Long Draw Shot

[cuetechasaurus]

I think that giving your eyes time to focus on what you are looking at is the most important part of aiming. Sometimes when I get down on the shot, I get blurry and double vision of my shaft and the cueball. It makes it very difficult to see what I'm aiming at.

I realized that what causes that to happen, is looking back and forth too quickly between the cueball and the object ball. When you look at something close to you, your eyes need a second or two in order to give you a clear picture. Same thing if you shift your vision from something near you, to an object farther from you. If your eyes dart back and forth too quickly, you aren't getting a clear image (very similar to a camera lens). IMO that's equivalent to someone with bad eyes shooting pool without glasses or contac lenses.

I would like to add that whether you look at the cueball or object ball last, it's very important that you watch the balls make contact with each other.

 

[CreeDo]

Ignore the haters DCP. I don't understand why people will bash someone who's looking for help. Even if I thought my advice is wasted on you, it takes me all of 1 minute to type it out and maybe you or someone else will come upon it later and get something out of it.

You DO need practice but there's nothing wrong with finding input on what and how to practice.

So the actual advice:

-I normally shoot with an open bridge but it helped me tremendously to shoot with a closed bridge for long straight draw shots, or any long draw shot really. I feel less comfortable with that bridge but I deliver the tip where I want and there's no side-to-side stuff throwing off my aim.

- It's much slower and less forceful than you think. I used to try to pound these and somehow even with lots of force I couldn't make whitey move much. It's because when you pound a shot you naturally spring up a bit and don't hit as low as you wanted (you've probably noticed doing that on break shots). Every person has this natural jump-up and you have to fight it ...you have to be unafraid of miscuing, golfing the ball, ripping into the cloth, etc. You need to fight your instinct that you're about to hit too low and f*ck something up.

To help illustrate it, use a striped ball, wipe it off, and chalk the hell out of your stick (you're chalking like crazy anyway right? It's important). Rotate the striped ball until the edge of the stripe or the bottom of the circled number is exactly halfway between the center and bottom edge of the ball. Aim for that halfway point carefully with your closed bridge. Then do a smooth, firm, and level stroke through that point. Follow through a long distance. Your whole arm will move when you do this shot, but again do not jump up and do not pound it hard. After each swing, pick up the striped cue ball and look for the chalk mark your stick left. You will probably be surprised when you do this a few times and it's higher than you were aiming every single time... at least, that's been my experience. When you finally get even close to the halfway point 'sweet spot' you'll see the draw you were expecting. It's literally impossible to NOT draw if you hit this point and have any decent amount of force in the stroke... no matter how funky your mechanics are.

- It's kind of generic sounding to say "Really focus on the follow through" but doing that helped me a ton. Even though I automatically follow through on all shots, I consciously focus on it on shots like this and make sure to keep pushing the stick forward almost as if I wanted some crazy 20+ inch follow through. I exaggerate it in other words. It really helps.

- Get a glove so that the chafing of a closed bridge stops being a factor. It's a distraction and the glove will help you overcome it. Then, once you can do this consistently, you can keep the glove or toss it... you don't NEED it for anything, but for some people it helps.

 

[Patrick Johnson]

I normally shoot with an open bridge but it helped me tremendously to shoot with a closed bridge for long straight draw shots, or any long draw shot really. I feel less comfortable with that bridge but I deliver the tip where I want and there's no side-to-side stuff throwing off my aim.

This is the only thing I take exception wtih in your advice. Side-to-side movement is caused by the stroke, not by the bridge. There's no reason there should be side-to-side movement with an open bridge if there's none with a closed bridge. I think this must be a psychological thing - a matter of confidence.

pj
chgo

 

[Jal]

Ignore the haters DCP. I don't understand why people will bash someone who's looking for help. Even if I thought my advice is wasted on you, it takes me all of 1 minute to type it out and maybe you or someone else will come upon it later and get something out of it.

Here, here. And great advice. Just a couple of qualifications.

