Tighter Grip

[xpredatorx]

Hi tommy_boi,
Just want to tell my opinion that you shouldn't be too concerned about it. And you are not alone , I had a real problem with clear straight long shots, it was literally easier for me to pot any angle than straight long pot and I was write about it here and get some good advices about stance and right foot... that help a lot but I still couldn't pot more than 1-2/10 long blue, and its frustrating me. After a while (maybe in same rage moment ) I training with really tight grip (like I have a knife and slicing bred )... and potting increase rapidly. Of course it's pretty bad grip for advance control of cue ball, specially for deep screw back, so now I have actually two different grips in use, one tight for long shots when power is not a problem for positioning and one loose for slower and controlled shots (side & spin).... and it's work for me very good, after a while body automatically use right grip for next shot.
But most important is what Terry said, if its tight be sure that you have same tightenes throw all shot, and go to the chest.
Someone could say it's ridiculous... but it's work for me, and obviously for you... so that's only what is important and right, that's what I mean.

[tommy_boi]

tommy_boi & Sidd:

I am absolutely AMAZED!!! Here is an old dinosaur giving computer literacy coaching to a couple of younger guys. I thought it was the younger generation who was supposed to be computer literate!

So both of you have had all this snooker coaching horsepower at your fingertips and lacked the knowledge to get to it...AMAZING (just taking the pee boys)

Anyway...when you log into the site, go to the top and hit 'Forum' which is left of the 'Home' tab you probably come up in. When you get to the Forum page scroll down to the link for 'Coaching Questions' and you will find at least 55 pages of string titles and probably a couple of thousand posts regarding mostly snooker technique.

As I figure it will take at least a couple of weeks of 8hr days for you two to read all that stuff I expect to not hear from either of you for at least 2 weeks or more.

Terry

I am confused, cause isn't this the forum your on about, the forum that i post in, or are you on about something different?.

[tommy_boi]

Hi tommy_boi,
Just want to tell my opinion that you shouldn't be too concerned about it. And you are not alone , I had a real problem with clear straight long shots, it was literally easier for me to pot any angle than straight long pot and I was write about it here and get some good advices about stance and right foot... that help a lot but I still couldn't pot more than 1-2/10 long blue, and its frustrating me. After a while (maybe in same rage moment ) I training with really tight grip (like I have a knife and slicing bred )... and potting increase rapidly. Of course it's pretty bad grip for advance control of cue ball, specially for deep screw back, so now I have actually two different grips in use, one tight for long shots when power is not a problem for positioning and one loose for slower and controlled shots (side & spin).... and it's work for me very good, after a while body automatically use right grip for next shot.
But most important is what Terry said, if its tight be sure that you have same tightenes throw all shot, and go to the chest.
Someone could say it's ridiculous... but it's work for me, and obviously for you... so that's only what is important and right, that's what I mean.

Thanks for that, the thing that bugs me though, is why can other players knock the long pots in with a loose grip, it must mean we are doing something wrong which the tighter grip helps out with, but that something, i am not sure of.

[Terry Davidson]

tommy_boi:

The Coaching Forum I'm on about is the 'Coaching Questions' Forum in THIS website (thesnookerforum.com). It has 55 pages of different strings on all different coaching and technique questions and there must be thousands of comments and answers. Go to the Coaching Questions and do a search with whatever you're looking for - like plug 'grip' into the search box

Terry

[tommy_boi]

Terry

I think i might know why i play better with a tighter grip, i had a read of the other thread about twisting the cue, and i know i do this too, i just thought it was natural, until i started watching closely on tv when i saw the pro's and they never seemed to do it, but anyway, when i hold the cue tighter, i don't seem to twist the cue as much as i do when i hold the cue loose, i have been reading in the other thread about how to try and stop the twisting of the cue, so i am gonna try the techniques mentioned there with a loose grip, and hopefully my game will improve with a loose grip and the twisting of the cue will stop.

[farhad]

hmmm bro u have wsc real 09 save game

[tommy_boi]

hmmm bro u have wsc real 09 save game

What do you mean?.

[Terry Davidson]

He posted in the wrong string. He was replying to a problem with one of the computer snooker games

Terry

[vmax4steve]

Was playing some pool tonight, i was finding it hard to pot consistently, sometimes i would get a pot, the next i wouldn't, i had a nice loose grip, just like they tell you to do on here, but i thought to myself i would tighten the grip up, then i started to pot much better, why is this, i thought the more loose the grip was, the better?.

In Ray Reardons book he says that the grip should be firm but not tight. My own grip is so loose that the cue is just resting in my hand. I would say that a short compact action with a firm grip would be fine, but a long flowing action like Terry Griffiths would need a loose grip. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

[Terry Davidson]

vmax:

Sound advice, but I thought you didn't like amateur coaches? BAZINGA!!!

Terry

[tommy_boi]

I am still using the tighter grip and still playing some very good 8 ball pool at the moment, i think this is down to the cue not twisting so much or at all cause of the tighter grip, hopefully i can work on this and reduce the twist or get no twist at all with a loose grip, which i am talking about in another thread, i think i will keep with the tight grip for now.

