July 2009 - Billiards Digest Vault

+ TRICK SHOTS+
BY Willie Jopling
ON THE RAILROAD
These shots put a new spin on an old train of thought.
ACK IN 1982 when this magazine
the side. It has always been a crowdwas only a few years old, I appleaser.
proached Mike Panozzo about doBack while making my Trick Shot
ing a trick-shot column in each issue
video in the ’80s, I wanted to create
of Billiards Digest. I don’t remember
a couple of railroad shots of my own,
sending him anything or how he had
and I did. One of the variations I came
any idea that I knew anything about
up with is shown in Diagram 2. I
trick shots and pool, but he gave me a
wanted to design a shot where the cue
chance to display some of my
favorite shots in these pages.
As time went on, I started
creating more shots that were
all printed in this magazine
throughout the ’80s and ’90s.
Also, back in 1985, I decided to make a video that included a lot of my trick shots.
It has over 150 shots on it, 40
of which are original shots
of mine. One of my favorites
Diagram 1
is the topic of this month’s
column, including a few different variations on the basic
setup. And, as you can see by
the cue-filled diagrams, it is a
railroad shot. But this is not
one of the usual run-of-themill railroad shots. You have
never seen this shot, unless
you have either seen one of
my exhibitions or my Trick
Shot DVD.
Diagram 1 illustrates the
most popular version that I
Diagram 2
often used in exhibitions. It
is a simple shot that is easy to
set up and easy to make. This
is the first railroad shot I ever
saw. Jimmy Caras came to
town back in 1947 and made
this shot twice — once in
the afternoon and again that
night. Everybody loved it.
In this shot, the cue ball
contacts the 2 ball fi rst, making the 1 ball in the side. The
2 ball rolls into the bottom
corner pocket, while the cue
ball continues three rails,
Diagram 3
then goes up and down the
sticks to make the 3 ball in
B
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BILLIARDS DIGEST
July09 Jopling.indd 26
ball would contact a ball that stayed in
position, then the cue ball eventually
would pocket that same ball. I had this
idea, and darned if it didn’t work.
Set up the three balls as shown in
Diagram 2, with the 2 and 3 balls frozen to the 1, then position the cue ball
about as indicated. Notice the red line
that shows the 2 and 3
balls should be set in line
with the point of the corner pocket. Hit the 3 ball
with a glancing blow. To
make the 1 and 2 without
the 3 ball moving, you
must hit the 3 ball at an
angle that puts the same
amount of weight on the 1
and 2 balls, which is also
what you need to do to get
the cue ball around the table and up the sticks. The
cues must be positioned
just right, so the cue ball
rolls off the sticks and
knocks the 3 ball into the
side pocket.
The shot shown in Diagram 3 is another shot
that I used on my video,
where I have added two
more balls. To make all
five of these balls in rotation, set up the 1, 5 and 2
just as you see in the diagram. Then, freeze the 3
ball almost dead in the far
corner pocket (indicated
by the red line). The 4 ball
should be frozen to the 3,
leaving about a half-inch
gap between the 2 and 4
balls. The 2 ball should
kiss off the 4 and into the
side pocket. If you hit the
shot and the 4 ball hits
the foot rail instead of the
corner pocket, close up
the gap. If the 4 hits the
side rail instead of going
in, open up the gap a bit.
July 2009
6/9/09 2:30:26 PM