Discussion: Focusing on the cue ball compared to other sports

Jesse Cool

Jesse Cool

New member
I want to talk about cue ball last before stroke compared to other sports that involve striking a ball. Please read on…

I recently made a change to my game that has made a considerable impact to the consistency of my game. I switched from object ball last to focusing solely on the cue ball when striking the ball. I do change to object ball last on certain shots such as when the balls are close together but for the majority it’s cue ball last on 90% of my shots now. The accuracy and consistency of my game has gone up tremendously. This has led me to really start thinking about how others sports focus on the ball they are striking.

I grew up playing baseball and golf from a young age. Obviously these sports involve striking a ball with some type of club. These sports and many others that involve striking a ball, require sole focus on the object you’re hitting. The only difference in these sports compared to pool is, pool requires striking a ball into another ball. When I really think about it, there many things you need to do before the shot if you’re going to take the cue ball last route. One of the most important is to pick your line from standing position and get down into that same line. Although, this is still required even for object ball last. This then leads me to all my years spent in golf. Which I think might be the most closely related sport to pool that requires striking a ball with a club into a hole.

In golf, you must pick your line while standing behind the ball. Once you have done this you get into the same line of the shot with your stance, waggle the club like pre strokes in pool, look up and down from ball to line just like looking back and forth from cueball and object ball, set for a short pause, backswing, and then finally strike the golf ball while having complete focus on the golf ball until contact is made then looking up.

I just found this very interesting when you look at it from another view point. Obviously this subject has been touched on many times but I wanted to have a discussion based on other sports that solely focus on the ball you’re hitting.

To me, it’s really starting to make more sense to focus only on the cue ball when you’re striking it. Once you have made a decision about the whole shot picture, focusing only on the cueball in theory seems to be the most accurate way of hitting the cue ball especially when dialing in specific amounts of english.

I’d like to hear everyone’s creative thoughts. The goal is to use the information and ideas in this thread to improve all of our games.
 
I believe it has more to do with your Pre Shot Routine and lining your body up to the shot. A shot is made or missed long before you hit the q ball. I always look at the object ball last, but whatever works for You and if a certain way works better for You. I tell people If it aint broke dont try to fix it IMHO
 
The CBL in my user title stands for cue ball last. There are a couple others who might show up as well. Jason Shaw claims he does CBL for the reason you cited.

One caution about CBL. You need many hours of memorization of the ob reactions to your shooting before you can safely ignore them. Simply put, know your OB first.
 
straightline said:
The CBL in my user title stands for cue ball last. There are a couple others who might show up as well. Jason Shaw claims he does CBL for the reason you cited.

One caution about CBL. You need many hours of memorization of the ob reactions to your shooting before you can safely ignore them. Simply put, know your OB first.
Click to expand...

But if you’ve already decided on the shot you will play, spin etc included, wouldn’t you say you already know what your object ball reaction will be? By the time you’re stroking the ball you are not making any adjustments based on object ball reaction because that will come after the cue ball is already struck.

I wouldn’t say I’m ignoring it. I just have already decided how I will play the shot and I’m anticipating a certain object ball reaction based on my decision before I even got down on the ball.
 
Also would like to throw this in there, as I’m focusing on the cue ball I can still see the line and object ball in the distance. I try to let my brain absorb that information from the fuzzy background and let it become part of the whole shot picture. So not to completely ignore the object ball.
 
Jesse Cool said:
But if you’ve already decided on the shot you will play, spin etc included, wouldn’t you say you already know what your object ball reaction will be? By the time you’re stroking the ball you are not making any adjustments based on object ball reaction because that will come after the cue ball is already struck.

I wouldn’t say I’m ignoring it. I just have already decided how I will play the shot and I’m anticipating a certain object ball reaction based on my decision before I even got down on the ball.
Click to expand...
Absolutely _ if you're immersed and well along in pool. The caution is for noobs or people that haven't quite sussed out consistent shot making.
 
Jesse Cool said:
I want to talk about cue ball last before stroke compared to other sports that involve striking a ball. Please read on…

I recently made a change to my game that has made a considerable impact to the consistency of my game. I switched from object ball last to focusing solely on the cue ball when striking the ball. I do change to object ball last on certain shots such as when the balls are close together but for the majority it’s cue ball last on 90% of my shots now. The accuracy and consistency of my game has gone up tremendously. This has led me to really start thinking about how others sports focus on the ball they are striking.

I grew up playing baseball and golf from a young age. Obviously these sports involve striking a ball with some type of club. These sports and many others that involve striking a ball, require sole focus on the object you’re hitting. The only difference in these sports compared to pool is, pool requires striking a ball into another ball. When I really think about it, there many things you need to do before the shot if you’re going to take the cue ball last route. One of the most important is to pick your line from standing position and get down into that same line. Although, this is still required even for object ball last. This then leads me to all my years spent in golf. Which I think might be the most closely related sport to pool that requires striking a ball with a club into a hole.