[Sam-Romford]

A friend of mine who is a decent 9 ball player and plays in GB9 tournaments regularly admitted that if pool is a game of centimeters than snooker is a game of millimeters, they are both popular cue sport but snooker demands much more precision. if you remember i also said at some time i also said tighter grip helps me pot more but then it also restricts me in break building.

The twist solely occurs in a lose grip when back fingers come and touch the cue as you feather from bridge to cue ball. I was surprised to know that even when i studied and copied steve davis grip (holding the cue loosely with thumb index and middle finger, and having the wrist cocked and locked ) i found that the cue still twists slightly in longer backswing, because even in longer backswing the middle fingers open slightly and and and when the middle finger gets back to the cue it slightly rotates the cue clockwise as i am right handed.
so the moral of the story is i have tried cocking the the wrist to lock it, it greatly reduces the twists but not fully. Some experts will tell you holding the cue just with thumb and index may introduce sidewise wobble, but that dosent happen in my case as i got adequate firmness in my four points of contacts. You can hold the cue with thumb index+middle finger, even also with the ring finger but if you let them open in you backswing, you have to be careful how you bring them back to the cue as they might introduce cue.

so my current grip is just holding the cue with thumb index ( i have long back swing sometime depending on the shot, and because i hold it with thumb and index only, the wrist is cocked and locked but yet i have lose thumb index grip)

i hope one of my dream (meeting Steve Davis) will come true in May, i will try ask him quickly about this grip + twisting issue.

Twisting is i think is a flaw, but even with it you can make big breaks, i played and ex pro last week, his twisting was gigantic but yet knocked in 70 and 75, if i didnt make his life difficult with my safetys i am sure he would have knocked in few tons. But again i also noticed he was not potting long balls like the top 16 do, i wonder whether is due to his twisting which might take the cue offline by a minimum of half a millimeter, now half a millimeter is small but enough to miss a long blue.

[Sam-Romford]

A friend of mine who is a decent 9 ball player and plays in GB9 tournaments regularly admitted that if pool is a game of centimeters than snooker is a game of millimeters, they are both popular cue sport but snooker demands much more precision. if you remember i also said at some time i also said tighter grip helps me pot more but then it also restricts me in break building.

The twist solely occurs in a lose grip when back fingers come and touch the cue as you feather from bridge to cue ball. I was surprised to know that even when i studied and copied steve davis grip (holding the cue loosely with thumb index and middle finger, and having the wrist cocked and locked ) i found that the cue still twists slightly in longer backswing, because even in longer backswing the middle fingers open slightly and and and when the middle finger gets back to the cue it slightly rotates the cue clockwise as i am right handed.
so the moral of the story is i have tried cocking the the wrist to lock it, it greatly reduces the twists but not fully. Some experts will tell you holding the cue just with thumb and index may introduce sidewise wobble, but that dosent happen in my case as i got adequate firmness in my four points of contacts. You can hold the cue with thumb index+middle finger, even also with the ring finger but if you let them open in you backswing, you have to be careful how you bring them back to the cue as they might introduce cue.

so my current grip is just holding the cue with thumb index ( i have long back swing sometime depending on the shot, and because i hold it with thumb and index only, the wrist is cocked and locked but yet i have lose thumb index grip)

i hope one of my dream (meeting Steve Davis) will come true in May, i will try ask him quickly about this grip + twisting issue.

Twisting is i think is a flaw, but even with it you can make big breaks, i played and ex pro last week, his twisting was gigantic but yet knocked in 70 and 75, if i didnt make his life difficult with my safetys i am sure he would have knocked in few tons. But again i also noticed he was not potting long balls like the top 16 do, i wonder whether is due to his twisting which might take the cue offline by a minimum of half a millimeter, now half a millimeter is small but enough to miss a long blue.

[vmax4steve]

vmax:

Sound advice, but I thought you didn't like amateur coaches? BAZINGA!!!

Terry

Nice one Tel.

[Sidd]

The twist solely occurs in a lose grip when back fingers come and touch the cue as you feather from bridge to cue ball. I was surprised to know that even when i studied and copied steve davis grip (holding the cue loosely with thumb index and middle finger, and having the wrist cocked and locked ) i found that the cue still twists slightly in longer backswing, because even in longer backswing the middle fingers open slightly and and and when the middle finger gets back to the cue it slightly rotates the cue clockwise as i am right handed.
so the moral of the story is i have tried cocking the the wrist to lock it, it greatly reduces the twists but not fully. Some experts will tell you holding the cue just with thumb and index may introduce sidewise wobble, but that dosent happen in my case as i got adequate firmness in my four points of contacts. You can hold the cue with thumb index+middle finger, even also with the ring finger but if you let them open in you backswing, you have to be careful how you bring them back to the cue as they might introduce cue.

Very well said and thanks for pointing this out... I am a lefty and sometimes have noticed a trace of left hand side (unwanted) in my shots and now I can understand that perhaps from the backswing to the delivery perhaps when I am closing my fingers on the grip, I am twisting maybe anti-clockwise and hence causing the left hand side... Will work on that!