My favorite shot is back pin. THe reason is quick and no body can stop it.
Push kick is my back-up ,but not working everytime.
Never see snake ,I watch video carefully ,but see no difference between front pin.
Anyone can tell me?
Yeah.
The snake is also called the rollover--the reason is that the man lifts off the top of the ball, goes almost 360 degrees around, and then hits the ball in. It is shot with the wrist on the handle (rather than with the hand).
Some people who shoot the front-pin have a rollover option for the straight, but when it's moved the shot involves bringing the man around behind the ball and then hitting it forward. The snake involves bringing the man up, around, and hitting the ball.
Essentially, those 3 shots are the only ones that have been really competitive at a high level on the Tornado for the past 10+ years. The other shots have far too many limitations to be serious tournament-level shots. The keys to a good tournament shot:
1. It must be unraceable--it has to be fast enough that people can't chase it down.
2. It must be unreadable--you have to have all of your options look identical until the last second, so the opponent can't tell where you're shooting.
3. It has to have enough options to open up the goal.
4. It has to be consistent and at easy enough on the arm so that you can shoot for 3-4 days in a row effectively.
There's another minor key, as well:
a) it has to be easy to learn. If it's a lot harder to learn, you're taking away practice time that could be spent working on improving your passing or other parts of the game.
So, what do the top players in the world shoot?
Here's one answer, for Tornado tables. The answer on Bonzini would be different (e.g. it's easier to square off the push-side of the front-pin on that table, and the pull is harder to execute, and the front-pin series that you set up on the far side of the goal and only shoot pull-side options is a viable series):
Just under 50% of the Pro-Master players on Tornado use the Snake as their primary shot. And about 45% of them use the Pull as their primary shot.
Taken together, those shots account for 92% of the pro-masters. They satisfy rules 1-4 and (a) for the most part--the pull is probably tougher on the arm, and slightly harder to learn, but for a lot of shooters has more options. For some people it's easier to learn, and some snake shooters have a lot of options to work with. The snake is currently the closest to the "ideal" tournament shot, but the pull is pretty close and so people who don't want to or can't shoot the snake tend to go with the pull.
There are also a few front-pin shooters, including Frederico (top player in the world). The front-pin satisfies 1-4, but it violates (a)--it's very hard to learn. A lot of people can learn to shoot the pull side effectively, the straight, and a push side that is either angled out (spray, so it can't get around a reverse defense) or slow enough to be somewhat raceable. Getting to the point where the push side is quick, square, and long (and looks like the other options) is really hard, though. But, if you put in the time it can be as effective as the pull/snake (at least if you're a Belgian whose initials are FC).
There are still a handful of push-kick and pull-kick shooters left over from the TS tour, but no pro-master under 35 years old uses either of those (and even many of the old-time guys like Jeep have switched to using a snake shot). Frank Balecha is the closest thing to a new top-level player who shoots it (he shot a push-kick at Vegas last year and got 3rd place), but I think he scrapped it in favor of a snake--at least I saw him shoot a snake this year at Vegas. Because you're involving 2 men in the shot, the timing is very delicate and it's almost impossible to shoot it consistently over the course of the weekend. It also tends to be very hard on the elbow and shoulder, and even the best are generally somewhat raceable (with a handful of exceptions through the decades). They do tend to have a ton of options to work with.
The only pro-master in recent years to shoot a push was Maggie Strong, but she's retired. The push is really hard for most people to square off, which limits your options. I mean _really_ hard. Most people cannot hit a square short push (just around a man covering the straight and then either in straight or cutting back) and many can't hit a square long (they usually have a very fast spray long). There are a handful of people out there (Frank Goff, Kevin Munroe) who can shoot the heck out of it. But I'd say it tends to violate 3 and (a).
The back-pin has basically the same options as the front-pin, except that it's impossible to shoot a straight without rocking off the ball first. So it has all the advantages and limitations of the front-pin, except it inherently violates #2 and there's no good way to prevent that. It is a bit easier to square off than a front-pin. Regardless, it's so easy to block compared to other shots that not only have there been no Pro-Master players who shot it in recent memory, but no pros or even good semipros. It's a lot of fun to shoot and people mess around with it, but it's nearly impossible to shoot at a high tournament level.
What do I shoot? Primarily a pull in tournament play. My favorite in funsy games is a back-pin, and from time to time I'll mess around with all of the above.
What should you shoot? Whatever gets the ball in the goal. Even if other people have trouble shooting a push-kick, you might have a really nice one--if so, keep using it. But if you're trying to develop a tournament caliber shot, it's worth looking at what has worked for other people before.
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