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Nice find. Not easy to spot such a quick flick down to the cb and then back up again. Again interesting that it was a shot played with extreme side / english.

The BBC recently showed a recording of Hendry playing some years back, and there is a bit in that which quite clearly shows him looking at the ob last. Unless he changed his eye patterns (which I think is unlikely) it does seem as if players do not always do the same thing every time. I...

According to Robert Byrne's 'Wonderful world of pool & billiards': Schaefer beat Hoppe in 1921 in a tournament memorable because of the shock waves it send through the billiard world, which had come to think of Hoppe as invincible.... [after Cochran had won in 1927] Hoppe never again was able...

That is really interesting. I had thought that although some pros thought that they looked at the cb last, in reality video evidence shows that they switched up to the ob before releasing the cue. But I agree that these two clips clearly show a counter example. In both these shots the side...

I was not suggesting that he breaks the reds like an 8 ball rack - although I would pay good money to see that happen in a pro match :D). The way it would happen is this: Normally a pro snooker player playing from somewhere in balk (the kitchen) who does not have a pot on, will try to find a...

Don't advise using abrasives on a regular basis. For regular maintenance, a single wipe with a barely damp cloth and immediately dry well. Every now and again wax the shaft (I use Butcher's bowling alley wax; other brands are available). This assumes that it is a maple shaft. For snooker...

If someone is giving advice to Corey, I don't think that what he does with his chalk matters. The important advice for him concerns tactics: don't try to imitate what the full time snooker players do - the good ones will hang him out to dry. What he has to do if he wants to compete is mess the...

Rick - excellent point IMO, and one that is not made frequently or forcefully enough. Looking from the outside, all you see are the outward manifestations of what a player is doing. And describing the pool stroke in these terms has two major problems: First, looked at from this perspective...

Most expert snooker players keep the cue more or less level while addressing the cue ball - hence more of a piston than a pendulum. But where the backswing is elongated (and this is usually only on the final backswing immediately before the cue is delivered), the butt will tend to lift. The...

I believe that Chris Melling was a pro Snooker player for some years before he started playing 9 ball competitively (although he was also a top player at UK 8-ball)

Good point. Although a lot of the balls snooker players miss all the time would go in on a pool table.

Easy - as long as the person you are playing on the same table with the same pockets is worse than you are.

Yes there is a fair amount of money in pro snooker, but there are a lot of guys chasing it. When I looked at this many years ago, I concluded that if you could not get into the top 32, you would be earning less than average wage. And that is before expenses. The prize money has gone up since I...

I agree 100% with this. But there is an argument that snooker is more effective than pool in teaching someone to play. The reason is that if you hit a pool ball badly, you will often still slop in into the side of the pocket. Of course the poor hit will probably have a knock-on effect on your...

Yes, qualifies as over-thinking in my book. IMO, there is nothing wrong with getting into the habit of looking what direction the tangent line would take the ball, but that is as far as it goes. Do allow thoughts such as 'I want it further back so I will hit lower' to enter your mind. Switch...

Yes, although in the case I was thinking of, the guy was young and at least had the good grace to mumble an apology to his opponent after he had put the phone down. (Or was that after he had finished shaving? I can't remember now)

I look forward to reading this. I certainly think that players can be held back by being too analytical when they play - your attention needs to be focused outwards, to the shot outcome, and not inwards towards what your body is doing or what you want it to do. In another thread...

Where I play, I think that people would generally find that disrespectful. I do. But I am not 100% sure why. When I am at the table, I don't care what the other guy does as long as it is not distracting. But I would expect him to stop whatever it is promptly when it is his turn. When he is...

None of them bother me in the slightest. In fact there is only one miss that I can even remember - and that was from over 30 years ago. I had played a fair amount of 8 ball on a bar box, and thought that I was a fair player. Then I got to play on a 12' snooker table for the first time. It...

I think that this misses the point somewhat The exact foot configuration does not matter; as you say different players show that there are a number of different approaches that work. What matters is (1) doing the same thing each time and (2) paying some attention to where your feet are going in...