Big bounces off the cushions?

[Achamian]

OK, so we basically know how to stop the balls from 'kicking' now. It seems to be just a matter of finding a suitable 'ball lubricant' that all parties involved are happy with - and then trying it out.

But the latest snooker misfortune is the 'big bounce' off the cushion that causes players to lose position.

Does anyone have any ideas about any causes/cures etc for this latest weird phenomenon?

[narl]

OK, so we basically know how to stop the balls from 'kicking' now. It seems to be just a matter of finding a suitable 'ball lubricant' that all parties involved are happy with - and then trying it out.

Since when? Theres some theories about what might cause it, ive yet to hear anything definitive.

[jrc750]

[QUOTE=Achamian;692517]OK, so we basically know how to stop the balls from 'kicking' now. ...[QUOTE]
I wasn't aware we knew this? ??

[Achamian]

I'm sorry, I didn't explain myself properly. I will try again.

We still don't know exactly what causes kicks to occur in the first place. But we do know what a kick is.

A kick occurs when the cue-ball and object-ball attempts to 'stick together' on impact due to friction between the two balls.

So, as we cannot eliminate the root cause of kicks (because we don't know what it is), the only viable solution is to lubricate the balls to lessen the chance of the cue-ball and object-ball attempting to 'stick together' on impact. (i.e. reduce the friction between them.)

Lubricating the balls does work. I have tested it myself.

Also, have a look here:

http://www.englishbilliards.org/kicks

[Maxsys]

OK so what about the kick BEFORE the cue ball contacts the object ball?

[Achamian]

OK so what about the kick BEFORE the cue ball contacts the object ball?

How can you have a kick BEFORE the cue ball contacts the object ball? Am I missing something here?

[Maxsys]

Clearly, of course you can, kicks do not only occur at the point of contact

[cyberheater]

I must confess I've never heard of that before.

When I've seen commentary on TV. It's always because of two ball collisions.

[Maxsys]

So what about chalk on the table, chalk on the cue ball? how can it be that a kick only occurs at the point of contact? Unless of course the definition of kick is not the same in my head.

[alabadi]

we had a thread about this the other week, kicks are not from just chalk deposits on the cueball, they can be caused by a bouncing cueball which causes it to hit the OB above its waistline and make it kick up too.

i am lead to believe it is caused by not striking the cueball in a smooth uniform way. so instead of the cueball rolling it bounces, sometimes it cannot be spotted with the naked eye.

we have all seen footage on the TV using a high speed camera which shows the cueball bouncing prior to contact

[thebranstonman]

Wow didn't realise that kicks are now understood! It's s seems odd to me that we somehow know the chemical composition of planets at the far reaches of our solar system but there is t a physicist/mathmagician at hand to tell us why balls 'kick', the mind boggles ( especially after a few ciders:very_drunk: )

[DeanH]

OK, so we basically know how to stop the balls from 'kicking' now. It seems to be just a matter of finding a suitable 'ball lubricant' that all parties involved are happy with - and then trying it out.

But the latest snooker misfortune is the 'big bounce' off the cushion that causes players to lose position.

Does anyone have any ideas about any causes/cures etc for this latest weird phenomenon?

"latest"? this has been going on for years

[Achamian]

"latest"? this has been going on for years

I don't think the 'big bounce' off the cushion has been going on as long as 'kicks' have, but I do agree that the 'big bounce' off the cushion has been going on for years now.

But does anyone have any ideas about it? Why it happens? How to stop it? Anything at all?

[moglet]

If you can follow the causes of ball to ball contact kicks then the reasons for cushion kicks become easy to understand - it is all to do with friction and vertical alignment.

What is difficult to decide on is the ideal condition not only of all the balls in play but also the cushions, then try to keep the balls and cushions as near to that condition in general play.

Variations in the condition of the cushions such as the height of the nose, cushion cloth and water content, chalk contamination and so on will contribute just as much to the problem as the variation in ball condition.

[Terry Davidson]

There was a short video during one of the past world championships with Steve Davis and John Parrott talking about the extreme bouncing off a cushion. Using a 'stimpmeter' from golf (tests the speed of the green) they just had a ball roll down the stimpmeter and hit a cushion and then measured the rebound.

Then they put some chalk on the cushion face at the point of contact and using the same method the bounce was actually a lot longer. So my theory agrees with theirs is when a player gets an extreme bounce off a cushion it was because there was some kind of debris on the face of the cushion, most likely chalk but it could also be sweat.

As for kicks, I've never seen or heard of a solution which will actually work to eliminate kicks. I've tried washing the walls with warm water and also warm water with just a touch of soap and also polishing them too. Nothing seems to work for me however I've not tried the silicone trick and I am unwilling to try it on my 1G balls as it would be hard to remove if it screwed them up somehow.

I do have an old set of TC balls here and I would try it on them but then I would have to use them for a month or so to get a large enough sample on whether the kicks have disappeared.

Terry