Front hand and back hand english - Applicable for snooker?

[Hello, Mr Big Shot]

I see our favourite Mr. Big Pocket is back on his favourite subject of knowing sod all himself and praying at the alter of Dr. Dave. CIT indeed !!, what I'm describing is the effect of the cue ball moving off the line of aim on the strike when side is applied, spinning as it travels along the cloth and swerving slightly according to the direction of its spin to the nap of the cloth.

Back hand english as Dr. Dave describes is about aiming the cue down the wrong line of aim to allow the cue ball to throw on the correct line of aim, this can be done because the pockets on a 9 ball table will take a ball off the far jaw that is aimed to the centre of the pocket but goes to the far jaw because of side induced throw simply because the pockets are five inches wide, a snooker table pocket at three and a half inches will not; and on a snooker table the nap of the cloth will make the spinning cue ball swerve along the bed of the table much more than on a napless pool table cloth so the effects of side are more pronounced and have to be compensated for more.

And Trump does not pivot his cue as in what Dr. Dave describes, Trump addresses the right side of the cue ball and hits centre on delivery of the cue, something completely different.

Here's a good acronym for the purveyors of Dr. Dave's theories, Throw Induced Twist & Squirt..........TITS

This is one of the principles in 'The UNKNOWN Secrets of Snooker' but on a snooker table of course. Just one of the things in that book I disagree with. I should add to those skeptical players try it yourself and see what results you get, you never know it might be that magical 'silver bullet' that turns you into a potting machine

I'm sorry, but what principle are you disagreeing with?

[Hello, Mr Big Shot]

People who very obviously steer the cue all the time when applying side are probably not very good players. That is something you might see at club level 9ball, not modern pro level. Yes, there are very few exceptions, but those players are rare nowadays. I have watched top modern European champion level 9ballers in person many times. None of them steer. No cue pivoting either.

I don't believe anyone is saying pivoting/BHE is best practice, but players from all cue sports do it, many without realising. To claim it is only 9 ball players who do it because pockets are large is utterly absurd (although one must consider the source).

My view is it's good to know these things exist even if you don't use them yourself.

[DeanH]

Front hand and back hand english - Applicable for snooker?

sorry to be dumb but what is BHE?

[jonny66]

Back Hand English. It's when you purposely cue across the ball to apply side, instead of lining up the cue to the side and cueing straight. I'm not sure what front hand english is.

[Ethanat]

Back Hand English. It's when you purposely cue across the ball to apply side, instead of lining up the cue to the side and cueing straight. I'm not sure what front hand english is.

FHE is also cueing across the ball to apply side. But the back hand is now the pivot point and you slide the bridge hand to the side. Never knew how to do it, just the theory.

[scarface]

so many opinions and arguments.. hmmm... im in no position to comment on anything but i really really would love to see someone who could really demonstrate in a video to prove that FHE or BHE can be applied in snooker or not?

guess this would be the best proof right?

i know the effect may varies due to multiple factors for example: cloth, ball weights, cues and etc but i guess what i mentioned there are mainly the variable factors.

setting aside the cue, i guess if demonstrated, one can use a WPBSA standard cloth and ball set? will this be fair enough?

[DeanH]

Back Hand English. It's when you purposely cue across the ball to apply side, instead of lining up the cue to the side and cueing straight. I'm not sure what front hand english is.

ah gotcha, got lost with all the acronyms, CLIT, TWAT, WGAF!

[Zhuge]

All these techniques provide the general theory on playing English but bottom line is, you need tonnes of practice applying variation of English to it to understand how your cue/cueball/object ball reacts. There is no two ways about it as all cue tips behaves differently. I used to apply English to most of my shots to achieve positional play but once I've changed my cue, all my previous techniques fail and I almost snap the new cue, lol. But it did good in bringing my game back to basics and avoid using English when ever possible. I've never played so consistent before this and guess I was making things difficult for myself.

Just sharing, Z.

[Terry Davidson]

I'm sorry, but what principle are you disagreeing with?

In the book the author is saying the coach (Roy) teaches there are really only 5 aiming points on the object ball and uses a combination of various amounts of side and power to change the point of contact between the cueball and the object ball, usually called BOB for our purposes. BOB is of course another acronym for Dean but I'm sure everyone knows it stands for 'Back Of Ball' and is where you want to hit to pot the ball.

