The "Masse Massif" pool trick shot shown here, exemplifies how the cue ball can make a half round curve using a masse shot without touching any of the rails. To emphasize this, our pool trick shot artist, Vincent Facquet, had lined up a column of about 10 balls perpendicular to the rail and the cue ball hits the object ball on the other side of the balls without touching neither any of the balls nor any of the rails.
Normally, the cue ball would have to contact at least two rails to make it to the object ball. As you can see in this pool trick shot video, the cue ball hits and pockets the object ball right away, with the pool table rails remain untouched.
Masse Shots in Pool
The "Masse Massif" trick shot (Massif = group of mountains in French) shows to the extreme the usage of the masse shot, a pool technique commonly used to achieve the sharp curves onto the cue ball without having to touch neither a rail nor a ball. To perform a masse shot, the cue stick is held vertically over the cue ball. Generally, the higher the cue stick, the sharper the curve.