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The Banana Draw Shot in Pool

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Andy Segal: Hi I am Andy Segal. This shot here is called the Banana shot. It s the second in the series of four draw shots that we are going to do. The reason why it is called the Banana shot is because the cue ball does not go into the straight line, it follows the curved path kind of like, a banana. Anyway you can see that the cue ball here is trapped between the 1-ball and the cushion and also the 2-ball is in the direct path between the cue ball and the 8. Now, obviously in the game of 8-ball, I want to think the 8 to win and I can not hit any of the solids first, I have to hit the 8 first, so what I am going to do is I am going to shoot the cue ball into the cushion, what happens this is, is the cue ball compresses the rail like this giving it a enough space to come out around the 1 without touching it.

So, all I am doing here is, I m shooting the cue ball somewhere in this area, just past the third diamond with straight backspin. The way you set this up is I have the cue ball right between these two diamonds, frozen to the rail, the 1-ball frozen to the cue ball directly across the table, the 8-ball hanging in the pocket and the 2-ball -- well the ball is about maybe right between this diamond and the side pocket, maybe about a third of the way out from this rail. Basically, you just want it to be in the way of the cue ball going straight into the 8. So straight backspin into the rail, slightly left of third diamond. All right, now, why did I miss that? Well, the cue ball never curved enough to get to the 8, so that can be one of the two things, either I did not hit it hard enough with enough backspin or I aimed too far down the table which means the cue ball took long of an angle. In this case, I do not think the cue ball took too long of an angle, it did go this way but I do not think, I hit it with enough backspin. So, I am going to hit the cue ball a little lower on the ball this time to give it more backspin.

Alright, what happened there? Well, I think I over adjusted and I hit the cue ball a little too low, with too much backspin, so what happened is the cue ball came out along the right line but instead of curving here, it came out and curved here and went into the 2. So, what I have to do is, I have to find a happy medium and shoot it kind in right in between the first two attempts and that is the way you win the game of 8-ball and do not forget, we have two more great draw shots in this video series, so do not go away.

Expert: Andy Segal

2007 World Trick Shot Champion

www.andysegal.com

I have been playing pool since 1983. I started performing trick shots in college, back in the late 80's, but I have been competing in trick shot competitions since October of 2002. I was invited to ESPN's Trick Shot Magic for the first time in October of 2003, when a good friend of mine Bogdan Wolkowski from Poland dropped out at the last minute due to an arm injury. Once I started competing in the trick More »