I think learning to apply the correct amounts of side and power (as he describes using that to 'throw' the cueball into the correct potting position) would be much more difficult than using mostly centre-ball striking until you actually learn how to use side.

[DeanH]

... BOB is of course another acronym for Dean but I'm sure everyone knows it stands for 'Back Of Ball' and is where you want to hit to pot the ball.

:biggrin: yep got that one Terry, you explained it to me many years ago, and I don't mind BOB as I can see it and visualise it, and use it; the others.... :wink:

[jbcases]

Just a quick FYI, most pockets in the USA are not 5" wide. We have many different pocket widths, cuts and ways to tighten up the pockets. We do play on pockets that are as small as 3 &7/8th inches. Typically a triple shimmed table will have 4.25" pockets which will reject most shots that touch the rail on way except for shallow angles and slow speeds.

We have deep shelf pockets where an entire ball will fit past the points and still be on the table bed. This means that balls will not bank in off the cushions but instead are rejected even though the pocket itself has an opening wider than 4.25"

To tighten pockets we either shim them with hard rubber pieces or we extend the rails for a more permanent modification.

I know that it seems as if pool is only played on bucket pockets but I assure you that in the serious pool rooms and in serious money matches the pockets are tight and accuracy is paramount.

There was at one time a table used in the money matches promoted by the TAR group in Las Vegas which used a table with both extended rails and what was called pro-cut pockets. The angle of the opening was set to reject balls and the widest part of the pocket was 4 1/8th". All in all a very tough table to play pool on. Shane Van Boeing managed to run a 7 pack in ten ball on it over the course of a race to 100. Two lesser pros played a money match on it and the table was making them look bad because they didn't have Shane's level of accuracy.

As to the topic of BHE, guess you all would call it BHS, back hand side, I guess it can certainly work in snooker as the consequence of using it ends up being a sort of cancellation of the deflection caused by side spin. I find that I can use this much more reliably than what I called adjusted spin, or the practice of choosing the aiming offset and planting the bridge hand on that spin address.

For me I can comfortably use BHE and I find that I don't really have to go far away from center to get plenty of spin. But it is certainly something one has to practice with to find what the parameters are that you are comfortable with.

[str87665]

Back Hand English or BHE, a very valuable tool in American pool if understood and executed properly.

Since rotation games such as 9 Ball/10 Ball require so much cue ball movement, the use of english (side-spin) and speed are required on the most shots. Having to use an off center hit on the cue ball so often is what makes pool so difficult (in snooker it's the bigger tables, smaller balls, and tighter pockets). Most do this by shifting over right or left parallel to the shot line. When doing this one must compensate for squirt and swerve, cloth/ball conditions, and humidity.

An easier, more accurate way is to always setup on center cue ball with the back foot, vision center, and bridge hand on the line of the shot. While keeping all this the same, then simply move the grip hand slightly right or left (pivot) to the desired amount of english (1/2 tip, 1 tip, etc). The pivot point is at the bridge hand (the V of an open hand bridge). While keeping the body, feet and bridge hand the same, continue to sight (aim) down the line of the shot (center cue ball down the center of the ghost ball) and stroke straight down the new pivoted stick line. The trick is to have the proper bridge length from the cue ball. How this is determined will be explained below.

When this is done correctly, no matter how far off center the cue ball is hit it will travel straight down the shot line. Off center just a little and you'll get just a little bit of deflection, but down the line of the shot. Off a little more and you'll get a little more deflection, but straight down the line of the shot.........as so on. One of the great benefits of this technique is on straight-in shots when one is cueing at center cue ball. If bridging at the proper pivot point length you'll make the shot no matter where you hit the cue ball (off right or left of center).