In golf, you must pick your line while standing behind the ball. Once you have done this you get into the same line of the shot with your stance, waggle the club like pre strokes in pool, look up and down from ball to line just like looking back and forth from cueball and object ball, set for a short pause, backswing, and then finally strike the golf ball while having complete focus on the golf ball until contact is made then looking up.

I just found this very interesting when you look at it from another view point. Obviously this subject has been touched on many times but I wanted to have a discussion based on other sports that solely focus on the ball you’re hitting.

To me, it’s really starting to make more sense to focus only on the cue ball when you’re striking it. Once you have made a decision about the whole shot picture, focusing only on the cueball in theory seems to be the most accurate way of hitting the cue ball especially when dialing in specific amounts of english.

I’d like to hear everyone’s creative thoughts. The goal is to use the information and ideas in this thread to improve all of our games.
Click to expand...
You hit the right note with "creative". CBL works for some pros, most are OBL except on very specific shots.
 
This is not a scientific answer to your question
But if the majority of pros for years and years and years, look at the object ball last,
it must be the better way to play
If cue ball last was really better
By now I would think all of the pros would do it.
Jmho
Icbw
 
bbb said:
This is not a scientific answer to your question
But if the majority of pros for years and years and years, look at the object ball last,
it must be the better way to play
If cue ball last was really better
By now I would think all of the pros would do it.
Jmho
Icbw
Click to expand...
Not a very good argument. It comes from the era of buckets. No 11.379 mm tips - precision wasn't real big other than don't miss for a couple hours avg.

CBL solves many problems; not the least of which is high speed accuracy. It shifts focus to the CB and your stick (you know the only thing that actually hits anything) accuracy; and all but eliminates perspective bias and it's real time re-aiming tendencies. Net effect, you hit the ball with a straight piston stroke, where you intend to hit it.
 
straightline said:
Not a very good argument. It comes from the era of buckets. No 11.379 mm tips - precision wasn't real big other than don't miss for a couple hours avg.

CBL solves many problems; not the least of which is high speed accuracy. It shifts focus to the CB and your stick (you know the only thing that actually hits anything) accuracy; and all but eliminates perspective bias and it's real time re-aiming tendencies. Net effect, you hit the ball with a straight piston stroke, where you intend to hit it.
Click to expand...
tell that to filler,gorst,and most of the pros
pros eat based on performance
they find the best way to do things
not whats best theortetically
not saying it cant work
 
Pool is unique like in golf in that you have two simultaneous targets. The tip position on the cue ball and then some time later the CB-OB collision.

Because of your field of view and focal length differences, you can not “see” both targets. Golf is very obvious because your body is completely turned orthogonal towards your secondary target. Pool you can make a choice.

So it comes down to what you feel you have memorized and muscle memory of better… where the object ball is spatially or where your intended tip target is spatially. Either way you need spatial awareness in some capacity, because you can not compress the solution to the problem into a 2D visual plane.
 
bbb said:
tell that to filler,gorst,and most of the pros
pros eat based on performance
they find the best way to do things
not whats best theortetically
not saying it cant work
Click to expand...
They (the top 5 say) have super strokes and way more headroom than most - including their food. They can look at anything they want and still stroke accurately besides. Shaw managed what 800 balls in one pass (dust fouls aren't misses) CBL.

bbb said:
not saying it cant work
Click to expand...

What then, are you saying?
 
nataddrho said:
Pool is unique like in golf in that you have two simultaneous targets. The tip position on the cue ball and then some time later the CB-OB collision.

Because of your field of view and focal length differences, you can not “see” both targets. Golf is very obvious because your body is completely turned orthogonal towards your secondary target. Pool you can make a choice.

So it comes down to what you feel you have memorized and muscle memory of better… where the object ball is spatially or where your intended tip target is spatially. Either way you need spatial awareness in some capacity, because you can not compress the solution to the problem into a 2D visual plane.
Click to expand...

Your being wont forget 3 or 4 space just because you stare blankly at the cue ball. CBL is a very efficient and accurate algorithm.
 
nataddrho said:
Pool is unique like in golf in that you have two simultaneous targets. The tip position on the cue ball and then some time later the CB-OB collision.

Because of your field of view and focal length differences, you can not “see” both targets. Golf is very obvious because your body is completely turned orthogonal towards your secondary target. Pool you can make a choice.

So it comes down to what you feel you have memorized and muscle memory of better… where the object ball is spatially or where your intended tip target is spatially. Either way you need spatial awareness in some capacity, because you can not compress the solution to the problem into a 2D visual plane.
Click to expand...

I would agree due to the fact that you are sending one ball into another but I wouldn’t say it’s completely unlike golf or others sports involving striking a ball. Ultimately you’re still striking a single object and sending it into a specific direction and the outcome of the direction and quality of the hit all depends on what you do before the last split second before contact.

