In my post from April 21, I presented a banking system that I learned from Bob Henning’s great book The Advanced Pro Book. Any time you adopt a system from someone else, you should always test it and make sure that it works for you. In the words of the late great martial artist Bruce Lee, “Absorb what is useful, and throw away the rest.” After much experimentation, I discovered that some of the numbers presented by Bob did not work for me. I’ve revised this aiming system to match with my own peculiar idiosyncrasies. Below I present the final banking system that I will be using from now on. The numbers below have been revised to match with my particular aiming methods, typical speed of hit, and overall playing style. If you take this system and apply it to your game, make sure you experiment and verify the accuracy of the numbers for yourself. Good luck!
I wonder just how much this system changes when the object ball is sliding into the cushion, as opposed to natural roll? The only other system I’ve seen (but not studied) required the OB have no roll or spin on it at the moment of cushion contact. I *think* the system then changes the numbers to essentially be half points down the rail. 1st diamond = .5, 2nd =1 3rd = 1.5, etc. So, in that specific case, your value for 3.25 would be 3.5 and it follows the same line. *However*, I also think that system requires the adjustment for the contact to happen parallel to the diamond, as opposed to *through* it – as your system mandates. I will try this out next time I’m shooting. I realized the other night I have no banking system and since I learned to cut balls accurately, I haven’t had to bank in a long time, but when I do, I can’t.
I have both 2 and 3 rail kicking systems I use, but strangely, I’ve always banked “by feel” – essentially trying to let the math geek in me figure it out, albeit on a frictionless mental table.
Thanks for this!
Johnny, I believe you are correct regarding sliding balls. It’s funny – I’m not sure why I do this, but when I bank, I use the system described in this post: i.e. naturally rolling object balls. When I kick, I hit a little harder and slide the cue ball into the rail. For kicking, I use a half point aiming system, just as you describe. I’m not sure why, but when kicking I just feel more comfortable using the half point system.