Today one of my students asked me about side spin:
" I have a question for you. Is better play only with follow, stun and draw shot than use side spins correct? "
This is an interesting question and therefore I will share my answer with you here:
"Well, you have to be able to control the cueball without any side spin. The general advice is to use as little as possible, especially for beginners.
Sidespin however can very often make it a lot easier to control the cueball. So my answer is yes and no: Use no side spin if it's not necessary and be able to control the cueball without sidespin. But use the sidespin to your advantage to make position easier. Look at this example shot:
If you want to send the cueball along this path with just low, it's very tough that you find the right amount of low AND the right speed and stroke. Because the backwards rotation gets lost on it's way to the five ball. So you have the factor of:
- how much low exactly is necessary
- how hard you have to hit, so that the cueball arrives with the right amount of low
Therefore speed control gets a lot tougher. If you want the cueball to arrive with enough low, you have to hit harder and tend to overpower the shot.
However if you play this shot just with right hand side the rotation doesn't get lost on it's way. So you don't have that speed factor anymore and the amount of spin that the cueball has when arriving at the five ball is almost the same as when you hit the cueball. Therefore you can play the shot softer and more accurate and predictable.
This is only one example of many. But I hope you get the idea :)"