Your Shot of the Day: Drag Shot (OT)

This is actually a miss, which is unusual for Your Shot of the Day, but it's an excellent visual tutorial on what a drag shot is. First, you'll watch Han Yu of China, who is comfortably leading Shane Van Boening of the USA at Gibraltar, miss a safety shot. But then watch the slow-mo replay very closely. You'll clearly see the cue (white) ball spinning backwards, then skidding, then picking up forward roll before striking the yellow 1-ball.

China's Han Yu

That's a drag shot, which is used for covering distance with the cue ball while at the same time striking the object ball at a low, slow speed. It's among my favorite pool shots.

To watch pool you generally need to know what the response of the cue ball is telling you about how it was struck. Precise striking of the cue ball is where an important part of the physical skill of cue sports resides, but it's mostly difficult to impossible to see with the naked eye where the cue tip hits the cue ball. So we look at setup and at results to see how the player put spin on the cue ball. After contact, the white ball usually tells the tale.

The game is not so much about sinking object balls—most players can do that most of the time. It's more about "moving the white ball around the table." If you ever see a pro miss a ball that you would have thought should be easy, it's not because they can't pocket the object ball. Ninety-eight percent of the time it's because they're trying to do too much with the cue ball.

Get in position
A bonus: you can also use this same match to see a nice demonstration of position play. Start at the 18 minute minute mark, as Shane tries to notch his first rack. It takes less than three minutes. Pay close attention to where the cue ball comes to rest after he pockets each ball.

If you'll look at the bottom of the video frame you'll see a graphic showing the balls left on the table in the order in which they need to be potted (actually any ball can be potted; but the lowest-numbered ball on the table always needs to be struck first). Pro players have the entire runout mapped out in their heads as they play. They might need to revise that plan if something goes awry, but if a nine-ball player thinks she can run out and is shooting at the 3-ball, for instance, she already knows where she needs the cue ball to be four shots later to sink the 7-ball.

And note that a "perfect" shot on the next ball, i.e. dead straight on, is not what a player wants from position play...on each shot, Shane needs to land on the next shot to give himself an angle to get to the shot after that. You always need the angle in order to move the cue ball. So planning position on any shot actually needs to account for the proper angle for two shots into the future. The only ball you might want to be straight on is the last shot of the rack—and note where Shane ends up on that ball here.

On to the action. Shane starts out with a difficult shot on the red 3-ball—a rail shot is tough because you can only strike the cue ball on its crown, which makes the shot more difficult and also takes away a lot of cue-ball control. The pink 4-ball to the orange 5-ball is a particularly impressive positional shot. From the 3 to the 4 to the 5 here is masterful position play.

Despite Han Yu's success, she takes a long time in this match to get used to the speed of the table—a beautiful, very high-end Chinese Rasson—which is playing slow. Dozens of her shots in the first third of the match are underhit and come up short of position. Pros are better at adjusting to fast tables than they are to slow ones. It's the opposite for amateurs.

She's also overcoming a shorter shot clock. She has 30 seconds for each shot, and she's accustomed to being a deliberate, methodical player within the limits of the 45-second clock the women use. You'd never know it by her languid, laid-back manner, but she's being rushed throughout the match. But good shotmaking, smart planning, and her steady, even temperament, along with some outstanding safety* play (she wins at least two of her racks with wickedly good safeties), plus the addition of a little good luck here and there and a few misses from Shane, carry her to an impressive showing. The match goes hill-hill, meaning the winner will be decided by the last rack.

Mike

*A safety is when you put your opponent in a bad position instead of putting yourself in a good one. It's the mark of a rank amateur when someone thinks a safety shot is "cheating"!

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

tom: "Did you post this to the wrong blog?"

Jeff1000: "I learned more about pool in that short essay than a lifetime playing eight-ball. Outstanding!"

Comments

[Ned Bunnell]

Quickly read the title and thought you’d taken photos at the LGBT parade in your village:)

[Albert Smith]

I guess the lesson is to not stop reading after the heading. Shot of the day (on a photo forum) and drag shot...

I thought that guy has a good make up job.

[Sroyon]

I've never played pool but in college I played a lot of carrom. It's a board game, very popular in South Asia, where you pot flat wooden counters (instead of balls, as in pool). I got pretty decent at it – I was the college champion – but for a few years I played with someone who was truly good. Rarely, very rarely, Dam-da as I called him (-da is a Bengali suffix which literally means "older brother" but is also a honorific) would have a bad day or I'd have a really good day, but most times he'd wipe the floor with me.

Clearing the table, even among pros, is not as common in carrom as it is in pool. I've done it twice in my life. Dam-da did it about once a month.

What stays with me is, sometimes right after the break, he'd look thoughtfully at the board. Rubbing his chin, he'd say, "Finish achhe." (Literally, "There is a finish.") Sometimes he'd pull it off, sometimes he wouldn't. But I liked the implication that the finish was "out there", if only we were skilled enough to grasp it.

[Eric Rose]

Funny when I read the term "drag shot" I though you were referring to photographing someone in "drag".

[Kye Wood]

As a very long time reader, let me say that your writing of late is the best work you've done. It reads, to me, as though it's effortless and that you could have written thrice as much with ease. But this pool article... oi! And this coming from the only son of the only man to beat Eddie Charlton when he came to Australia (Graham Wood). The issue is that you're explaining it to NPF (non pool folk). Whereas photography writing has the luxury of an expected basic level of knowledge of the subject.

Still a fan Mike :-)

[The reason I'm explaining it as if to NPF is because I don't actually believe 79% of my readers are pool fans.... --Mike]

[Christoph]

Are you really sure, you don't want to switch to snooker? Cue ball control galore...

[I adore snooker...really do. --Mike]

[Olybacker]

A very enjoyable divertissement during Pandemic Lockdown. Thanks very much, Mike. :-)