Straight cueing

[j6uk]

You can do the baulk line thingy, you can cue through a matchbox, you can practise long straight blues in to the corner pockets and your cue action can be as straight as a die, but on those angled pots that we all need to to leave ourselves in order to break build there is something that makes all that sraight cueing practise irrelevant.

Taking your eye off the object ball.

Straight cueing practise is fine, everything is all in line, cue ball, object ball, pocket and you can look at almost any point along that line and your cue will stay on that line, but on an angled shot there are options open to your subconscious, and when your eye flicks to one of these options, even for only a split second, when lining up the shot and delivering the cue, then the cue will not come through straight.

Practise potting every angle and keep your eyes on the object ball, straight shot practise doesn't guarantee straight cueing.

cueing straight is crucial for improving at snooker because its everything, its the core training of technique. it is technique.
potting balls from every angle is ability, study, training and some

[j6uk]

straight shot practise doesn't guarantee straight cueing.

then what does?

[j6uk]

i feel if your prepared to do the baulk line, matchbox, cueing through two reds and so on, then your proving to everyone and yourself that you believe you have potential to be nice player

[ace man]

Double kiss blue.
Cue ball on the brown spot. Blue ball on its spot.
Play the blue with stun to the middle of black cushion. If it double kisses the cue ball and send it back over the brown spot exactly, then you are cueing super straight...and your spots are positioned perfectly...
On a more serious note, do not try this. It is far too difficult and I do not think that any player in the world could do this with any consistency.

[vmax4steve]

i feel if your prepared to do the baulk line, matchbox, cueing through two reds and so on, then your proving to everyone and yourself that you believe you have potential to be nice player

That may be so, and I'm not disputing anything on this thread about needing to cue straight, but take your eye off the object ball on an angled pot and you're walking back to your chair.

It's a bona fide fact that human hand eye co-ordination evolved over millennia and is engrained within the subconscious. You will hit what you're looking at, you will catch what you're looking at, you won't avoid what you're not looking at as recently happened to australian cricketer Phil Hughes.

There is even an area in the brain that reacts to sound in the same way the eyes react to visual stimulae in regards to directing the hand. That's why sound can make you miss even when you don't take your eye off the ball. It's a defence mechanism from way back when humans lived within nature and not outside it.

It isn't hard to move a cue straight over six inches when looking at the cue, but put a target in front of you that's split into different zones, like in snooker or pool, where there are options open to your eyes and your eyes can easily wander to the wrong target like the cue ball or the pocket or another object ball or chalk mark on the table; a spectator or referee moving can catch your eye as well.

Eyes on the object ball is the most crucial aspect of the game, do this and you can play snooker well. To be great though takes years of dedication, practise and love for the game.

[tedisbill]

Vmax:

Just so I understand what you're saying here: do you think every time you miss it's because you've taken your eye off the object ball? Or could it be loads of different reasons? Like you flicked a bit of unwanted side on, or you closed your grip too early, or you hadnt actually quite got down on-line?

Or is it just always taking your eye off the ball so to speak?

[vmax4steve]

If you cannot Pot straight balls though with confidence the angled shots will be near impossible for most players to hit consistently.

I disagree, I know someone who uses helping side on all his angled shots and is a great potter, but he doesn't know what side to put on a straight shot in order to pot it and as a result he struggles with straight shots.

Trump addressses the cue ball with right hand side and then finds the centre of the cue ball on the delivery stroke. You can't say that is straight cueing, but what a fantastic player he is. I truly don't know how that works but he does it, and how he uses right and left hand side when he needs it is a mystery.

[ace man]

Trump addressses the cue ball with right hand side and then finds the centre of the cue ball on the delivery stroke. You can't say that is straight cueing...

How is it not straight? He corrects everything on final delivery. That is all that matters.
Opposite player of Trump who feathers absolutely perfectly in line with cueball centre down to the very last micron, but then messes up everything on the final delivery is not cueing straight.

[vmax4steve]

Vmax:

Just so I understand what you're saying here: do you think every time you miss it's because you've taken your eye off the object ball? Or could it be loads of different reasons? Like you flicked a bit of unwanted side on, or you closed your grip too early, or you hadnt actually quite got down on-line?

Or is it just always taking your eye off the ball so to speak?

I find that every aspect of missing a pot can be (not always) put down to taking your eye off the object ball.

Why does your grip close too early ? answer: could be anxiety over the shot you're playing making you look elsewhere, even at nothing, just staring into space, not focussing on the target, looking at the cue ball thus the cue ball becomes the target and the grip closes early because the eyes are not looking beyond it and the stroke doesn't follow through beyond the cue ball.

Movement on the shot ? answer: could be looking elsewhere than at the target and your head, hand and body follow.

Flicked at bit of unwanted side on the cue ball ? answer: eye off the object ball, hand follows the eye, cue doesn't come through straight therefore striking across the cue ball.

Not lining up the shot correctly ? answer: not looking at the target (OB) when lining up the shot making you place your cue on the wrong line of aim, happens quite often when a cannon is needed for positional purposes and the ball needed to be cannoned is focussed on instead.

I practise straight cueing, I play over the spots and long straight blues: I once hit twelve consecutive long straight blues from the baulk line, screwing back into the green pocket on six of them, thought I'd cracked it. Racked up the reds, broke them open to play a frame and I was no different as my achilles heel of taking my eye off the object ball was still there.

