Why Ghost Ball Aiming Fails You.

Here is a simple test to understand why the Ghost Ball method of aiming is easy to draw on paper but hard to master in real life on the pool table.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Billiards Instruction
• Ghost Ball
• Pool

[HS22181]

pivot, manipulating the cue ball vertical and horizontal pivot points curving the cue ball to contact the back azimuth of the object ball for cut shots. I think pool is a blend of physics and art. Much of shot execution is seeing and feeling. Lastly, you mention CTE and the “E” stands for “edge.” Spheres do not have edges, only points. I know run-out players that are essentially idiot savants. They don’t understand nor could they explain how pop-corn works but man they can hit balls.

[jbideastoo]

@HS22181

it's really just an idea. Don't you find it interesting that I can't pick out a distance that is 2.25" from the center of the cue ball when I am sitting just a foot away and yet the Ghost Ball method of aiming asks the shooter to do that from more than five feet away? I will offer you a $10,000 challenge that you can't pick out ten spots that are 2.25" away from the cueball on a pool table.

The "edge" is merely a reference like the edge of a coin. I didn't come up with the term

[jbideastoo]

someone else did and that's how it's known now so that is the term I use when speaking of the Center to Edge aiming system.

There is no need to test any other systems in comparison. The premise of this video is show my idea as to why I think using GB leads to inconsistent results. I am pretty sure that the results on a pool table would be even worse. I might just do it though to see for myself. I will use the GB method as prescribed by a famous author.

[jbideastoo]

@HS22181

Of course playing pool is about feeling. At the end of the day it's how well you can control both your emotions and your body to make it do what you want it to do. Systems are about providing a foundation for setting up the shot and getting into position. If you don't know how to do that or you rely on "feeling" alone then you will probably not have much success. Of course there are people who just get it without any systematic approach. So what, this discussion isn't about them.

[kvidmaster]

Very good video. You make good points. However, the point of the ghost ball method is *not* to aim. It is to train you to learn to recognize the fullness of hit needed to pocket the balls. This training takes place through the feedback of 1000's of shots. I don't use the ghost ball to aim. However, I *used* to use it to *learn* to aim. The ghost ball is good enough as an estimate to get your body aligned. Then the 1000's of shots in the past allow you to lock in. IMHO of course.

[jbideastoo]

With CTE I have a way to lock into the aiming line for all shots and where it's particularly helpful is the shots that I have not practiced a 1000 times. The strange mid table shots which are at weird angles. Those shots USED to kill me as I didn't know where to hit them or what would happen. Now I snap to the line in seconds and am focused on where the cueball is going and as such my game is way better.

[TheKingcorong]

you're right pal 100%!!!!! more power....

[HS22181]

Sorry, I meant to say in the post below "...about teh circumference of the sphere that is the object ball." Sorry about that.

[HS22181]

First of all you have a working hypothesis not a theory. Secondly the test you designed for your hypothesis is seriously flawed by sitting stationary in a chair eyeing and marking ghost ball positions at a variety of random positions about the circumference of the sphere that is the cue ball. Had you gotten out of the chair to size of center ball point locations from the vantage that each supposed shot would be

[HS22181]

executed your skewed point of view (no pun intended) would be less exaggerated. Don’t you find it interesting that the one point that was pretty much on the mark was eyeball calculated by you from the vantage point that you would be shooting from at your comfortable chair position? You don’t offer any other systems that you then test in comparison. I shoot what is best described as a fractional – ball –