To apply this technique you must understand what a few terms mean likes squirt (deflection), swerve, end mass, and masse effect as well as what a cue's pivot point means. Some terms or words used to describe this or that in snooker and pool are different, even though they have the same meaning. This can cause confusion when trying to explain things like BHE. In the context of explaining BHE the following terms mean:

- end mass = the weight of the last few inches of a sticks shaft (slightly different for every cue, much less in low deflection shafts vs regular shafts).
- squirt - angular displacement of the cue ball’s path away from the cue stroking direction caused by the use of side-spin
- swerve = curve of the cue ball’s path while sliding due to cue elevation and side-spin, always opposite of squirt (our cue is always slightly elevated due to the rails being higher than the slate bed, which causes a slight masse effect)
- masse effect = cue ball curve caused by a downward off-center hit with an elevated cue (the more the cue is elevated, the more masse or curve is produced)
- cue's pivot point = the point on the cue where, if you bridge there and use back-hand english, squirt will be cancelled by the stick pivoting motion.

Anyway, below is video by Mike Page called Aiming with Side-spin. Pay particular attention to the end of the video starting at 8:30 until the end. This is where BHE is explained although without using the the term BHE. You may have to watch it a couple of times to get it. Mike is a college professor and billiard room owner. He has a lot of good videos on his Youtube channel called Fargo Billiards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXJ7bDafTms

BHE works best with short shots (1-4 ft) with medium to fast speeds. This prevents swerve from taking affect and moving the cue ball off the shot line. On longer shots with slower speeds is where Front Hand English comes into play.....expained in another post perhaps if anyone is interested.


I'm not even sure if BHE would even work playing snooker. Most shots don't require massive amounts of side-spin or power. Another thing to consider, snooker cues are vastly different than American pool cues. The wood is not the same, some are one-piece (?), different taper, and usually a smaller tip diameter. Given all this, do snooker cues have similar "pivot point lengths" as American pool shafts? I don't have clue. Even ball size/weight have to be considered, I suppose.

Certainly in Chinese 8 Ball I'd want BHE as a tool/weapon in my bag and believe using an American cue would be to a players advantage.

I'm new here so if this has been discussed on here in detail before (with the usual arguments back and forth), I apologize.


str87765

[Ramon]

Back Hand English or BHE, a very valuable tool in American pool if understood and executed properly.

Since rotation games such as 9 Ball/10 Ball require so much cue ball movement, the use of english (side-spin) and speed are required on the most shots. Having to use an off center hit on the cue ball so often is what makes pool so difficult (in snooker it's the bigger tables, smaller balls, and tighter pockets). Most do this by shifting over right or left parallel to the shot line. When doing this one must compensate for squirt and swerve, cloth/ball conditions, and humidity.

An easier, more accurate way is to always setup on center cue ball with the back foot, vision center, and bridge hand on the line of the shot. While keeping all this the same, then simply move the grip hand slightly right or left (pivot) to the desired amount of english (1/2 tip, 1 tip, etc). The pivot point is at the bridge hand (the V of an open hand bridge). While keeping the body, feet and bridge hand the same, continue to sight (aim) down the line of the shot (center cue ball down the center of the ghost ball) and stroke straight down the new pivoted stick line. The trick is to have the proper bridge length from the cue ball. How this is determined will be explained below.

When this is done correctly, no matter how far off center the cue ball is hit it will travel straight down the shot line. Off center just a little and you'll get just a little bit of deflection, but down the line of the shot. Off a little more and you'll get a little more deflection, but straight down the line of the shot.........as so on. One of the great benefits of this technique is on straight-in shots when one is cueing at center cue ball. If bridging at the proper pivot point length you'll make the shot no matter where you hit the cue ball (off right or left of center).

To apply this technique you must understand what a few terms mean likes squirt (deflection), swerve, end mass, and masse effect as well as what a cue's pivot point means. Some terms or words used to describe this or that in snooker and pool are different, even though they have the same meaning. This can cause confusion when trying to explain things like BHE. In the context of explaining BHE the following terms mean:

- end mass = the weight of the last few inches of a sticks shaft (slightly different for every cue, much less in low deflection shafts vs regular shafts).
- squirt - angular displacement of the cue ball’s path away from the cue stroking direction caused by the use of side-spin
- swerve = curve of the cue ball’s path while sliding due to cue elevation and side-spin, always opposite of squirt (our cue is always slightly elevated due to the rails being higher than the slate bed, which causes a slight masse effect)
- masse effect = cue ball curve caused by a downward off-center hit with an elevated cue (the more the cue is elevated, the more masse or curve is produced)
- cue's pivot point = the point on the cue where, if you bridge there and use back-hand english, squirt will be cancelled by the stick pivoting motion.

