Flaw in cueing

[crossFade]

Hello everyone,

I got a little problem of myself .

Since I live in a country where Snooker is not a very popular sport,
it is very hard to find an oppurtunity for myself to get some training sessions.
Iam playing alot Snooker lately and I can see my progression over the time.
I have encountered a problem now where I could use the advice of an experienced Snooker player.

Though my cueing got 'relatively' consistent (at least the most consistent it ever was),
I kept missing easy pockets.

I realised my issue by practicing straight shots one day,
blue ball straight into the middle pocket. In order to perform a straight shot,
I had to alter my aim a bit to the right. At this point the shot was not straight anymore from my intuition.
Yet it was a perfectly straight shot every time.

Obviously this had nothing to do with my aiming but with my cueing action - I figured that after some sessions. I tried out various alterations on my grip, stance, head position, shoulder position, etc.
I have this problem for a while now, but this still happens on around 70% of my shots - especially on shots with a little more power.
On long shots i can clearly see that the cue ball is hitting more left than I actually aimed for.

Some time ago I asked a friend to make a video of myself. In slowmotion one can clearly see that I have a problem cueing straight. For the most part of the cueing I am relatively straight, but at a certain position of my hand, it tends to alter to the right(and subsequently the cue will alter to the left). Now I believe this happens at the moment where my hand hits my chest. Now if I try to compensate this by trying to force my hand to stay a little closer to my body in the cueing process, the cueball will move to the right (the opposit side). So I somehow need to find the golden middle.

Does anyone have some tips for me how I can get onto the issue? Or is this something that will fix itself with time and practice? As I said, on slow shots I tend not to have this problem, but on shots with a little more power it happens almost on 100%. When Iam practicing the cueball on brownspot along the table, It will mostly go left after cushion contact due to unintended side.

This is frustrating me and I got a little desperate lately

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTihCNtDGjI - to have a better view, play the video in slowmotion

Thanks all

[crossFade]

Some time ago I asked a friend to make a video of myself. In slowmotion one can clearly see that I have a problem cueing straight. For the most part of the cueing I am relatively straight, but at a certain position of my hand, it tends to alter to the right(and subsequently the cue will alter to the left).

Please dont get confused by this if you are watching the video. It is an older video and shows the rare occasion where the cue actually alters to the other direction

[crossFade]

I just uploaded a more recent video (from yesterday). In this one you can see even better what my problem looks like - the alteration to the right with my hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G46LBuKgfMI - Also play this in slowmotion to have a better view. Shot is around 0:18

[dan_ormerod]

The first thing I noticed was you got down on the line and then adjusted so I would start by trying to sort that out.

To me it all looks good from the front so I would video yourself from the back and check your backswing isn't crooked and if it is this may be due to your foot not being on the line of aim.

[crossFade]

Hey, thanks for the suggestion. What I realised by watching the video footage at 25% speed is that just prior to my hand movement to the right (not easy to see due to camera angle but still visible), my whole body moves slightly to the right.

[dan_ormerod]

Do you mean your body moves slightly to the right on the final delivery? If so I don't see it.

The grip hand moving out may mean you need more clearance for the cue so perhaps try getting the hips further out of the way.

Where on the chest does the cue come in contact?

[crossFade]

Yeah, just prior to the hand movement. It is very little though and hard to see, and I dont know if its got to do anything with my flaw.

I do think that the grip hand movement to the right does occur in the moment my hand hits the chest. But I tried various things and it does not seem to help alot. E.g. I tried to get the cue way up my chest closer to my armpit, or as you have mentioned getting my hips more out of the way.

One thing is that I tried so much already that I got confused and mixed up completely xD, I will try to focus on what you mention the next time I will be playing - probably tomorrow .

It is hard for me to tell exactly where the cue lies on my chest but I would say somewhat around my nipple.

[itsnoteasy]

I'm not sure but are you meant to be aiming full ball at the second ball, the one furthest away from you, I'm not sure what your doing in that video,

[crossFade]

I'm not sure but are you meant to be aiming full ball at the second ball, the one furthest away from you, I'm not sure what your doing in that video,

Hehe, Iam sorry. I should have mentioned that I played the red as a cut to not hit my camera. Since the purpose of the video was to demonstrate my cueing action, I wasnt really concerned about the traceability of my aiming.

[itsnoteasy]

Ah ok, don't worry about it ,you pull your cue on line a bit as you are down before you have your cue on the line, but you seem to cue straight, you are a chest thumper a bit, this is what happens, you said yourself it's when you make contact with your chest, the cue ball is long gone by then so it won't affect anything, the only time it does, is when chest thumpers start coming around their chest to avoid the contact but you seem ok just now. Even pros cues come off line when they hit their chest. To me you look like you cue pretty straight indeed, if you feel you move the cue a bit before chest contact, it could be your grip , keep it light all the way through and open the back of your hand on the way back , but I think your worrying over nothing, how are you up and down the spots at a reasonable pace?
Just to add you drop your head down nice and straight as well.

[itsnoteasy]

Sorry I just read your first post, I don't think it's your cueing that's wrong, it could be you're not finding the centre of the cue ball if it feels to you you have to aim off centre to pot a dead straight shot, so it could be an aiming/ sighting or alignment issue, maybe one of the top boys will sort you out better.

[Catch 22]

In the first video , you pulled your hand into your body on delivery. Usually this is because your grip hand tightens too much .
It can also be because your grip hand is too far forward ( too close to your chest) when you drop down on the shot .
Can't see from the video because you are head on. When you get down and address the White , is your grip hand forward of the vertical position ?

I'm not an expert or anything, so don't take my advice as gospel though

[crossFade]

I felt a little flattered reading your post . Thank you for your suggestions. Now the strange thing is that I actually was pretty confident in hitting the cue ball in the centre (probably not dead centre, im not that experienced yet). I will consider it definately. When I play the long white from brown spot at a slow or slow-medium pace it is reasonably straight and Iam totally satisfied with my results (Iam not expecting pro results). When I play it medium-hard to hard paced, it turns left after botcushion contact on 90% of my shots.

If I play against my friend in a competitive manner, I use to overcut a right cut and undercut a left cut to compensate the cueball movement to the right. This works sometimes but is no solution to the problem at all

[crossFade]

If I play against my friend in a competitive manner, I use to overcut a right cut and undercut a left cut to compensate the cueball movement to the right. This works sometimes but is no solution to the problem at all

'...to compensate the cueball movement to the left...'

[Catch 22]

In the first video , you pulled your hand into your body on delivery. Usually this is because your grip hand tightens too much .
It can also be because your grip hand is too far forward ( too close to your chest) when you drop down on the shot .
Can't see from the video because you are head on. When you get down and address the White , is your grip hand forward of the vertical position ?

I'm not an expert or anything, so don't take my advice as gospel though

Just to add to this .....I was taught that if your body shifts on the delivery of the cue . It's usually because your brain subconsciously knows you're offline and tries to compensate for you at the last second