Straight cueing or poor aiming?

[Dill118]

Hi Guys,

What’s the best way of checking if I’m cueing straight or am I aiming/sighting incorrectly? I have tried the up and down the spots and long straight pots on the blue and pink etc but this may only confirm that I have aimed incorrectly not that I have cued straight?

Cheers

[Jlaix]

Frank Callan told me the best method was going over the baulk line with your cue. You'll be able to see the shadow of your cue if you cue along this line, and be able to tell wether or not your follow through is straight.

[nrage]

Hi Guys,

What’s the best way of checking if I’m cueing straight or am I aiming/sighting incorrectly? I have tried the up and down the spots and long straight pots on the blue and pink etc but this may only confirm that I have aimed incorrectly not that I have cued straight?

Cheers

Can you pot a long blue/pink and have the white follow the blue/pink into the pocket? I'm playing shorter ones across the table into the middle pockets currently, my best is 8 in a row.. tho lately I can only seem to manange 3 or 4

[Terry Davidson]

There aare 2 sure-fire methods for checking if you're cueing straight.

The first is as nrage has mentioned. Blue on spot, cueball on baulkline and dead straight into one of the top pockets. Hit above centre and try and pot both balls. If you can do 2 or 3 out of 10 then you are cueing pretty straight. Professional class is 7 or 8 out of 10 and Steve Davis once said if you can do 10 in a row then you have a better cue action than he has.

The other method is to use a video camera and place it directly behind your cue so the camera is looking along the line of aim. You will need some extra lighting to highlight your grip hand. Take about 10 shots and then review them in slow motion or frame by frame if you have a program that will do that.

Any sideways movement of the butt will show bad cueing. Put a white mark on the end of the butt. I use those little glued circles that are used to reinforce 3-ring binder paper

Terry

[Dill118]

Hi Terry,

Thats for the advise, have tried the long blues today with mixed results, seem to be missing to the left on long pots when playing into the top lefthand pocket. So tried a little closer to the blue and potted most shots but the cue ball didn't follow in everytime, so agian not sure if this is down to bad aiming or off straight cueing?

Regards

[Krypton]

Forget about the 'bad aiming', especially when playing dead straight pots. Any beginner can learn how to aim within minutes, it's not the difficulty with your play.

Missing balls, for you as for most, 99.5%, is due to bad cueing, not because of a bad aiming method (I consider getting down into shooting position as a part of cueing, not aiming).

especially when you MAKE the pot but miss the cue ball, your cueing must have been bad (or not top notch).

[Terry Davidson]

As Krypton says...FORGET THE AIMING PART. ON A STRAIGHT POT IT AIN'T THE AIMING BIT THAT'S OFF.

Simply, you are not delivering the cue straight for some reason. There are at least a dozen reasons why this might be so and I can't sort them out in this format without being able to see a player.

My recommendation would be to book a 2hr session with a good coach and explain to him you would like him to check your technique and get you to the point where you are delivering the cue straight (this sounds easy but it might take 3 or 4 sessions with the coach).

In the meantime, movement of the body is the biggest culprit here. Next comes too tight a grip or else gripping the cue too tight and too early in the delivery. Do not tighten the grip on the cue until AFTER you hit the cueball and ideally only tighten it when your grip hand hits your chest.

Make sure your grip hand is hitting your chest at every shot and you are staying down and still at that point with your cue extended and no body movement at all except for your eyeballs following the cueball.

Get your hips over to the left so there is at least 3" clearance between your trouser pocket and the back of the thumb of the grip hand.

Be sure you have the wrist cocked outward from your body with a loose grip exactly like you would grip a hammer but with a bit less pressure. When cocking the wrist check and see that the butt of the cue is directly underneath the long straight bone in your forearm.

Terry