Snooker-style stance......................

garczar

AzB Silver Member
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Watch a lot of snooker so i gave the squared-up, face-the-table stance a try. To me its very uncomfortable. What are the technical reasons this style is taught/used? Almost all the top players play this way yet few if any pool players use this style. Just curious why two totally different styles are used in their respective games.
 

DaveM

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I always thought it was for longer reach on a larger table.
 

BeiberLvr

AzB Silver Member
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Watch a lot of snooker so i gave the squared-up, face-the-table stance a try. To me its very uncomfortable. What are the technical reasons this style is taught/used? Almost all the top players play this way yet few if any pool players use this style. Just curious why two totally different styles are used in their respective games.

The style is more of a requirement in snooker due to the accuracy needed. Pool tables are much more forgiving and that's why most players use the stance they do. Any change we make can feel uncomfortable at first, but if it's still uncomfortable after about 20 hours or so, then you might be doing it wrong.

If you really want to read about snooker fundamentals and have a place to ask questions, I'd suggest going here http://www.thesnookerforum.co.uk/board/forums/11-Coaching-Questions
 

garczar

AzB Silver Member
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The style is more of a requirement in snooker due to the accuracy needed. Pool tables are much more forgiving and that's why most players use the stance they do. Any change we make can feel uncomfortable at first, but if it's still uncomfortable after about 20 hours or so, then you might be doing it wrong.

If you really want to read about snooker fundamentals and have a place to ask questions, I'd suggest going here http://www.thesnookerforum.co.uk/board/forums/11-Coaching-Questions
Great site, thanks. To me its not just uncomf. but borderline painful. The combination of forward-tilt and lower back rotation is brutal, to me anyway. Every time i watch a match it almost hurts to watch. Damn sure works for them. Amazing skills those guys have.
 

garczar

AzB Silver Member
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Just watched a couple Barry Stark vids and his stance is not quite a square and is actually pretty do-able. His instruction is really well explained and easy to follow. Bad part is i just found out how bad/variable my current stroke is. Unreal how STRAIGHT those guys deliver the cue.
 

BeiberLvr

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Great site, thanks. To me its not just uncomf. but borderline painful. The combination of forward-tilt and lower back rotation is brutal, to me anyway. Every time i watch a match it almost hurts to watch. Damn sure works for them. Amazing skills those guys have.

Just watched a couple Barry Stark vids and his stance is not quite a square and is actually pretty do-able. His instruction is really well explained and easy to follow. Bad part is i just found out how bad/variable my current stroke is. Unreal how STRAIGHT those guys deliver the cue.

As you go further down the rabbit hole, you'll learn that there's actually a few variations of the stance you are using.

Most of your top pros these days don't actually use the completely square on method with their feet pointing straight ahead.
 

Bob Jewett

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Watch a lot of snooker so i gave the squared-up, face-the-table stance a try. To me its very uncomfortable. What are the technical reasons this style is taught/used? Almost all the top players play this way yet few if any pool players use this style. Just curious why two totally different styles are used in their respective games.

I think that by far the most important advantage of the snooker stance is that the chin is rubbing on the cue stick. Not pretty close, not an inch away, but actually rubbing with forward and backward feathering on the chin. This gives snooker players immediate feedback about exactly where their stick is relative to their eyes and whether their stroke is straight. Pool players lack that feedback, mostly.
 

BeiberLvr

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I think that by far the most important advantage of the snooker stance is that the chin is rubbing on the cue stick. Not pretty close, not an inch away, but actually rubbing with forward and backward feathering on the chin. This gives snooker players immediate feedback about exactly where their stick is relative to their eyes and whether their stroke is straight. Pool players lack that feedback, mostly.

I agree, but it's also what I had the most difficulty with in my attempts to mimic the snooker stance.

I still have not been able to find a specific spot on my chin that offers the most consistency. Sometimes it can be right in the middle, and certain shots will look perfect. Other times, the shots only look right if the cue is to the left or right of center. Even then the shots will sometimes look right, and I'll completely miss.

Just sort of gave up with that part, and have my head slightly above the cue.
 

deraltefritz

AzB Silver Member
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In addition to the chin, the cue also contacts the chest. So there are four contact points: bridge hand, chin, chest and grip hand.
See here: https://youtu.be/gSK4w_9S_x0

But I don't think those are the reasons for facing the shot square on, as you can easily utilize those four contact points with different kinds of feet placement.

It might just be the way it's taught. Tradition, repeatability, etc. You do get to reach into the table more, as Matt pointed out.

I don't buy the argument for stability as told in the video. If someone bumps into you, the shot is screwed no matter how you stand.


Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
 
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Gorramjayne

AzB Silver Member
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Watch a lot of snooker so i gave the squared-up, face-the-table stance a try. To me its very uncomfortable. What are the technical reasons this style is taught/used? Almost all the top players play this way yet few if any pool players use this style. Just curious why two totally different styles are used in their respective games.

