senor said:
Okay, let's pretend the five ball isn't there, or that it is frozen to the rail. The situation is much, much tougher now because you can't easily slide off the five ball and try to nit your way behind the ten ball.
I was surprised noone mentioned the shot because it's a fairly normal break response. Obviously, in the given situation, more often than not I would slide off the five ball and nit my way behind the ten
And in all honesty, I was surprised by your response. Regardless of your playing ability, it seems like you've been around long enough to know that above average one pocket players can execute this shot if the situation calls for it. You say it's a sell out 9 out of 10 times...I say let me play that guy who can't execute the shot.
Senor........I agree with Doc and Mike..............That is a particularly difficult shot to execute.
However............ I know the one you are talking about and it is an excellent return brake shot. In this situation though, the cue ball would have to be down table another 1/2 diamond. That way you could hit it without using masse'.
I know a lot of people can use masse' better than me and I do fairly well with it but.......................massse' often leaves you hanging-out to dry...... as Doc implied.
In the book "winning one Pocket" there is an excellent section describing and explainig the diamond system. It goes into detail about kicking and banking. In particular it explains the process of mirror kicking, in which you mirror the distance required to hit a ball by hitting the rail behind it the same distance from inside of the rail. It is explained a lot better in the book but............what I am trying to say is that with the diamond system the kicking methods become very, very accurate. If you could follow the "letter of the law" as calculated in some of these books like "banking with the Beard" and "winning one pocket" I'm sure the accuracy level would be close to 90%. That also means that you could look at that shot and calculate whether it could be hit without masse' or not. In which case if it couldn't............ then that shot would probably be put on the back burner.
Anyway, I agree with both Doc and Mike.
However, I still contend that caroming off the 5 and two-railing behind the 10with enough speed to kick it away is the best shot because:
1. It puts the 5 in a better position for me;
2. it stops him from a bank on the 5;
3. it removes the 10 as a threat;
4. it can be "better than" fairly, safely executed because the 10 is close enough to the rail to allow for a nearly safe removal. You would really have to hit way too far behind the 10 to sell out.
In other words, for me the risk rewards are there.
And that is what this game is all about, to me.
But for someone else they may not see it that way.
Happy shooting................Mobile george
