A little help needed please.

[bluenose1940]

I am a rather long in the tooth grey haired old snooker player. I have been playing for quite a while but am not really very good at it but, I do get enormous pleasure from playing the game and do try my best to get things right. Having said that, I do get frustrated at times!

I only quite recently found this forum and now visit every day and do glean a lot of useful information. My first post was about rules and, once again I found fellow members to be most helpful in this.

My best break was 55 and was way back in 1984 after which I had an extremely long time away from the game and I have now been playing reasonably regularly (once a week on average) for the past 6 years or so. I no longer get anywhere near my best break (which incidently was not a regular occurance) but last saturday I almost potted four successive blacks but missed the easiest of them (that's where the frustration kicks in). I do always try to play for postion rather than just go for the pot but, I often think to myself "well I am nicely on the next red but I've missed the blooming colour!"

A question that I would like to ask is, whilst I am waiting for my playing partner to turn up I sneak a bit of practice and, with the Blue on its spot, I try to pot it in a centre pocket and, to try to screw the white back into the opposite pocket. If I do manage to screw the white back, it invariably misses the pocket on the right hand side i.e under my cue. Often the white will not screw back anymore than about 4" (100mm) and worse is to come! Last saturday whilst I was doing this shot, on 4 successive shots I managed to 'jump over the blue' without the cue ball touching it. I am obviously doing something radically wrong. A little guidance on this will be gratefully received, with advanced thanks for any input.

I was watching a video on here recently where the chap mentioned Kamui MH cue tips. I looked them up and couldn't believe the cost........£11.00, I didn't pay that much for my cue!!! (only joking) I did treat myself last year to what I regard as a nice quality cue but am wondering where I should do my 'snooker shopping' for stuff like chalk and tips. At the moment I buy Triangle chalk for which I pay £1.85 for a pack of four cubes ( a bit different to the £20 per cube I have seen Kamui chalk advertised at!). The tips I use are from the place where I bought my cue (Blue Moon Leisure in North Devon)but I don't know what they are called but I imagine that they are just standard run of the mill tips. Do any members recommend an 'on-line' site for the bits and bobs.

Thanks again in advance of any input and also huge thanks for a great forum.

[SouthPaw]

I'm no coach but when screwing do you lower your bridge so your pushing the cue through level and not raising the butt? Also it helps to imagine your trying to hit the object ball with your tip to make sure you follow through especially on screw shots...

I'm sure you maybe know about routines to check your cueing straight, place reds about 6 inches apart from the middle spots and place a ball on top of the cushion in line with the spots, place cue ball on brown spot and aim for the ball on top of the cushion, the aim is to have the white run up and down the spots straight, if it doesn't then your not cueing straight and you'll need to examine what the cause may be...

As for buying tips and chalk, I'd recommend greenbaize.com, or ADR of here via his ebay shop(also named ADR), have used both and both i'd recommend without doubt.

[bluenose1940]

Thank you for your reply Southpaw. When I am playing a screw shot I don't raise the butt at all, I keep the cue as low and as parallel to the table as possible but when the white 'jumps' the blue it seems as though I might be too low and the cue is almost going beneath the white. Is it possible to be too low?

Thanks also for the buying hints.

[SouthPaw]

No problem at all, you may want to invest in 'Understanding Modern Snooker' by Jack Karnehm. That has saved me a lot of wasted hours not improving. He goes through everything. If you search ebay I believe it can be got for around £10. Yes you can go too low which I learnt from this tutorial dvd lol...

[bluenose1940]

Have ordered the DVD, can't wait to watch and put some stuff into practice.

[nrage]

Some good videos on the topic of the screw shot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqqakiKbhHI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkgIJe8w1cc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhYuLqzFcVQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQXrcdgJzwg

My screw shot isn't amazing, and I have had similar issues to you in the past. The key IMO to screwing the ball without jumping it is playing the shot confidently and smoothly - hard when you've had a few jump "accidents" recently as this knocks your confidence a bit.

What I'd recommend is setting up an easy pot where you can get comfortable on the table with no tricky bridging etc. The white should be 1-1.5ft back from the red and the red to pocket should be 1-2ft or so. Basically something you should pot almost 10/10 of.

Set the white up so it's just off straight, something like 1/2 way between straight and 3/4 ball. This angle should be enough so that you can play the screw shot and the white will screw back past your cue without you having to get out of the way - this is important because many issues with screw shots come from jumping up early on the shot.

Chalk before every shot. Take your time. Stay as still as possible on every shot and stay down on the shot for a count of 1, 2 after the red goes into the pocket. Watch the white with your eyes without moving any other part of your body. You should be a statue after the stroke.

To start, play the shot focusing your eyes on the contact point on the white. If you have a spotted white, or a white with any marks on it use these as a reference. Place the mark where you want/expect the tip to contact the white (1/2-1 tip width above the cloth). If you have chalked enough, then you might be lucky enough to see left over chalk on the white where you actually strike, this will give you feedback on how well you're striking the white.

Start with soft stroke, but make sure you push the cue right through the white. Jumping is most often caused by stopping on the shot, the act of trying to stop the cue early often introduces movement, a dipping of the tip. To avoid chipping the white you need to push right through the contact as if the white is not even there.

You should manage screw even on soft strokes provided you strike low enough and push right through the white.

Don't bother adding power until you can manage this because adding power will add inaccuracy so while you might get more screw it will all be due to power, and not technique. If you can improve the technique you will get even more screw with added power. The power will only hide what's really happening and make it harder to detect what you're doing wrong and fix it.

An old bloke down at my club showed me this, he could screw the white back a foot with only a very gentle tap of the cue. It's all technique.

[SouthPaw]

Have ordered the DVD, can't wait to watch and put some stuff into practice.

It's quite old footage(well i'd say classic) but he presents each clip excellently making it easy to understand and then perform yourself, well worth the investment. How to play basic snooker hasn't changed that much since he died, remember not to test out too many things at a time, one thing per practice session maybe...