It may seem awkward and uncomfortable standing with your hips squared up at first if you're coming from a pool background. But once it's in your muscle memory, it's actually very comfortable and stable.

The more relaxed side-on pool stance, I suspect, is not "because the American sport requires less potting accuracy" (primarily) but because pool developed in closer association to traditional 3C / balkline billiards where you will frequently have to do creative things with your cuing angles and sometimes apply a lot of power at a downward angle. You do have to do that in pool far more often than snooker, as well as reach over difficult obstructions, and cuing at even a moderately high angle is very hard to do in a snooker stance. Also in pool and traditional billiards, you will have to more often execute combos, caroms, and things that emphasize precise judgment of the distance between balls rather than a precise judgment of center ball and angle to pocket. Standing a little taller gives you a better perspective of the spatial relation of all the objects on the table so you can bounce multiple balls off one another, while getting low reduces error in judging angle, which is vital for snooker because of the distances and unforgiving pockets.

As to mechanics, a proper snooker stance keeps your head and body very, very steady, low, and in line with your cue, and tends to position you in a way that the only part of your body that actually wants to move is your elbow, which is the ideal. The human skeleton is really complex, but the 'rigid' snooker stance tends to 'lock' you into the same position every time, inherently makes several of the common pool 'bad habits' so uncomfortable in the first place that you won't want to do them. (Chicken-wing, dropping shoulder, popping up on the shot, pulling across your body, etc. ... the snooker stance positions you in such a way that these aren't things your body will want to do, although it certainly isn't free of its own problems.)

Basically, the snooker stance is likely the most efficient way to set up the human skeleton so that it is as stable as possible, permitting only the elbow to move to swing a cue very accurately in a level plane, with as little unwanted movement as possible. And since snooker is a game where you have a lot of room to reach a cue where you want, and you'll never jump (and almost never masse) the snooker stance doesn't have any real drawbacks for that game.

Interestingly, if you watch pool today and compare it to pool 50 years ago, you will actually notice many pool players now have stances that look closer to a snooker player than they do to the old-time great pool legends. The game has changed and the snooker stance, or at least some elements of it, make a little more sense for pool now.

One big benefit of a snooker stance for the modern game of pool (as opposed to decades ago) is that it lets you get very low to the table keeping a straight back . The tendency has been for pool players to get their heads lower and lower, and it requires a lot of discipline to not move on the shot or pop your head up. The snooker stance keeps your back straight and head raised up so you are looking straight on (head square to the table, eyes straight on) in a position where your spine is already in a stable and strong alignment, so your body doesn't tend to want to go anywhere. In a pool stance, particularly for a taller player, you are more likely to end up curving or your spine or twisting to get your head low and over the cue, hanging your head a little bit forward with your eyes up. Hanging your head curves the upper spine and may create instability or make you want to pop up when you try to use extra power. Also, when you have head tilted forward your eyes peering up from under your eyebrows, your visual accuity and depth perception may drop off a little.


There are also some reasons involving the nature of the equipment as to why adopting snooker technique is not a ready solution in pool without other changes ---

- Traditional pool cues are gripped several inches forward from the back of the cue, where the wrap is. In a snooker stance you grip at the very back of the cue just as a consequence of how you turn your shoulders in the stance, so with most pool cues you'd feel like you're gripping a part of the cue that wasn't designed to be gripped.

- Snooker mechanics are more like driving your cue through the ball on as level a plane as possible, with shorter follow-through. Pool usually employs a lighter grip on the cue and many players allow the cue to 'drop through contact' to varying degrees to alter the balance between CB action and shot speed. Basically in pool the cue is 'freer', doing more of the work and is meant to amplify intentional stroke variations to impart more spin control on the CB. Snooker cues employ hard tips and forward balance, and are designed to feel like they are joined to the arm for very precise energy/distance control. The bigger shaft, softer tip, rear balance, and overall heavier weight of your normal pool cue is not the ideal match to a snooker-style stroke, and the result would likely be less finesse over CB spin with soft shots and frequently over-juicing the ball with firmer shots -- personally I found I needed my pool cue to be nearly 2 ounces lighter to maintain the same degree of spin control when using a snooker-type stroke. That's probably why you won't see a lot of people who make their living on the pool table scramble to develop snooker fundamentals -- some aspects of your CB control will change, for better or worse, and you'd have to experiment with gear to make the most of it.
 
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FranCrimi

AzB Silver Member
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As others have stated here, there are a few different variations of snooker stances. I found one that works for me and never looked back.

When it's done right and all the balance points are proper, a snooker stance is the most ergonomic stance. It compliments the human anatomy rather than fights it.

If you look at the average amateur pool stance, you can see how the players are fighting their anatomies. For example: standing sideways to the cue stick forces you to shoot pool by looking over your shoulder. That's not only unnatural, but a big strain on the neck muscles.
 
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