To help illustrate it, use a striped ball, wipe it off, and chalk the hell out of your stick (you're chalking like crazy anyway right? It's important). Rotate the striped ball until the edge of the stripe or the bottom of the circled number is exactly halfway between the center and bottom edge of the ball. Aim for that halfway point carefully with your closed bridge. Then do a smooth, firm, and level stroke through that point. ...

To get as much draw as in DCP's diagram, from that distance, you probably do need to hit very close to the miscue limit, ie, about one-half of a ball's radius down from center. But the general rule that hitting lower gets you more draw only applies if you can increase cue speed accordingly (without obliterating accuracy at the same time).

When the balls are fairly close, generating enough speed is easy enough such that hitting lower and lower does produce more draw. But when there's a lot of distance between them and your practical cue speed is limited, you can get more draw by hitting a little higher up on the cueball. You won't get as much draw compared to hitting lower with more speed, but you'll get more than if you hit lower at the same speed. It all depends on the upper limit of the speed of your stroke (with accuracy maintained)) and the amount of sliding friction between the ball and the cloth. The more friction, the more likely this is true (unless you can overcome it with more cue speed without losing accuracy).

Just to mention that not all balls have the stripe one-half a ball's diameter in width. This can be checked by freezing it to two other balls with the stripe oriented vertically, and verifying that the edges of the stripe run through the contact points.

Jim

 

[Jal]

This is the only thing I take exception wtih in your advice. Side-to-side movement is caused by the stroke, not by the bridge. There's no reason there should be side-to-side movement with an open bridge if there's none with a closed bridge. I think this must be a psychological thing - a matter of confidence.

I think a closed bridge does provide a little more stability than an open bridge as far as side-to-side movement (swooping) is concerned. Place a half-inch dowel on your bridge at its balance point. It rotates about that point much more easily with an open bridge than with a snug (reasonably snug) closed bridge.

The closed bridge doesn't provide much in the way of counter-torque, to be sure, but it only takes a relatively slight amount of torque by your grip hand to throw a shot off. The difference in resistance between the two styles of bridges could mean the difference in making or not making a shot. (But it would help if someone actually measured the amount of counter-torque to see how significant it is.)

Jim

 

[VIProfessor]

"The purpose of a warm-up stroke is not to simulate the shot - it's to verify alignment and cue tip to CB placement."

No, it's to simulate the stroke (to a degree) to see if you're lining up correctly for the stroke you're going to use. If your shot stroke is very different from your practice strokes, you aren't really seeing your *shot stroke* alignment and cue tip placement - you're seeing your *practice stroke* alignment and cue tip placement. The extra force needed for a long draw shot (except on really new cloth) can change your stroke significantly.

This technique definitely helps me get the alignment and tip placement right with more powerful shots.

pj
chgo

That is where we disagree, and IMHO, it is the crux of the problem. The goal in developing your stroke is to have no change in mechanics as a result of stroke speed. Whether the shot is slow or fast, the stroke should still be a smooth swing straight forward through the cue ball. The only thing that should change is the speed of the swing. If not, your accuracy is bound to suffer on shots that require a power stroke.

Furthermore, if we look at the warm-up strokes and backswings of top athletes in every sport, you will see that they are smooth, rhythmic and unhurried. Look at Mariano Rivera--from the slow deliberate windup, who would guess that he is about to unleash a 90+ mph fastball or cutter? In another sport, do you remember Pete Sampras' silky smooth service motion? The timing of his toss and windup was the same whether he ws swinging it out wide at 90 mph or pounding it to the center of the T at 130 mph. This is also the ideal for pool.

A big part of the function of warm-up strokes is to establish rhythm. Each person has an ideal rhythm for their warm-up strokes, and finding and adhering to that rhythm on all shots is key to getting in the zone. It has a focusing, calming and even hypnotic effect on the player and in fact, on every one that witnesses it (it is not calming to the opponent, however). This is a vitally important aspect that I believe you may want to give some thought to.

The speed of the stroke is something that you feel by visualizing the path and resting place of the cueball and/or object ball(s). If you've put in the work, your subconscious mind and your arm already know how to hit it, and all you have to do is trust and let it go.