Long bridge

westcoast

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
So, I've been watching a lot of Earl Strickland matches that "afitz02" posted on his youtube channel and I noticed that Earl's bridge became longer and longer over time. What are the advantages of a long bridge?
 
I think the primary advantage is a smoother stroke, especially on power shots. With a longer bridge you simply have more space to bring your stroke "up to speed" than you do with a short bridge.
 
So, I've been watching a lot of Earl Strickland matches that "afitz02" posted on his youtube channel and I noticed that Earl's bridge became longer and longer over time. What are the advantages of a long bridge?

I'm tall and get down pretty low on my shot when I'm stroking it. Having a longer bridge seems to help me aim/sight my cue to the CB a little better.
 
I think the primary advantage is a smoother stroke, especially on power shots. With a longer bridge you simply have more space to bring your stroke "up to speed" than you do with a short bridge.

I agree with this and I would add that it allows for a better sight picture too.John B.
 
glad to see some discussion on this thread. A respected player I recently spent some time with a few months ago had me start gripping my cue just about to the end of the cue when possible. Almost to the point that my little finger hung off. (when not on the rail or jacked up ect) This obviously makes for a slightly longer bridge on these open shots. I immediately fell in love with the new hand positions and have been shooting like this since then.
There have been a couple of people whove questioned the length of this bridge making me kind of question what I've been told or working with.

Also being somewhat of a "gun guy" I related this extra bridge length to a longer sight radius on a handgun or rifle. Generally speaking, the greater the distance between your front and rear sights, the more accurate your weapon has the potential to be.

Looking forward to hearing your comments.........
 
I forget the name of the instructor who mentioned this in a youtube video, but her recommendation was to use a short bridge when you need to execute a very soft hit (kind of the opposite of what I mentioned earlier). Her thinking was that you always want to draw the ferule back to your bridge -- short for soft and long for hard.

Like the longer bridge for a smooth power shot...it makes sense that a short bridge would be easier to control the speed of a soft shot.
 
I dunno about positive impact, but McCreesh has the longest bridge I have ever seen and in my experience, he's good for a miscue or 2 every set...

Which is not sufficient for me to win.:o
 
So, I've been watching a lot of Earl Strickland matches that "afitz02" posted on his youtube channel and I noticed that Earl's bridge became longer and longer over time. What are the advantages of a long bridge?


1. If you holding cue with loose grip and using cue weight to judge your CB speed (best practice), then you need longer bridge so you can control the speed by how fast you accelerate cue, obviously for slow speed it can be done with shorter bridge, but you have to be consistent with bridge length, unless balls are in the way

2. Another critical factor in pool is pre-warm up routine, the longer the bridge the more closer to the real shot when you pull the trigger. Note Mike Davis warm up routine, on hard shots


3. Cue Ball squirt (deflection) is minimized with long bridge so you can almost aim at same place as if you are not applying english
 
short bridge

I forget the name of the instructor who mentioned this in a youtube video, but her recommendation was to use a short bridge when you need to execute a very soft hit (kind of the opposite of what I mentioned earlier). Her thinking was that you always want to draw the ferule back to your bridge -- short for soft and long for hard.

Like the longer bridge for a smooth power shot...it makes sense that a short bridge would be easier to control the speed of a soft shot.

short bridge works great for super soft shots. i use it a bunch in one pocket for those real easy touch shots and real close bump shots.
 
There is a particular bridge length that cancels out deflection when you use back hand english. Each shaft is different in this regards, and lower deflection cues tend to have longer bridge points to cancel out deflection.
 
There is a particular bridge length that cancels out deflection when you use back hand english. Each shaft is different in this regards, and lower deflection cues tend to have longer bridge points to cancel out deflection.

Bridging at the shaft's natural pivot point and then applying BHE doesn't cancel CB deflection, but it sends the deflected CB (under certain conditions) on the same path as if the shot were hit without english. I.e., using BHE while bridging at the pivot point compensates for squirt rather than cancels it.

[I'm sure you know that, but I wanted to state it a bit differently in case some readers misunderstood.]
 
Last edited:
Back
Top