Common mistakes a lot of average players make.

[smoochie]

All of their fingers may have been wrapped around the cue -- that would be visible to anyone watching. How do you know how tightly they were gripping? There is a big difference between a light all-fingers-touching-and-no-daylight grip and a squeeze-the-life-out-of-that-damn-piece-of-wood grip.

I understand what you're saying but if I see all fingers wrapped around a cue I can tell whether or not that those fingers are death gripping or just firm gripping or lose gripping. Granted sometimes I cannot, it's not 100% of the time but most of the time I can tell if the guy is only lightly holding their cue, or firmly or even very very firmly (death grip).

I know it's difficult to observe this, but to me, I can see it 90% of the time. There are few grips that can fool me. Also, I need to see them play a whole match/set not just one-two shots. If you like do a video of you holding the cue with all your fingers wrapped on the cue, one-time death gripping, one-time loose gripping. but shoot at least 10 shots with each grip continuously. Then ill tell you which is which, just to prove it. Even though I don't feel that I need to prove to anyone but it's just for fun ill do it.

 

[Ratta]

The key is to not change "the pressure" during the stroke. Of course you can observe/see it in many cases, if a player does it- but for sure it s not easy to determine.

 

[Willowbrook Wolfy]

Death grip is the best grip, most pro's in the 80s and 90s used death grip and they played wonderfully.

the death grip comes in handy sometimes. If you are having an off day with a few miscues the death grip can prevent them. At least that’s what I’ve found in my stroke. I have a tendency to swing my cue a bit on bottom left or right when off a little
and a firm grip kind of prevents that from happening.