Gripping the cue with two fingers off the butt

[cazmac1]

Since I started playing snooker again I been plagued by the same fault and have not been able to correct until now. When I play the white up and down the spots the white ball always comes back up to the right of the spots. I've tried every thing to correct it and have posted on it before. I thought I had cured the problem but the way I achieved it was uncomfortable and caused as many problems as it solved.
I had been playing with a JP that was 57 1/4 inch long and found that if I held to cue with two fingers of the butt I could get the white up and down the spots better and my potting improved, but the white ball would still come back up on the right hand side of the spots. So I just got my new TW cue and had it made an inch longer 58 1/4 so that I didn't need to hold the cue with two fingers off the butt. (Stay with me guys) So I played the white up and down the spots, and again the white is coming up to the right of the spots, so I thought I'll try it with two fingers off the butt and the result was amazing for the first this in 23 years I've been able to play the white up and down the spots and get it to come back repeatedly over the spots without fail.

Now some off you might be thinking how can making the cue longer have any effect on cuing? I think the answer is that my cue is level now and my forearm is straighter, I’m steadier on the shot and most importantly I'm not cuing from left too right, which I think was my original fault with the shorter cue.

This has left me with a big problem do I need a 59 1/4 inch cue or can I play with two fingers off the butt, what are the down sides to playing with a grip like this and one last question are there any pros that us this grip?

Like to get your view on this terry

PS: If I get time tomorrow I'm going to post some video, I think it will make some interesting viewing

[Bigmeek]

cazmac1 Very interesting post. Look forward to seeing some of he replies. Looks like there should be some simple adjustments to be made somewhere but I'm fudged if I know the answer.

[Watford]

Are you an Orangutan by any chance?

I used to use a 57" with fingers off and used to cope fine. Your little finger isn't doing anything anyway. I reckon if your happy stick with it.
My problem was that I kept holding my 58" when I got one too long for a while. I hold it further up now and it's much better.

I don't really see why this would make you put side on though.
I'd think about how you address the white and what is different.

[hotpot]

If your arm is too bent then i think you may have too much cue past your bridge which in effect will be harder to control and cue straight .

Obviously if you straighten your arm right out then you could run out of cue , especially on power shots .

I find i tend to cue straighter with a 57-57" cue than i do with a 58 " cue , but this means that i have to hold the cue with three fingers .

[Luke Hooper]

see, i use a 57" cue, im around 6ft and i tend to find i never hold the cue right at the end of the butt, i always hold maybe 2 inches from the butt, sometimes as much as 4" from the butt, maybe more, depending on how softly i am intending to hit the ball and how much i want to cue through...when im working around the black spot area my grip is always around 4 inches away from end of the butt and my cueing hand is near the tip, (maybe about 3 inches away, but again it all depends on how much i want to follow through, i judge it so that my back hand always hits my chest in the same point each time i cue through, that way i can be sure ive cued it straight...im fairly sure one day ill develop internal bleeding, that should be fun)

haha...

[cazmac1]

I think the only way I'm going to get this across is to video it and put it on the forum. I will do it in real time (no editing) and let you judge for your self whats happening.....
Should get down tomorrow.

[northerner]

I'd probably say get your bridge hand an inch closer to the white, not having seen you. I think that might be good advice generally to anyone I'd never seen from a probabilistic standpoint.

Alternatively, you can learn to live with it. Plenty of players have faults they are aware of and can compensate for. Sometimes, perfecting one area can lead to knock-on shortcomings in others.

[Terry Davidson]

cazmac:

You've figured it out but come to the wrong conclusion I believe, although you are going to be OK anyway.

Amazingly enough, up until recently I had the exact same problem with the cueball coming back very slightly to the right. It was so consistent I thought my table had a roll in it but as it turns out it was me (of course) and not the table.

What I discovered was this. When I straighten out my bridge arm to where it's ALMOST as Joe Davis describes it as 'thrust out' I found the cueball coming back very straight and my long potting was better.

Since I tout myself as a master coach, of course I had to find out WHY????? and here's the answer after reviewing myself on a few hours of video just shooting the spots and trying long straight pots (which improved immediately by the way).

When you straighten out the bridge arm you naturally bring that shoulder into the cheek closer and this has another beneficial effect in that it raises the grip arm shoulder and brings it more directly behind the head and more over the cue. So straightening that bridge arm shoulder re-alignes the body over the cue better.

For me, there was also an additional side effect as I remain a lot more stable and still on the shot too and lately my long potting has been just amazing. I line up 15 reds across the blue spot and pot each one of them into a top pocket from the baulk line, screwing back anywhere from 2ft to back to the baulk line, so I'm using a bit of power.

Before I started straightening the left arm out it was taking me up to 25-27 attempts to pot the 15 reds. After straightening it out (and using the 360 training cue by the way) I started making all 15 in 18-20 attempts and even made all 15 on one very fine day.

Now I know there's a lot that goes into having a perfectly straight cue delivery and all of us get there using different (and hopefully natural) methods, but this one seemed to do the trick for me. I also noticed in videos that all of the pros have the bridge arm shoulder tight against that cheek, even if they do have the bridge arm bent

Terry

[Luke Hooper]

interesting terry, maybe thats why i have my off days here and there, perhaps its because my bridge arm isnt straight when cueing those long shots...i tend to remember when i am on form, i think its because my bridge arm is stretched straight now you mentioned it

ill play a bit later and let you know how i get on..

thanks.

[johno]

Terry

This is interesting and seems it could be the answer for a lot of people, are you saying
the big difference in your game is just down to having your bridge arm straight ?
You mention of course Joe Davis and his totally straight bridge arm, is yours slightly
bent and if so how much. One further point, when I tried this I found my actual
bridge raised up and I was cueing up slightly above my normal level. However it did
seem to improve my long potting. I would appreciate your comments.

[Terry Davidson]

johno:

It's not the fact that the bridge arm is almost straight (less than a 10-degree bend in case you try it)...it's the fact that doing that brings the bridge arm shoulder into the cheek on that side and also has the beneficial effect of raising the grip arm shoulder up behind the head.

If you look at any of the top pros from head-on you will see most of them have a pretty straight bridging arm but on all of then them that I've checked you cannot see their shoulder behind their head at all.

Don't worry about your bridge raising up as you can still flatten it by dropping the palm and fingers. The secret with bridge height is to ensure the cue is no less than at least one chalk height above the cushion in a normal hand-on-the-table shot. I found previously that my cue was only about 1/4' off the rail and often my cue would bang into the rail on a power shot as I dropped my elbow on the follow-through.

Terry

[CoolBlue]

Interesting thread.. Thanks for the feedback Terry.. Will be good to see that video Cazmac..

[johno]

Thanks Terry, I see where you are coming from and will try this approach.

[killer147]

Yeh, i agree with you lads because i had been struggling for a couple of years and even though sometimes i still played aswell as i knew i could there was no consistency. and in the end i looked at my technique trying to change different things but nothing made any difference then one day i decided to straighten my arm to see what would happen. i found that the rest of my technique is improving aswell and i am palying more solid, my long potting is better than ever and even in the balls i am getting more consistant and f this was,nt proof enough my tournement results are improving all over a stupid thing like straightening your arm. so i definetly think there's something to it

[Inoffthered]

PS: If I get time tomorrow I'm going to post some video, I think it will make some interesting viewing

What happened?

:O