any tips on my cueing?

[MINNESOTA FATS]

hello just wondering if you watch my clip if anyone has any helpful tips that im doing wrong with my cueing or setup? thanks

[Slasher]

Take some time to get behind the shot and then drop down, coming at a shot from the side is not good practice, it does not allow you to see the angles or get aligned properly.
Watch any pro to see how they prepare before getting down.

[MINNESOTA FATS]

Thanks slasher, how about my height off the table you think that's OK or the cue butt lower, first time I've seen myself and I personally think I look like the butt is slightly high?

[Slasher]

Thanks slasher, how about my height off the table you think that's OK or the cue butt lower, first time I've seen myself and I personally think I look like the butt is slightly high?

Oh you want the full monty

Yes the cue could be a little closer to level, need a wider clearer view to see what's really going on.
Slow down and give yourself time to aim and make decisions on how you want to play the shot.
Take a more clinical approach in your setup and pre-shot.
Use structured practice routines that develop your positional play and potting skills, bashing around is not productive.
Practicing is about ingraining habits, so make sure they are good habits, they are much harder to unlearn.

[chrisg]

I'm not sure how vaiid this point is, but you seem to play quite quickly. Try to stand back a little from the shot and take a bit more time. That may just be your natural mode of playing but I would just slow it down a fraction, so you have more time to assess.

I'm completely the opposite and maybe I could do with speeding up a bit. But, your pre shot routine is so so important. If you can do it lightning quick though, good luck to you!

[Derek P]

havent seen the video but from the comments, if he's naturally a fast player then it's a bad idea to slow down.
You need to keep your natural level of fluency no matter what you try to incorporate into your pre shot routine as anything mechanical and robotic will get so far but will ultimately break down under pressure this is why Osullivan for example just looks like he doesn't give a **** about anything when he's at the table and is able to do some of things he does as his natural game is fast and it's always flowing.

I do however agree that you need to be standing back from the shot two paces, decide what your doing and then walk in and get the cue on line couple of feather front pause, back pause and bang the ball is in the pocket.

Get a structured routine and ingrain this pattern with simple routines like the line up it's good for just working on a new part of your technique and then once you feel you have ingrained that go back to more difficult and interesting routines.

[chrisg]

havent seen the video but from the comments, if he's naturally a fast player then it's a bad idea to slow down.
You need to keep your natural level of fluency no matter what you try to incorporate into your pre shot routine as anything mechanical and robotic will get so far but will ultimately break down under pressure this is why Osullivan for example just looks like he doesn't give a **** about anything when he's at the table and is able to do some of things he does as his natural game is fast and it's always flowing.

I do however agree that you need to be standing back from the shot two paces, decide what your doing and then walk in and get the cue on line couple of feather front pause, back pause and bang the ball is in the pocket.

Get a structured routine and ingrain this pattern with simple routines like the line up it's good for just working on a new part of your technique and then once you feel you have ingrained that go back to more difficult and interesting routines.

Akani Songsermsawad is very robotic from when watching him play ROS in the UK, and seems to be doing quite well with his style. I didn't say he should necessarily slow down, I just said that only watching him for a few mins in the video, I don't know if that is his natural pace or not...Personally, I think he should work on technique at a slower pace and then up the tempo, but that's only my HO.

Yes, IMO - you should play at the pace that suits you, but, not at the expense of ending up with a bad technique.

I've had to really slow down my game to work on having a good technique, but once I've mastered and its all clicked I'll up the tempo!

[Derek P]

Akani Songsermsawad is very robotic from when watching him play ROS in the UK, and seems to be doing quite well with his style. I didn't say he should necessarily slow down, I just said that only watching him for a few mins in the video, I don't know if that is his natural pace or not...Personally, I think he should work on technique at a slower pace and then up the tempo, but that's only my HO.

Yes, IMO - you should play at the pace that suits you, but, not at the expense of ending up with a bad technique.

I've had to really slow down my game to work on having a good technique, but once I've mastered and its all clicked I'll up the tempo!

Yeah Akani looked good against Ronnie at the UK as did Cao Yaopeng against everyone else at the Scottish but the mechanical stuff breaks down when the pressure comes on as both players and most other chinese stars proof that it can work up to a level but then the natural player with the big flowing cue action like roberston's osullivan higgins selby etc can all get over the line under pressure.

Yan Bingtao is the other chinese player who I have seen that I think will most defo be a world champion no disrespect to the rest of the guys but I feel whoever is coaching them or if they are doing it themselves it's all a bit too mechanical for the upper echelons of the game the best players are very natural looking round the table even the original 'robot' steve davis had a beautiful flowing cue action some of these young guys from china look too forced

[chrisg]

Yeah Akani looked good against Ronnie at the UK as did Cao Yaopeng against everyone else at the Scottish but the mechanical stuff breaks down when the pressure comes on as both players and most other chinese stars proof that it can work up to a level but then the natural player with the big flowing cue action like roberston's osullivan higgins selby etc can all get over the line under pressure.