The eyes and brain are very powerful and can process things in different ways depending on the person. This may ultimately dictate how well a person executes their mechanics.
 
nataddrho said:
Pool is unique like in golf in that you have two simultaneous targets. The tip position on the cue ball and then some time later the CB-OB collision.

Because of your field of view and focal length differences, you can not “see” both targets. Golf is very obvious because your body is completely turned orthogonal towards your secondary target. Pool you can make a choice.

So it comes down to what you feel you have memorized and muscle memory of better… where the object ball is spatially or where your intended tip target is spatially. Either way you need spatial awareness in some capacity, because you can not compress the solution to the problem into a 2D visual plane.
Click to expand...

Golf has the parallax problem as you indicate, you do get the illusion that you are aligned or aimed incorrectly because you are to the side of the ball. So yeah I guess spatial awareness and memorized feel….
 
I have my own personal opinion about this. I think everybody is looking at both. Or at least most people. I mean you’re looking at the object ball past the cube ball. Some people may be focusing more on one than the other, but you’re still looking at both.
 
Jesse Cool said:
I want to talk about cue ball last before stroke compared to other sports that involve striking a ball. Please read on…

I recently made a change to my game that has made a considerable impact to the consistency of my game. I switched from object ball last to focusing solely on the cue ball when striking the ball. I do change to object ball last on certain shots such as when the balls are close together but for the majority it’s cue ball last on 90% of my shots now. The accuracy and consistency of my game has gone up tremendously. This has led me to really start thinking about how others sports focus on the ball they are striking.

I grew up playing baseball and golf from a young age. Obviously these sports involve striking a ball with some type of club. These sports and many others that involve striking a ball, require sole focus on the object you’re hitting. The only difference in these sports compared to pool is, pool requires striking a ball into another ball. When I really think about it, there many things you need to do before the shot if you’re going to take the cue ball last route. One of the most important is to pick your line from standing position and get down into that same line. Although, this is still required even for object ball last. This then leads me to all my years spent in golf. Which I think might be the most closely related sport to pool that requires striking a ball with a club into a hole.

In golf, you must pick your line while standing behind the ball. Once you have done this you get into the same line of the shot with your stance, waggle the club like pre strokes in pool, look up and down from ball to line just like looking back and forth from cueball and object ball, set for a short pause, backswing, and then finally strike the golf ball while having complete focus on the golf ball until contact is made then looking up.

I just found this very interesting when you look at it from another view point. Obviously this subject has been touched on many times but I wanted to have a discussion based on other sports that solely focus on the ball you’re hitting.

To me, it’s really starting to make more sense to focus only on the cue ball when you’re striking it. Once you have made a decision about the whole shot picture, focusing only on the cueball in theory seems to be the most accurate way of hitting the cue ball especially when dialing in specific amounts of english.

I’d like to hear everyone’s creative thoughts. The goal is to use the information and ideas in this thread to improve all of our games.
Click to expand...
The big difference with golf is that pool is not a whole body movement swing, really only the break shot is and that's when I look at the cue ball. You are in position for a long time before pulling the trigger shooting pool and making relatively serene movements compared to golf. We don't look at the dart last when throwing darts, or the football, basketball, baseball, etc., we look at were we are sending the object. I think with golf and while at bat playing baseball the main goal of the activity is the ball strike so we focus on the ball, when we throw or shoot something the main goal is where the object is going so we focus on the point we are moving the object to. To me looking at the cue ball last is equivalent at looking at the tip of your rifle while target shooting. Lets also not forget what a powerful tool the mind is, so much so that when racing cars or even driving on the road that the car goes where the eyes go, not actually where you think you are sending it, that's why emergency vehicles are so often hit while roadside, people lock on to the emergency lights with their eyes and drive right into them even though they are trying to avoid them.
 
fastone371 said:
The big difference with golf is that pool is not a whole body movement swing, really only the break shot is and that's when I look at the cue ball. You are in position for a long time before pulling the trigger shooting pool and making relatively serene movements compared to golf. We don't look at the dart last when throwing darts, or the football, basketball, baseball, etc., we look at were we are sending the object. I think with golf and while at bat playing baseball the main goal of the activity is the ball strike so we focus on the ball, when we throw or shoot something the main goal is where the object is going so we focus on the point we are moving the object to. To me looking at the cue ball last is equivalent at looking at the tip of your rifle while target shooting.
Click to expand...

I wouldn’t use basketball, darts, or any other sports that don’t involve striking a ball or target with a type of club for comparison. I’m specifically speaking of sports that use a club to strike a ball.

With Darts, basketball, etc you already have the object in your hand and you’re not using another object to strike it. The target focus is completely different which separates it from sports that require striking an object.
 
straightline said:
They (the top 5 say) have super strokes and way more headroom than most - including their food. They can look at anything they want and still stroke accurately besides. Shaw managed what 800 balls in one pass (dust fouls aren't misses) CBL.



What then, are you saying?
Click to expand...
Right, that's why they look at OBL. I think you can even see video of Shaw looking at OBL.
 
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