Anyway, below is video by Mike Page called Aiming with Side-spin. Pay particular attention to the end of the video starting at 8:30 until the end. This is where BHE is explained although without using the the term BHE. You may have to watch it a couple of times to get it. Mike is a college professor and billiard room owner. He has a lot of good videos on his Youtube channel called Fargo Billiards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXJ7bDafTms

BHE works best with short shots (1-4 ft) with medium to fast speeds. This prevents swerve from taking affect and moving the cue ball off the shot line. On longer shots with slower speeds is where Front Hand English comes into play.....expained in another post perhaps if anyone is interested.


I'm not even sure if BHE would even work playing snooker. Most shots don't require massive amounts of side-spin or power. Another thing to consider, snooker cues are vastly different than American pool cues. The wood is not the same, some are one-piece (?), different taper, and usually a smaller tip diameter. Given all this, do snooker cues have similar "pivot point lengths" as American pool shafts? I don't have clue. Even ball size/weight have to be considered, I suppose.

Certainly in Chinese 8 Ball I'd want BHE as a tool/weapon in my bag and believe using an American cue would be to a players advantage.

I'm new here so if this has been discussed on here in detail before (with the usual arguments back and forth), I apologize.


str87765

No need to apologize Str87765,, welcome to TSF !!
This is a good post .
The problem with BHE is , you do'nt line up the shot o t Side . as a result , u have to cue acrs t ball . Which is Not a good idea in the game of snooker imo , cus of diff size of the pockets , also diff tools in those 2 diff games .
Even in this game ( US Pool ) , gonna be realy diff for a player to do it consistent imo .
Anyway , take a look at sum privus Posts in this thread , u may find sum useful info regarding this matter ( of crs , if u'r interested ).
Btw, in snooker ( specialy in h level ), Using Side ( helping Side ) is one of the most important techniques using by the best players in the world . So the idea that in snooker using Side No needed ( Not as much as pool ) IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE .
Looking forward to read ur Posts here on this forum an hope u enjoy ur stay here !!

[bolton-cueman]

as Leo said...

oh Jesus

[Hello, Mr Big Shot]

Just a quick FYI, most pockets in the USA are not 5" wide. We have many different pocket widths, cuts and ways to tighten up the pockets. We do play on pockets that are as small as 3 &7/8th inches. Typically a triple shimmed table will have 4.25" pockets which will reject most shots that touch the rail on way except for shallow angles and slow speeds.

We have deep shelf pockets where an entire ball will fit past the points and still be on the table bed. This means that balls will not bank in off the cushions but instead are rejected even though the pocket itself has an opening wider than 4.25"

To tighten pockets we either shim them with hard rubber pieces or we extend the rails for a more permanent modification.

I know that it seems as if pool is only played on bucket pockets but I assure you that in the serious pool rooms and in serious money matches the pockets are tight and accuracy is paramount.

There was at one time a table used in the money matches promoted by the TAR group in Las Vegas which used a table with both extended rails and what was called pro-cut pockets. The angle of the opening was set to reject balls and the widest part of the pocket was 4 1/8th". All in all a very tough table to play pool on. Shane Van Boeing managed to run a 7 pack in ten ball on it over the course of a race to 100. Two lesser pros played a money match on it and the table was making them look bad because they didn't have Shane's level of accuracy.

As to the topic of BHE, guess you all would call it BHS, back hand side, I guess it can certainly work in snooker as the consequence of using it ends up being a sort of cancellation of the deflection caused by side spin. I find that I can use this much more reliably than what I called adjusted spin, or the practice of choosing the aiming offset and planting the bridge hand on that spin address.

For me I can comfortably use BHE and I find that I don't really have to go far away from center to get plenty of spin. But it is certainly something one has to practice with to find what the parameters are that you are comfortable with.

Correct. A lot of people will only know american pool tables from watching brief snippets of the mosconi cup, where lights and a brand new cloth will enable balls to slide in from all angles. Give those tables a few weeks and they'll play totally differently.

Nice to see you've found some time for us john.