Eye Dominance

Cannonball55

Cannonball55

This is cool
Silver Member
Hi,

first off i'd like to say it's good to be back, ive been away for some time now because my wife underwent ovarian surgery. Thank God after 2 months she's fine and back working again and life is back to normal.

I hit a few balls the other day at a friends house for the first time in over a month. I really enjoyed it, just hitting balls you know, my friend whose known me for several years and knew i played a little pool ( very little ) asked me a question that i didn't readily have the answer to. he asked me if the top players line up their shots ( like a rifle ) based on their dominant eye or do they gauge the depth perception of shots using both of their eyes the same. I told him that i was the last person on earth to know what a top player would do, but from my limited experience, i sometimes will look down a shot out of my dominant eye ( left ) when im faced with a tough cut or whenever i'm unsure of the natural cue ball deflection after contact.

I never really thought of it, but i suppose that your dominant eye should be your guide on every single shot. I can't think of any players that will close an eye though as they prepare to pull the trigger ....
 
Good to hear the wifey is doing good!

JMO and outlook but knowing which eye is your dominant eye is as important as it gets. No one closes one eye when they're down on the ball but all good players hold their head/eye in the same position over the cue on every shot. Some hold their cue directly below their nose, some like Earl or Neils Feijen have their cue way to the right of their chin under their right eye, and then some will be way left of the chin under their left eye. For myself, when I am missing balls consistently one way, to the left or to the right, it is because my cue is positioned a little off kilter in relation to my dominant eye.

Hope that makes sense.....
 
they use both. Most of them will close 1 eye, but only to make sure they pass a ball, otherwise, the depth perception is VERY important. Too important to ignore. It's a good question though, haven't heard anyone ask it in quite a while
 
Top players may be top players because they have superior visual skills. Or, they are able to get in a stance that allows them to compensate for cross dominance. If you look closely at some head-on pics of top players, there are a few who align their "opposite eye" over the cue.

My guess is that people with shifting eye dominance never get to the top because their visual skills (or lack thereof) limits their game.

I've got a bad case of shifting dominance, and tried everything. The only thing that works for me is to plan the shot from afar with both eyes, then close my right eye (I shoot left) for aiming and shooting. It took a while to get used to this, but now I do it automatically.
 
I think most players "favor" their dominant eye - they align their stick either right under it or closer to it than their non-dominant eye - the most obvious of these are the "cross dominant" players whose dominant eye and shooting arm are on opposite sides. But lots of players align their stick right in the middle between their eyes - players whose chin touches their stick are like this.

There are strong-dominant-eye, weak-dominant-eye and non-dominant-eye players, and many different ways to line their sticks up - no general rule except that it definitely matters.

pj
chgo
 
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