[pottr]

"where am I looking?" cropping up again...

It's not important at all... You've made yourself believe it. It's nothing any player of note I have ever spoke to has ever mentioned.

It's something that a coach thought up once and thought it would be a good thing to say as if to validate his own worth as a mentor/coach...

It's nonsense if you ask me.

The key to cueing straight is... to cue straight. You can only do that by practicing it like some of the drills explained before... The matchbox, baulk line, gap between balls, up and down the spots, double kiss blue... all good exercises to work it out...

I think the most important thing of the cue action is a consistent pre shot routine and keeping still... Solid fundamentals and the rest sorts itself out through practice...
That "where am I looking?" thought... will cause harm to your game.

[vmax4steve]

How is it not straight? He corrects everything on final delivery. That is all that matters.

Think a bit more about this, how does Trump go from right hand side to centre ball if he's cueing straight. The cue is pointing in one direction at the start of the backswing and another direction at the end of the stroke. It has to come off its original line therefore the cue action is not straight. If he struck the cue ball with right hand side everytime and compensated his aiming to make the pot then I would agree he's cueing straight, but he simply isn't. The cue is turning on the delivery stroke therefore it isn't a straight cue action.

I wonder if he's consciously aware that he does this, I wonder if he knows that he can't cue straight and has to make this right hand side address compensation in order for the delivery stroke to come through centre ball because he turns the cue on delivery.

[Terry Davidson]

There are many reasons why a player isn't cueing straight and they all need to be worked on if only to ensure you're not doing one or more of them. Now the question becomes how do you work on them? Or at least how do you find out if you have them?

The easiest way is to video yourself cueing a medium-power shot like a straight blue with the camera set up to cover from the top of the elbow down to about 6" in front of the cueball and then use Kinovea to look at yourself frame-by-frame and stop the video on the frame that happens at the exact time of strike. You check and see if the tip is lined up on the centre of the cueball AND the butt of the cue is lined up on the pocket leather in the same spot it was at the address position.

Assuming you find you are cueing off-centre or else right-to-left (common for right-handed players) then the exercises mentioned by j6 and others will help but you have to discover the root cause of why you aren't cueing straight and in the middle. The most common issue is closing the grip too early and too tight, followed closely by upper body movement or even a bit of movement in the hips. Next but a lot lower down the list is not being aligned correctly from the start. Also if you miss random pots it could be taking your eye off the object ball at the time of strike.

My recommendation would be to set up a mirror on the edge of the baulkline so you can cue along the baulkline and into the mirror. Put an object ball on the baulkline in front of the mirror and use the brown spot as the cueball. Cue SLOWLY along the baulkline as you would normally do and look in the mirror to watch for a couple of things. First of all most delivery errors start in the backswing, so make it slow and straight by watching the ferrule come back as j6 recommends then switch your eyes to the object ball/mirror and watch the delivery to see if the cue ends up in the exact centre of the object ball. Stand back up and repeat many times, each time checking first alignment and then backswing and delivery.

Next you will have to increase the pace or power of the shot and check for the same things. Biggest issue will be that far too many players will tighten the grip in order to accelerate the cue faster. That is WRONG, use the same pace of acceleration but lengthen the backswing to get more power. When you are practicing this (or using the matchbox or the neck of a plastic soda bottle or between 2 balls) you should concentrate on not closing the grip at all just have the cue laying in the bed of the finger(s) and don't grip the cue until well AFTER the strike.

From comments made on my own technique I have finally solved my own problem of cueing right-to-left and it came down to just 2 individual things. The first was keeping the grip relaxed but firm (very hard to describe) and the second was PRACTICE, PRACTICE AND MORE PRACTICE using the relaxed grip. I am now getting more frequent good breaks in tournaments and playing much better according to Les Edwards and Floyd Zeigler and a few other people who have watched me in matches (too bad I left it so late).

Terry

[ace man]

Think a bit more about this, how does Trump go from right hand side to centre ball if he's cueing straight. The cue is pointing in one direction at the start of the backswing and another direction at the end of the stroke. It has to come off its original line therefore the cue action is not straight. If he struck the cue ball with right hand side everytime and compensated his aiming to make the pot then I would agree he's cueing straight, but he simply isn't. The cue is turning on the delivery stroke therefore it isn't a straight cue action.

I hear you, but if you put all the top players under heavy scrutiny with high speed camera, you might even conclude that significant portion of them may even be slightly across at adress. Who can cue truly straight then?

[vmax4steve]

I hear you, but if you put all the top players under heavy scrutiny with high speed camera, you might even conclude that significant portion of them may even be slightly across at adress. Who can cue truly straight then?

I agree. Good job the pockets aren't as tight as those on a russian pyramid table or none of us would be any good at the game.

[hotpot]

you would never have written this post if you'd of practiced the baulk line and the matchbox. doing a monster face and whilst moving on the shot is another issue and has nothing to do with training to be a cueist. though if you'd have done the training necessary those problems wouldn't exist in your game
your confusing cueing straight with timing

What im saying is you cant compare cueing along a line with actually playing a shot , there is no comparison imo . im no expert or coach and dont confess to be but i believe what im saying is correct . Its a bit like the one you hear all too often , when im playing on my own i pot everything , why because youre relaxed , there is no pressure on you at all .