Yan Bingtao is the other chinese player who I have seen that I think will most defo be a world champion no disrespect to the rest of the guys but I feel whoever is coaching them or if they are doing it themselves it's all a bit too mechanical for the upper echelons of the game the best players are very natural looking round the table even the original 'robot' steve davis had a beautiful flowing cue action some of these young guys from china look too forced

I don't disagree with what you say, but, I personally think it's unfair to compare with ROS, as his natural style is way off the scale!

Some of the others you mention have learned to cope under pressure, something these young guys are still learning. I didn't think Cao Yupeng lost the Scottish Open because of his technique, just purely because he had no experience to draw on from winning tournaments etc. He's certainly not slow IMO! Even Robertson admitted after the match with Yupeng, that he was banking on nerves getting the better of Yupeng...So I don't think it was technique.

Again, Yan Bingtao losing to Willo in Northern Ireland was down to just that extra experience of having won titles.

I do however agree that once you have a routine that you are comfortable with you should focus less on technique and more on just playing the game!...

[Derek P]

I don't disagree with what you say, but, I personally think it's unfair to compare with ROS, as his natural style is way off the scale!

Some of the others you mention have learned to cope under pressure, something these young guys are still learning. I didn't think Cao Yupeng lost the Scottish Open because of his technique, just purely because he had no experience to draw on from winning tournaments etc. He's certainly not slow IMO! Even Robertson admitted after the match with Yupeng, that he was banking on nerves getting the better of Yupeng...So I don't think it was technique.

Again, Yan Bingtao losing to Willo in Northern Ireland was down to just that extra experience of having won titles.

I do however agree that once you have a routine that you are comfortable with you should focus less on technique and more on just playing the game!...

I was in the front row at the Emirates arena for the final session I watched his fantastic play on the TV for the early session.
He looked great with his opening 75 break for the first frame of final session then Robertson hit the 135 and started to free flow with that gorgeous flowing cue action he has you could see Cao tighten up more and more, he has a little bit of a jerky and forced rear pause it isn't always evident when he's playing well but it's why he was not making tons all day in my opinion that forced technique will get him so far.

Anyway when the pressure balls came you could see his forced timing all falling to bits my seat was behind the yellow pocket so I had a fantastic view of the line of his shot when he missed that pink and he was pissing about far too long with his back hand both on the pre address of the white and also the final delivery of the cue watch the footage back you won't see him stutter his back hand cos the camera isn't on it but you will see the double pause in his action that I'm talking about it caused him to be very jerky on the shot and not a fluent delivery.

Yes Ronnie is the pinnacle of natural fluency but go ask him what he thinks about when folk say 'natural talent' and he'll tell you the 50 hours a week he use to put in when he was 12 is the extent of his natural talent it is all hard work and graft to have the 'natural talent' i agree some are more adept than others him being a classic case but i believe that practice does not make perfect and only perfect practice makes perfect.

Cao, Akani, Ding etc are all a bit too mechanical and it lets them down. This is just my opinion however and I accept people will have differing views on snooker from watching him at the emirates folk say he bottled it and yeah he did must been horrible in that situation i dunno if i would be good enough to hold my technique together but one thing for sure is the bigger more natural flowing cue action gives you at least half a chance of still hitting in a straight line rather than a double paused decel like Cao has.

Awww and watch the fantastic brown down the rail that he pots and he over screws it for the blue and has to take it round the table what a shot he played to get that one in but again I feel if you watch his delivery of the cue he just seems to stutter that little bit more with his pause and i know this feeling myself when I was trying to ingrain a rear pause sometimes when you are relying on it too much you have this tendency to stutter and i feel he is in that camp if he has a coach I would hope he tells him to speed his game up and play more naturally cos like I said if you look at Bingtao that's more what they should be playing like.

[chrisg]

I was in the front row at the Emirates arena for the final session I watched his fantastic play on the TV for the early session.
He looked great with his opening 75 break for the first frame of final session then Robertson hit the 135 and started to free flow with that gorgeous flowing cue action he has you could see Cao tighten up more and more, he has a little bit of a jerky and forced rear pause it isn't always evident when he's playing well but it's why he was not making tons all day in my opinion that forced technique will get him so far.

Anyway when the pressure balls came you could see his forced timing all falling to bits my seat was behind the yellow pocket so I had a fantastic view of the line of his shot when he missed that pink and he was pissing about far too long with his back hand both on the pre address of the white and also the final delivery of the cue watch the footage back you won't see him stutter his back hand cos the camera isn't on it but you will see the double pause in his action that I'm talking about it caused him to be very jerky on the shot and not a fluent delivery.

