Obviously no direct shot at the 8-ball. The 10-ball took away the natural one-rail kick and even minor variations that might have been available with English (and of course being frozen to the 9-ball complicates the whole English proposition in the first place). I considered a two-rail kick off the head rail, but awkwardly bridging over the frozen 9-ball? Ummm... no. I considered a two-rail kick just past the 10-ball, but I wasn't crazy about that option because it was one of those just get a good hit and hope for the best options... and my opponent was very capable of running the remaining three balls unless I got really lucky with the final positions after the shot. The natural angle for that two-railer was flirting with the point of the corner pocket as well.
I didn't see any reasonable options for tying up balls with an intentional foul.
WTF.
I did NOT want to give this one up without a fight.
At some point I noticed that even though the 8-ball was a fair distance from the corner pocket, it was either on or near the natural three-rail kick line... so I started to consider a three-rail kick. Like many people, I've played with three-rail kicks from time-to-time, so I had a reasonable feel for them - especially on tables like the Diamond bar-box I was playing on. I don't recall ever trying one from this shallow of an angle before, though.
Enter the "spot on the wall" or "distant point" method. I have no idea who first came up with this, but it's been discussed by numerous people including Dr. Dave Alciatore, Bob Jewett, Robert Byrne, and others. One of Dr. Dave's write ups on the technique can be found here.
I've only casually experimented with the technique, but I knew this was a golden opportunity to try it out for real. I called the 8-ball in the corner (due to the handicap against this opponent, the called 8 was a money ball for me). I picked a line that I felt was a good "known" three-rail line for me... looked up to find a spot on the line (the edge of a chair back on an empty ball stool by the bar). I side-stepped over to lock in on the line-of-aim through the center of the cue ball, approached the table and got into my stance on that line. I stroked through the cue ball with slight running English and watched as it came around three rails to hit the 8-ball perfectly, dropping it near center-pocket below me. For the win. Booyah!
As you might imagine, this generated quite a buzz from the bystanders... I was able to pull out isolated comments like "wow, did you just see that?" One person I didn't know even came up to me after the end of the match (several racks later) to tell me it was the best shot he's seen in a long time.
It always feels good to hear comments like that of course, and I suppose that's why some people watch pool - to catch the occasional thriller; somewhat like watching hours of cars going around a track waiting for an occasional exciting wreck.
No comments:
Post a Comment