I'm writing today to encourage you to go natural. I find the phrase natural roll, often used by correctly by billiards teachers and found in a number of quality billiards books, is chronically misunderstood by casual players and also serious league and tournament shooters.
Please allow me to clear this mess as "naturally" as I can. Incidentally, natural roll also explains why the pros make most pool shots look easy as you watch.
This two-part article is likely one of the more important billiards articles you'll ever study. In order, I will change your game forever as we review:
A) the "skid shot"
B) the "tangent line"
C) "natural roll," a powerful and easy billiards technique that makes you better without changing aim or stroke
When a pro shooter or pro teacher says, "Always look for the natural roll first," they refer to a position technique even more vital than the famous tangent line position preached in most billiards books and on many pool websites.
While the tangent line describes a stunned cue ball following impact, natural roll describes whether it will be stunned when it gets there--even if the cue ball never touches a ball or cushion.
We begin with a brief review of the tangent line, shown as illustrated elsewhere on this GuideSite. Shoot a cue ball full to hit an object ball six inches away using center ball and a soft to medium-soft stroke, pocketing the object ball in the side. The cue ball is supposed to stop dead in its tracks when the object ball flies into the pocket, right?
If 1) your stroke speed is accurate and 2) your cue ball hit is dead center, the cue ball knocks the other ball into the side pocket you chose then stops, not bouncing forward, not rebounding several inches, not replacing the position the object ball just occupied. It will stop dead in its tracks since 1) the full hit releases the cue ball's momentum "fully into" the object ball and since 2) the cue ball is skidding at impact with the object ball.
A cue ball sent six inches with a soft to medium stroke will skid across the cloth that far. To skid is to slide without over spin or backwards spin (follow or draw spin) and without any sidespin across its axis (no english either). Think of a car driven over an icy road when the driver panics and locks the brakes as the car then skids across the ice, its wheels not turning in any direction though they are moving forward across the ice.
We're almost ready for natural roll magic if you know how to shoot a cue ball to skid toward an object ball six inches distant. Forget all the things you've heard about "stun strokes" and the like. Yes, you can more easily skid a cue ball by shooting 1/16 of the radius below center ball. And you may even skid a ball hitting above center with a fancy stroke, but we're focusing on natural roll now, the most powerful weapon in pool.
Okay. Learned pool shooters know that if a skidding cue ball strikes any object ball, not full but on some angle, (angled object balls played are called cut shots) the cue ball leaves impact with the object ball at a 90-degree angle from impact.
Now topspin will send the cue ball (eventually) away from the shooter, inside that 90-degree angle, and draw spin, toward the shooter instead. It takes therefore just a few moments for calculating to determine cue ball path off a cut shot, without needing any english. Hitting harder and softer than soft-medium can change things too, but that's irrelevant for this study.
Got it? A few minutes' practice and looking at the illustrations on the following pages and you're ready for some magnificent natural roll technique.
**The "Home Again" Cut Shot, The Fastest Way To Improve Your Shotmaking Ability
**Controlling Cut Shots By Using Pure Speed
Natural Roll Demystified
Here we go. You know that you can hold a cue ball with skid for about six inches on a center ball hit so that it stops dead after a full impact. You also understand that if you take the same center stroke on a ball you're cutting six inches away, the cue ball slides from impact along a right angle to the pocket the ball was sent toward.
You might further understand that if the ball has topspin, for one important example, on many shots it will come off impact at a 30-degree angle and not 90-degrees (between 27 and nearly 34 degrees between ¼ ball and half-ball hits and back down again toward ¾ ball hits, but that's irrelevant right now).
And there it is! A rolling cue ball comes off at a much different angle than a skidding cue ball, so ask yourself, "How can I stroke to get the cue ball to do what I want after impact?"
**The Answer May Surprise You In Our Next Article** Part II of "Natural Roll"
