Snooker Physics Of Cue Ball Spin

How important is it to have good control of the cue ball in a game of snooker? Well it can make the difference between being in a bad position and a good position, but if you ever strike the object ball head on the cue ball comes to a complete stop. What happens next depends entirely on how the cue ball is spinning. So to be able to play snooker well you first have to understand the physics involved in spinning the cue ball into the right position. So here's everything you're going to need to know to spin the cue ball into position from wherever you end up. Which you can do by unlocking some of the game's hidden effects. But why is it so important to be able to spin the cue ball into the right place? Well it's because it gives you the player full control of the difficulty of the next shot. So let's start by seeing what happens if you strike the cue ball firmly right in the very centre. This makes the cue ball slide along the table causing it to stop whenever it makes contact with the object ball. If it's spinning forwards or backwards just a little bit this won't be enough to overcome the friction of the cloth so it'll still stay in the same place. But if we want it to move we need to add some spin. The higher you strike the ball the more it'll run through, the lower you strike it the more it'll spin backwards. However you do have to consider that these balls bounce around quite a bit. Bouncing the cue ball can sometimes help it run through because there's less object ball getting in the way. But it can prevent it screwing back so fast because the cue ball's spinning without being in contact with the table. But what if the shot isn't straight? Most players like leaving an angle though and here's why. When I play this black to the left I know the cue ball's going to go to the right so when I run it through I'm going to get on this red into this pocket. But if I choose to make the cue ball slide along the table as a stun shot the angle will mean I'll come up the table in between these two reds and I'll leave that one into that pocket and that one into that pocket. Or if I really want to I can play the cue ball with as much backspin as I can and leave myself this red into that pocket over there. The angle allows me to do all of that. This means not only can I control what side of the table I want the cue ball to end up on with a slight angle like this but by modulating how high I strike the cue ball I can get it to end up anywhere in between these two points which is very helpful. But what if you can't generate enough spin? Here's what you need to do. To start off with, more power is a little bit of a red herring. It won't make the cue ball spin any more The second tip hopefully should be fairly obvious. The closer you get to the edge of the cue ball the more topspin or backspin you can generate. How close you can get to the edge will depend on the type of tip you're using the condition it's in and how well it's been chalked. The third is the amount you push your cue through after you've struck the cue ball. If you stop as soon as you strike the cue ball you're not really going to get that much backspin on it. However, if you push your cue all the way through until your hand meets your body you'll generate a lot more backspin or even topspin. When you deliver the cue properly like this it actually feels like you're making a softer contact. The fourth tip is to try and play the shot with as little sidespin as possible. The more unwanted sidespin you get on the ball not only makes the shot less accurate it also causes it to have less of the spin you want on the cue ball. So that might be backspin or topspin. The fifth tip is a little bit surprising and I discovered it from the phone app video. But if you dip the cue or scoop the cue as you play the shot you actually get less topspin and less backspin on it. Surprisingly, keeping your cue on the same plane can be really beneficial and help avoid miscues. But we're certainly not going to be avoiding blazing aces from Conroe, Texas in the United States. Everything we've talked about so far is about 80 to 90% of the shots I play but we haven't yet talked about sidespin which can allow you to unlock some hidden effects that make the game occasionally a lot easier to play. Why is this? Well, because on some shots it really can help you manoeuvre the cue ball more so long as you understand its slightly complex effects. Here's how it works compared with a straight shot. The right hand side initially kicks the cue ball out to the left as it deflects away from the cue but as it runs down the table it moves back to the right and left hand side does exactly the same thing in the opposite direction but if you play the shot harder it will deflect more and spin less so you have to allow for that before you play the shot. But if you strike an object ball it'll have an effect on that as well. I can just about get through to the potting angle on the yellow here so if I leave the Y dead straight I should just about be able to avoid the two reds and pop the yellow. There we go. But if I put it back again and play the exact same shot with a lot of right hand side then I think we're going to see the yellow change direction a bit There we go. It completely changes the angle. All this really means is a shot with left hand side makes the object ball go very slightly to the right and a shot with right hand side makes it go very slightly to the left. The effect however is so small that you won't even have to think about it your brain will work it out automatically but it can help you get balls to hug the rails along cushions. Speaking of cushions this is where side spin has the biggest effect left hand side spinning to the left and right hand side spinning to the right. You can actually get it to spin quite a long way on these shots and it can be very helpful when you're trying to escape from snookers and it can mean you can more or less hit anything. When you strike the cue ball at an angle it has a slightly different effect the more outside spin you put on the ball the more it speeds up and the more inside spin you put on the cue ball the more it slows down. This can actually help you play complex positional shots here I'm using left hand side to speed the cue ball up after it strikes all the cushions. But how do you line up a shot like this? When you want to play any shot with side spin firstly don't change your mind about the pace of the shot or how high you're going to strike the cue ball because that'll have a big effect on where the cue ball goes. Also aim for the pocket don't allow for everything that's going to happen by aiming to miss aim for the pocket by allowing for the different path the cue ball is going to take to get to the object ball. Because I'm playing it quite hard you should be able to see how far off line I'm playing this and you should also be able to see that a man is from Tetouan in Morocco. If you understand how to do most of that we can now start to look at some of the hidden tricks and the first of those is just simply widen the angle by bouncing the cue ball. All that means is striking down on the cue ball to just make the cue ball bounce a little bit as it contacts the object ball. Now you don't actually have to raise your bridge you can keep your hand flat on the table to play a shot like this and what you're looking to do is just bounce the cue ball into the object ball and what this does is just straightens it up a bit and that means you can hit the object ball a tiny bit thinner and meaning you can actually get the cue ball to break wider and you can use side spin to do the same thing and even a little bit more. What I'm doing here is using right hand side to straighten the shot up. Normally the cue ball will cannon the black if I ran it through but the right hand side allows me to avoid it and I can also use right hand side here with the opposite angle to throw the cue ball wider and get out from the straight shot onto the black. If you look very very carefully you'll often see good break builders use this sort of thing on screw shots and that's why it always looks like they're in good position because even if the angle's wrong because I'm too straight here they'll be able to play a shot with right hand side just to change the angle so they can nicely get on the red without too much trouble. And when you become confident striking the very edge of the cue ball you can use this to perform swerve shots but how do you do it? To play any swerve shot you just want to strike down on the same side as you want it to swerve. The more height you play the shot with the more swerve you'll get but the less distance and the lower you keep your cue the more distance you'll get but the less swerve. So you've just got to get that about right, pick a pace and don't change your mind about it because that can seriously affect the shot. Now for a shot I'm not very good at but to be fair I think most snooker players struggle with this. Now for the masse shot this requires your cue to be completely vertical but you're not really looking to play it like that you're looking to flick everything backwards as you strike the cue ball and if you can time that just right you'll produce a lot of spin. This one's good if you can get it to come off if you strike down the cue ball enough here we're going to be able to screw back in the sideways direction here now we can go that side or come back this side I'm going to play a right hand side first to get on this red screwing it back so we should just come out perfectly for the red if I hit it right look at that to play this you need to strike down right on the very edge of the cue ball at a 45 degree angle and then jump the cue ball into the object ball which is difficult to judge perfectly. So that's the basic physics you need to know to spin the cue ball around the table and play the game well but what's the best way to practice that? Well these two training routines will help you do just that one will improve your technique fast and the other will allow you to go from couch to 50 break in a short space of time and remember don't just watch play and make the commitment to becoming a better player by subscribing to the channel and visit the website see you later