Thrown Into Throw Effects

We had a pool trip to our neighboring country, Estonia, just recently. The trip obviously involved a lot of pool playing, but it wasn't too serious. It was more like a regular vacation. Me and my wife won the mixed doubles competition, which also happened to be the first official tournament for my wife.

Anyhow, one of the attendees to the trip was someone (among others) whose game I respect a lot. So I tried to fish for comments and criticism on my game and one of the valuable comments he gave was that my shot selection is too limited. I tend to go for draw shots, even when a follow shot would be more appropriate. I'm particularly prone to use outside English with my draw shots and often a whole different shot would be a better choice. The comment felt obvious in hindsight, but without someone saying it to me, it probably wouldn't have occurred to me. So I'm grateful for that.

What I realized later was that one of the reasons that I have a limited shot selection is that I've never approached throw effects systematically and often the shots I avoid involve inside English. In certain shots, you should compensate pretty heavily for the cut-induced and spin-induced throw. The most natural compensation is the use of outside English, which often negates the throw effect completely, making it unnecessary to compensate with the cut-angle. I think the reason of my shot selection bias is partly because I've grown to trust shots that involve outside English. Some shots just seem harder for no obvious reason. I think the underlying reason is often that they involve heavy throw effects. My brain has registered that I've missed a lot of these types of shots and that's one of the reasons I've avoided them.

Now, since these throw effects are very much real and pretty significant at times, it follows that every good player already compensates for them, in some way or another. Many players probably know that there are throw effects, but in practice they compensate the throw by intuition, by feel. And there's nothing wrong with that, because ultimately you have to compensate by feel anyhow. But the point that Dr. Dave makes is that this intuition can be guided and taught so that you learn quicker. That's my intention.