Before getting into the fundamentals of the position, it is important that you understand the differences between hitting in the center of the cue ball and hitting with side effects.
One problem that many players share is that when they first learned to play billiards they never learned to control the mingo without spin.
Instead they started using them all at once and this has made it impossible for them to control the cue ball properly.
Once these players learn to control the cue ball without english, they can begin to be more consistent in their game.
Whenever you hit with the main effects, the cue ball will stay on the line regardless of whether your cue is level or not.
When you hit the mingo with side effects, keeping the cue level, the cue ball will deflect off the line of the shot to the right or left, this is known as deflection.
Raising the cue and shooting at a steady speed using side effects will cause the cue ball to deflect off the target line and when it hits the rail it will have more pronounced english.
See GIF below to see the deflection.
Now, let’s say we are left with the 8.
If we hit the cue ball with no english it will stay on the line, it doesn’t matter if our cue is elevated or level, the cue ball will always stay on the line.
But, if we are in the same position and hit the cue ball with left english, the cue ball will deviate from the line of sight to the right and miss the shot.
Let’s see another example, I need to pocket the 8-ball in the middle pocket.
The cue ball needs to hit the 8-ball (A) to pocket it.
Let’s create our shooting line from this phantom ball.
If we hit the cue ball in the center, it will stay in the line of sight and we will pocket the object ball.
But, if we use a right english, the cue ball will leave this shooting line to the left side and we will miss the ball.
If we are going to use right english, we have to adjust the line of shot.
Since the cue ball is going to turn to the left of the line, we have to move our line of sight to the right.
As we move the target line, we can see that our ghost ball has also moved to the right (A).
Now when the cue ball goes to the left, it will hit the target ball in the right place (B).
As I mentioned before, when I used left english, it makes the cue ball turn to the right of the target line.
Right english makes the cue ball turn to the left of the line.
As long as your cue is level, no matter how fast you hit the cue ball with side spin, it will not return to the line.
So, now we know that if your cue stick is level when using side effect, the cue ball leaves the shooting line and will never return to it.
When your cue has an angle using side effects, the cue ball leaves the shooting line, but eventually returns to the line and you can even cross it.
When shooting with side effects, there are several variables to remember:
Here you will be able to develop as a great pool player no matter your level.