Yes Ronnie is the pinnacle of natural fluency but go ask him what he thinks about when folk say 'natural talent' and he'll tell you the 50 hours a week he use to put in when he was 12 is the extent of his natural talent it is all hard work and graft to have the 'natural talent' i agree some are more adept than others him being a classic case but i believe that practice does not make perfect and only perfect practice makes perfect.

Cao, Akani, Ding etc are all a bit too mechanical and it lets them down. This is just my opinion however and I accept people will have differing views on snooker from watching him at the emirates folk say he bottled it and yeah he did must been horrible in that situation i dunno if i would be good enough to hold my technique together but one thing for sure is the bigger more natural flowing cue action gives you at least half a chance of still hitting in a straight line rather than a double paused decel like Cao has.

Awww and watch the fantastic brown down the rail that he pots and he over screws it for the blue and has to take it round the table what a shot he played to get that one in but again I feel if you watch his delivery of the cue he just seems to stutter that little bit more with his pause and i know this feeling myself when I was trying to ingrain a rear pause sometimes when you are relying on it too much you have this tendency to stutter and i feel he is in that camp if he has a coach I would hope he tells him to speed his game up and play more naturally cos like I said if you look at Bingtao that's more what they should be playing like.

Of course the difference between the likes of O'Sullivan and the modern youngsters (maybe including the Chinese) is in O'Sullivan's era there were more amateur tournaments then there are now. I agree, O'Sullivan in his youth was probably playing non stop 24/7, but, he also had natural ability that was way off the scale IMO.

If you look at Higgins - per se, his cue action is quite risky in terms of bringing the cue right back to the V of the bridge. Not many players can do that and pull it back straight. Again, Higgins is a one off.

Same for Willo. Those players as I say, did have one advantage in that there were way more tournaments on the amateur scene than now. I'd say that about the second generation of players such as Selby and Murphy.

The club where I play for example, don't put on any tournaments!

[Slasher]

havent seen the video but from the comments, if he's naturally a fast player then it's a bad idea to slow down.
You need to keep your natural level of fluency no matter what you try to incorporate into your pre shot routine as anything mechanical and robotic will get so far but will ultimately break down under pressure this is why Osullivan for example just looks like he doesn't give a **** about anything when he's at the table and is able to do some of things he does as his natural game is fast and it's always flowing.

I do however agree that you need to be standing back from the shot two paces, decide what your doing and then walk in and get the cue on line couple of feather front pause, back pause and bang the ball is in the pocket.

Get a structured routine and ingrain this pattern with simple routines like the line up it's good for just working on a new part of your technique and then once you feel you have ingrained that go back to more difficult and interesting routines.

There is a difference between being quick and rushing, If you are making glaring errors in positioning/strategy then you are not taking enough time accessing the play.
The OP was clearly rushing to get down on the next shot and coming at them from the side, potting the ball with little regard for the outcome. Maybe he was just trying to show his cue action but as I said bad practices can become bad habits and you should practice how you want to play.

[Derek P]

There is a difference between being quick and rushing, If you are making glaring errors in positioning/strategy then you are not taking enough time accessing the play.
The OP was clearly rushing to get down on the next shot and coming at them from the side, potting the ball with little regard for the outcome. Maybe he was just trying to show his cue action but as I said bad practices can become bad habits and you should practice how you want to play.

Haven't watched it agree he needs pre shot routine and knowing what he's doing before he gets down while at same time maintaining a positive speed and fluency. As we all know snooker is a bit of a yin yang equation between technique and natural instincts or otherwise said it can be like potting vs positional play all aspects have to come together to be good so it's bit like scratching your head and rubbing your stomach at same time when your new to the game takes some getting use to get the gears going good.

[Slasher]

Haven't watched it agree he needs pre shot routine and knowing what he's doing before he gets down while at same time maintaining a positive speed and fluency. As we all know snooker is a bit of a yin yang equation between technique and natural instincts or otherwise said it can be like potting vs positional play all aspects have to come together to be good so it's bit like scratching your head and rubbing your stomach at same time when your new to the game takes some getting use to get the gears going good.

When it comes to the cue action itself I'm all for natural fluency, way too much woo talked about this aspect. I look at early Hendry VS late Hendry as a good example of how to mess up a cue action.

[Derek P]

When it comes to the cue action itself I'm all for natural fluency, way too much woo talked about this aspect. I look at early Hendry VS late Hendry as a good example of how to mess up a cue action.

Agree start of his career he was very fluent, in the middle deadly just enough technique IMHO but would he have still got their without listening Callan based on his own abilities probably a yes just look at Jimmy White never taught nothing in his heyday he was deadly even with 10 bottle of vodka and grams of charlie he was still in 6 world finals and there abouts in 4 or 5 other occassions.

In my own humble opinion Stephen Hendry was what Jimmy White would have been if he went to bed at a decent time.

Towards the end Hendry's cueing had left him he messed around with it all too much same thing happened to Griffiths.