Side Spin All Effects

If you're striking the cue ball away from the center, it's difficult to know if you're even aiming in the right direction, and an intentional sidespin causes you to miss. So here's how you line up the shots with a lot of sidespin on the cue ball, but also take advantage of all of its effects. When you're trying to be as accurate as possible, aiming for a precise point, the last thing you need is the cue ball skewing offline. It can be difficult to understand why the cue ball doesn't always travel straight in the direction you strike it. But in a lot of ways, the cue ball is a lot like this small block of wood. And it's a lot easier to explain where the block of wood's going to go. Hit a flat surface and it'll go exactly straight. However, if you hit it at an angle, it'll deflect away and begin to spin. Striking the cue ball away from the center causes it to deflect offline in exactly the same way. This means if we were to play this shot again, striking the cue ball on the right-hand side, it'll deflect to the left, causing a miss. Of course, if you want to play a shot with sidespin, you have to allow for this. Because I'm striking it on the left, I have to work out exactly how far offline the cue ball's going to travel to the right here. And if I'm playing it with right-hand side, I have to allow for the cue ball to deflect to the left. As you can see, this creates quite a bit of spin. And the further away from the center of the cue ball you strike, the more spin you're going to put on it, and the more deflection you have to allow for. And how hard I hit it is going to make a difference as well. With this blue, I'm only going to play it slow, so I don't actually have to allow that much. But with this pink, I'm going to play it a lot harder, meaning I've got to allow for a lot more deflection. But the amount it deflects will also depend quite a bit on your cue. The quality of cue will also make a difference. This is the one I bought for the £10 cue challenge that's up there. And if I aim for this red absolutely full-on, but hit it with a lot of side spin, then the deflection will obviously make it miss. However, if I try the same thing with a better-quality cue, I don't miss by so far. And if I use my cue, which is a little bit better quality again, I very nearly hit the red. Although, just remember, the quality of cue isn't necessarily linked to its cost. This makes the game easier to play, because it's far simpler to cue the shot straight. But when it comes to side spin, we've got to work out a lot more than just deflection. The way in which a spinning cue ball reacts with the cloth of the table means it's going to travel in an arc rather than a straight line. The left-hand side on the cue ball here makes it spin further to the left the more it slows down, and this causes a problem. Because look what happens here if I strike this red very slightly to the left of where I'm aiming. So if you're playing a shot with side spin at anything but a very firm pace, then the cue ball spinning on the cloth is just something you're going to have to allow for, and it's not easy to do. To explain how to do this, I'm going to use a shot I regularly play with side spin, potting the black and spinning the cue ball up for the yellow here. With this moderately-paced shot, just allowing for the deflection, this time won't be good enough, because if you watch what the cue ball does here, it very slightly goes to the left right at the end, hitting the black too high and causing it to miss to the near jaw. To pot it, I need to allow for the deflection and for the cue ball to spin to the left just before it hits the black. So to be able to make that calculation, I have to know in advance how hard I'm going to strike the cue ball, and if at any stage I change my mind about that, that's going to affect the shot drastically and could result in me missing the pot by quite a long way. So before you go to the table to play any shot with side spin, it's vital you've already worked out exactly where you're aiming and how hard you're going to play it. But of course, side spin isn't just a problem to overcome. There's a lot of advantages to being able to control this effect, like being able to swerve round other balls on the table. This works if you want the cue ball to travel very slightly offline, but what happens if you need it to do a lot more than that? Well, by striking down on the cue ball, you both increase the amount it's going to deflect and react on the cloth. You ideally want to strike as close to the side of the cue ball as you can get and a little bit below centre, and try not to hit the camera on the way through the shot. Everything I've explained up until now should work quite nicely, that is until the ball starts spinning in the wrong direction. Of course, if you're playing a shot towards the bulk end with side, there's something else you have to allow for as well. This is where it gets really complicated, because the right-hand side on the cue ball is making it go in the wrong direction. Snooker tables are smooth in one direction, a bit like a cat's fur. But when the cue ball's spinning against that, something unusual begins to happen. Which means the cue ball can spin in both directions, round the blue and