More accurate when doing ZERO warm-up strokes. What might be going on?

[BlueRaider]

A few months ago, I started testing my initial alignment on shots by doing zero warm-up strokes.

I just get down on the shot, allow my tip to naturally fall into place at the cue ball, freeze for about two seconds, then pull the trigger. Sometimes I look at the cue ball and my tip during this, and sometimes I never take my eyes off the object ball during the entire process from standing to down on the table. Either way, my cue doesn't move once I'm fully down on the shot until I begin my actual backstroke.

To my surprise, I was far more accurate in both general potting and tip accuracy than when I actually do warm-up strokes. No unintentional spin except on shots where I came down onto the cue ball severely misaligned.

Interestingly, on some shots, my tip doesn't look centered at all when I look at it, but when I pull the trigger, the cue ball obviously behaves as if it was struck dead center. Even the shots where I put unintentional spin on the cue ball tend to go straighter than many where I do warm-up strokes. The cue ball will have massive spin on it after contact but the object ball goes pretty damn straight. But again, by far most shots are struck pure, dead center.

I wrote this phenomenon off as a fluke/novelty at first, but it has persisted. Every time I do zero warm-up strokes, my accuracy improves. What's the likely culprit that's causing less accuracy WITH warm-up strokes?

 

[FranCrimi]

My friend Gene Nagy, the best at that style I'd ever seen, named that process, drop and shoot. It doesn't hold up under pressure though, because it requires basically blind trust. That's hard when you're competing.

However, in practice, it is very informative. Here are two possibilities based on what you described:

1.) Our perception of a shot when down can be very different than what we see standing up straight. So it can lead to constant tweaking with each practice stroke, which in your case, is tweaking you right out of the shot. Learn to trust what you saw while standing erect, and experiment with holding back on the urge to keep tweaking your aim with each practice stroke.

2.) Another possibility is that you created a habit without realizing it where something changes in your grip hand or bridge hand as you take practice strokes. Maybe it kicks-in during the second practice stroke or the third practice stroke. Taking closeup videos of your bridge and grip hands during your practice strokes will tell you if there are any changes you may not be aware of.

 

[Bob Jewett]

.... Interestingly, on some shots, my tip doesn't look centered at all when I look at it, but when I pull the trigger, the cue ball obviously behaves as if it was struck dead center. ...

I suspect that you are not seeing the center of the ball accurately and when you get your head involved, you fix that but you screw up the compensating thing your arm was doing subconsciously to fix it. Check your alignment to be sure a straight, centered shot actually looks straight and centered.