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“Someone that hasn’t practiced these a lot can’t do them.
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“Think about that massé shot, or the jump shot,” Alciatore says, referring to Kohler’s sexy curve and Segal’s quadruple jump. They can instantly visualize complex shots that typical players would never dream of attempting-and then practice, practice, practice to perfect them. This analytical understanding, he says, comes intuitively to most trick-shot masters. You’ll hear how a cue ball “throws” the ball it strikes, how it transfers spin, how equilibrium controls a jump ball, and how different forces are at play during a massé (curve) shot. Speak with him about pool for five minutes and you’ll find yourself neck-deep in mathematical formulas. Students at Harvard are studying “Dynamics of Rational Billiards.” At Williams, “Geometry, Surfaces, and Billiards.” At Stanford, “Lagrangian Relations and Linear Point Billiards.”ĭavid Alciatore, a professor of mechanical engineering at Colorado State University, has written extensively on the sport-zeroing in on the science of trick shots-and even incorporates pocket billiards into his lectures on energy, friction, and rotation. They’re more like case studies out of a geometry class or physics lab. It even has its own tournament on ESPN: Tune into Trick Shot Magic and you’ll see the likes of Segal, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon, demonstrating four jump shots at the same time, or Florian “Venom” Kohler, licensed optometrist, performing a “sexy” trick shot that sends the cue ball over the knees of a model as she poses seductively on the table.Īnyone who thinks these feats are merely tests of shooting skills are missing the point. But nowadays, the sport has become an art form unto itself-separate and apart from traditional pocket billiards. Players would hang out in basements and pool halls, challenging each other with custom-made maneuvers. Welcome to trick-shot pool.įor years, trick shots were a novelty.
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The cue ball jumps in the air and lands on the felt, spinning and rolling backward, tapping each of 10 lined-up balls in succession before knocking the 8-ball into the corner pocket. In a billiards parlor in Hoboken, New Jersey, Andy “Magic Man” Segal leans over the back table, angles his stick in the air, and stabs downward.
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