What causes KICKS?

[noel]

Like the ones I just saw in the Selby - Allen match...



=o\

Noel

[Penalty]

If you read the thread PROFEESSIONAL BREAK OF ON T.V it would be the ref cleaning the white . But seriously it can be chalk dust on the balls or dust on the table that gives a bad contact hence the sound which indicates that the balls did not connect cleanly.

[Templeton Peck]

Mark Williams gets far more kicks than any other player so I'm inclined to put it down to poor cueing.

[mushka]

WSA or Ronnie O'Sullivan.


I hope this thread wasn't to be taken too seriously, noel.

[checkSide]

My conclusion is it is DEFINITELY the way you cue the ball. If you cue down on the cue ball ever so slightly, the bouncing motion of the white as it strikes the object ball can cause a kick.

Sometimes this bouncing motion is imperceptible in the white, but still present. Thus causing a kick. IMHO

[Monique]

There was quite a discussion about this on 606 some times ago.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A45733007

I leave it to your appreciation.

[ChatLag]

As far as i have heard from the German snooker commentator the source of the KICKS are not yet completely analyzed.

Would be a good topic for a dissertation in physics...

[noel]

WSA or Ronnie O'Sullivan.


I hope this thread wasn't to be taken too seriously, noel.

I did wonder, somewhat whimsically, watching the two young lads, if it might have something to do with hair gel...


Nel

[noel]

Mon.... comes through AGAIN!

Thank you so much... that little article does explain the phenolic phenomenon quite well.

And the solution also!!!

"The answer proved to be simple. That is to spray the object balls with Pledge furniture polish (or hair gel), let it dry, then buff them gently with a soft cloth. They are then very slippery, and remain so for dozens of frames."



=o)

Noel

There was quite a discussion about this on 606 some times ago.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A45733007

I leave it to your appreciation.

[Watford]

As far as i have heard from the German snooker commentator the source of the KICKS are not yet completely analyzed.

Would be a good topic for a dissertation in physics...

Your right it's not scientifically proven.
A British University was looking at it but I can't remember which one.

[moglet]

I used to get far too many bad contacts at home, different cloths (not competition quality), different conditions in the room, numerous new ball sets you name it, ultimately nothing made them better or worse. Perhaps no surprise, but the competition cloths do make things slightly worse.

You don't put up it with it for too long without finding out what the problem is and so make playing more reliable. Most importantly the balls should still react as they would normally after a "clean" contact, using a wax or silicone polish drastically affects ball response especially off the cushion. You can prove chalk causes a problem quite easily, but if no chalk is present the balls still kick. You can also prove that static charge is only an incidental factor by eliminating it, still the kicks remain.

Yes, if the cueball is not in contact with the bed when it strikes the object ball the misalignment causes an effect almost indistinguishable from a perfectly aligned kick.

The secret is to make sure that ball to ball friction is the same and just the right amount for as much of the time as possible. Unfortunately, the ball if left to itself on the table will eventually kick all the time. We see some evidence of this at the tournaments, where the players have no idea from shot to shot what quality of contact they will get. It is unfortunate that this type of ball is not suited to its purpose and persistent cleaning, if it is done properly, only serves to make the problem worse, fortunately though, the referee's cleaning of the ball is not as clinical as they think, if it were the game would be abandoned until a suitable ball could be found.

However, even with the greatest of care this ball material is far from ideal and small variations will still be there but far less damaging than it is at present.

[cueman]

Its always noticeable how the longer the cloth is on these tables the worse over the week the kicks become. First couple of days the table was playing superb, quick, responsive and I hardly saw a kick. After 3 or 4 days play with the table brushed and ironed we start to see more and more kicks. Personally I'm of the opinion that brushing the table doesn't actually get all the dust or chalk out of the cloth, they don't have time to do so between mid session intervals. Add into that the wear and sweat from hand marks again adding moisture to the cloth together with the chalk dust its only going to transfer onto the balls and create more chance of a kick.

I'm sure there are a number of reasons as to what causes a kick though, you cannot irradicate one specific area but I'd like to think that when the cloth gets changed, probably for the semi finals that we see hardly any for the remainder of the event.

[moglet]

Yes indeed, these are all factors and variables, the information I hear from the venue suggests the kicks have been pretty poor all week, watching on TV is a bit deceptive, the commentary even more so, kick types for the "team" fall into two categories the bouncing bomb kick and the "other one", more often than not if a kick does occur it is completely missed by the commentary, for the lesser kicks it is not necessarily so that the balls will leave the bed, many of them do not and are missed by the commentators, but not by the players even if they "get away with it" and the shot is relatively unaffected.

We can live in hope that the cloth change will clean things up, but I won't be holding my breath.

The Powers That Be know pretty well what the problem is and so far choose not to take precautions, maybe the betting fraternity have had some say in the matter?

[vmax4steve]

I remember watching an episode of BBC 2's Horizon science documentary series in the eighties called The Science Of Snooker.
Steve Davis was demonstrating all sorts of spin filmed in super slo mo and one of the the topics touched upon was the reason for kicks.
Davis gave some theories and each was tested but the only one found to cause kicks was dirt or chalk on the balls.
When there is dirt or chalk on the exact contact point between two balls then a kick occurs. If the ref cleans the cue ball, the ball is then played with a chalked tip which deposits a little bit of chalk on it that could make it kick again.
This will always be a part of the game until a substance is manufactured that can be used as a tip that doesn't leave a residue on the cue ball.

I also remember seeing Alex Higgins cleaning the cue ball on tv in the eighties when the nap on the cloths were being shaved down to make the tables faster. The camera zoomed in on the cue ball and you could clearly see that it had bits of green fluff on it.
Higgins always complained about this causing kicks but nothing was ever done.

[1lawyer]

legs being thrown into the air with boots on.