While attempting to learn how to maximize draw, I began an exercise which did help drastically improve my draw, but it also taught me the side affects of attempting to add too much draw!

The Exercise

        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9

   a    P-------------------B-------------------X
        |                        A    d         +
   b    |                                       |
        |                                       |
   c    |                                       |
        |                                       |
   d    |                                       |
        |                                       |
   e    X-------------------X-------------------X

I started the exercise by placing my object ball, A, at b6 and attempting to sink it in pocket P(a1). I placed the cue ball one diamond away at d7 and began applying as much draw as I could muster. This took me a while, but eventually I was able to draw the cue ball back to the 9 rail.

Increasing The Challenge

To make things a little more difficult, I moved the object ball closer to the pocket but kept the cue ball in the same starting position.

        1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9

   a    P-------------------B-------------------X
        |                      A      d         +
   b    |                                       |
        |                                       |
   c    |                                       |
        |                                       |
   d    |                                       |
        |                                       |
   e    X-------------------X-------------------X

By placing the object ball at B56, I was able to increase my draw strength to still be able to draw the cueball all the way back to the 9 rail, but I quickly found that I started constantly missing the a1 pocket! This was not a terribly difficult shot, why was I missing consistently?

Squirt Hurts

Squirt is the damndest thing, it was taking its toll on me. Picture yourself pushing a cue ball resting on a rail perpendicularly into the rail with your cue stick. Eventually something will have to give and whichever side you are most off-center to, is where the give will occur. The cueball will jump away to the opposite side, that's squirt.

Even without pushing the cueball into the rail, squirt will be present. The more off-center you are, the more readily the cue ball will squirt to the opposite side drastically shifting your line of approach even if maintaining the same approach angle! As you can imagine, shifting your approach line even a millimeter right or left will alter the angle of collision between the cue ball and object ball quite a bit. But since the angle will naturally also change slightly, things get even worse with distance.

This change is what was killing me. To make things worse, I was applying draw. By hitting low on the ball, I was lifting the ball ever so slightly, allowing it to squirt more easily. Put a little extra distance between the cueball and the object ball and it becomes fatal.

Dead Center

The only way to avoid squirt is to hit dead center on the vertical axis. If you train hard you could probably draw the cue ball all the way across the table, but you'd better not expect to be able to do and make an accurate shot, such as when the object ball is any real distance from its pocket.