment you want to be the teacher and not the student!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pool2da]

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=mSxQLUnIPf0

This will take you to forcefollow’s instructions if I am allowed to post this on banking part 1 or 2. I think the instruction might have been better if the object ball was farther from the rail but you can still get an idea what he is talking about.

[Pelican]

Way to complicated for me. Like my method better.

Pel

[Pin]

I've not experimented with that method, but I have the following reservations:


1. It takes no account of the roll on the ball as it hits the cushion.

Try banking a ball so that it's sliding when it hits the rail. Then try again, hitting the cushion in the same place, so it has natural roll when it hits the cushion.
Then bank the CB with enough draw that it's still spinning backwards when it hits the rail. You'll see you achieve very different angles.

You may notice that when you blast shots into a corner pocket, sometimes they rattle in the jaws (especially so if you play on a table with curved cushions at the pocket). This isn't necessarily caused by a loss of accuracy when you ramp up the power. Because the power shot it more likely to be sliding when it hits the cushion, it comes off at a steeper angle than if it were slow and had picked up natural roll, and so is more likely to rattle into the opposite cushion, rather than deflect forward into the pocket.

His system may be valid if you specify that the ball has to be sliding (or rolling, or whatever) when you use it, but he doesn't specify.
Even if he did, the system would be useless if you had to play with a different kind or roll on the ball.


2. When he talks about aiming at a point on the cushion, he doesn't specify whether you're aiming the centre point of the ball toward that target, or if you're aiming for the surface of the ball to touch the cushion on that point (which requires a different aim).
You could say the same thing about the line you draw from the cushion to the pocket you're shooting at.

Again, if he specified, it might be valid. But he doesn't, and I'm not going to experiment and work out what he was trying to say.


3. The system doesn't have any flexibility to take account of the different reactivity of different cushions, and therefore can't work universally. Different tables play differently, it's just something we have to learn to adapt to.


4. It's messy and imprecise, and so not reliable.


5. The best pool is played on instinct. Guides, rules and tricks help to get to the level where you can play that way. However, if you accept that you're just trying to find a reasonable approximation until you can play by feel, the angle in - angle out method is simpler and easier to apply.



So I'm going to keep playing my way too.

[Kenster]

pool2da, on Jan 14 2008, 02:59 AM, said:

In a tournment you want to be the teacher and not the student!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I beat him and won

[The_Woim]

Banks are learned by trial and error... Mostly error.

The Woim