brown here. Let's look at that a little bit slower. The cue ball deflects away to the left and then begins to spin back round the blue, just as we'd seen earlier. But then when it slows down even more, it then turns back the other way and goes round the back of the brown here. We describe this as the side reversing, and it's often used in English billiards to help the cue ball hug the cushion and play an easy in-off into the bulk pockets. It's rarely any help in snooker, more something that'll catch you out from time to time. Although it did allow me to play the trick shot from earlier. You may expect a rotating cue ball to have an effect on the object ball, and you'd be right. You can very slightly change its direction like this. If I strike this dead straight blue right in the centre with a lot of right-hand side, the spin causes it to go very slightly to the left. And if I pause this shot with left-hand side, you can see I hit it exactly in the middle here, but the spin clearly throws it to the right. So in theory, if I set this one up so the pot doesn't quite go, I should be able to use side spin to pop the ball. It's not that effective, so you don't really have to change the way you line up the shot because of this, although it's a clever trick that's worth remembering if you can't quite see a potting angle. The next bit is all about how much the cue ball's still spinning after you make contact with the object ball. When you pot a ball with side spin, it's worth remembering that side spin's gonna still be on the cue ball even after you've potted it. By playing this shot with right-hand side, I can avoid the two reds on the left here by making it spin away to the right and finish on the red at the back. It isn't that significant and you can't do very much with it, but we're supposed to be showing all the effects of side spin in this video, so I'm just pointing it out. Before we start looking at its effect on cushions, we're gonna find a fan from Sabah, Malaysia, which is there. Up until now, we've been mostly looking at the problems caused by side spin rather than anything you can actually do with it. But what I hope will be obvious, when you play the cue ball towards a cushion with left-hand side, it moves to the left, and when you play it with right-hand side, it goes to the right. And the more side it has on it, the further it will spin. This is incredibly helpful for getting out of snookers. This one would be almost impossible to hit without side spin, but with just a bit of left-hand side, it's a fairly easy shot. Side spin can also help quite a bit with positional shots, as it's difficult to get round the table and back for the red here. But if you strike a cue ball on the opposite side to a cushion you're hitting at an angle, it'll make it speed up more than change its direction. This increase in speed means I can get the cue ball a lot further round the table and back for the red, without even having to hit it so hard. Striking the cue ball on the same side will have the opposite effect, but this isn't usually anywhere near as helpful. But occasionally, like this, I need to slow the cue ball down enough in order to get the snooker, which the check side allows me to do. Now that all seems really simple, until now, because I'm about to use right-hand side to make the cue ball spin back to the left. But why exactly does the cue ball spin in the opposite direction when you screw it back onto a cushion? This seems really confusing, but it's just a question of perspective. The cue ball's coming backwards, so it's got right-hand side on it from your point of view right there. If we think about it with right-hand side from your point of view, it's obviously going to go that way. So if I put right-hand side on it from here, it seems strange that it'll go to the left. But if you consider I've got right-hand side on it, it's obvious from where you are which direction it's going to go in. That's a bit hard. This can be really difficult to line up, because the backspin can make it deflect a greater amount and more unpredictably. It's also a lot harder to generate any sort of sidespin on the cue ball while playing a screw shot, but it's worth it for the cool exhibition shots. Before we start looking how to screw back sideways, we're going to find Jordan from Blenheim, New Zealand. Which is there. Get it in there. This is one of those shots that few players will even know about. This is a lot more complicated, but we're going to be looking at the sideways screw shot, a way of making a straight shot into an angle. To do this, you need to strike down on the cue ball with a lot of sidespin, but you don't want to make it bounce that much, because this will stop it going sideways. You need the high angle to play the shot, but the more it bounces, the less effective the shot will be. It makes the pop very difficult, but once you get everything right, it's surprising what the cue ball will actually do. Of course, this isn't easy, but if you can play it, it's a fun little trick to be able to pull off. It's not bad. If you want to find out more about controlling the cue ball and discover a greater number of things you can do with it, then have a look at these two videos. 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.