This is probably the "POT" ([
p]ost [
o]f the [
t]hread).
Those that say that they use an open bridge almost exclusive "because they can sight down the cue better / have an unobstructed rifle-like view" are, IMHO, being fooled.
pt109's right -- you can't see "down" the cue, because your eyes are located too far up on your head to get down that low. To get your eyes down that low, you'd have to tilt your head so far forwards and lower your head downwards (at the same time) that your forehead would nearly touch the shaft. And at that point, you would be straining your eye muscles to, basically, "look up into your skull" to even see that sightline "down the cue." (Probably, only the white of your eyes would be visible to someone viewing you from the side of the table.)
And, irrespective of the bridge you use, you shouldn't be looking at your cue's shaft, anyway! Your eye pattern should be shifting from the cue ball to the object ball. The shaft should be in your peripheral vision.
Let's put it this way. Everyone's been to a cinema / movie theatre, right? And you also must know that a "movie" isn't a movie at all, but rather a series of incrementally-changing still frames that are flashed by your eyes per second, right? If so, I have a trivia question for you. There are folks who think that that series of incrementally-changing frames must be so gosh-darned fast that it must be in the hundreds or thousands of frames per second. Here's the trivia question: how many frames per second does a movie in the cinema/theater flash by your eyes? The answer may surprise you.
It's only 24 frames per second.
That's all of how fast it needs to be to "trick" your mind into thinking it's a continuously moving picture. Except it's not a "trick." Your mind *wants to* blend the pictures together to make a cohesive / continuous stream. Your mind, being the creative tool it is, is able to "fill in the gaps" and connect them all together to form a single video stream.
And that's how it works with the closed bridge. Remember, you shouldn't be looking directly at any part of your shaft, first of all. That shaft should be in your peripheral vision, "down underneath" where you're looking at the cue ball (which is the closest point to the shaft that your eyes should ever be looking directly at; *maybe* you'll look at the cue tip itself, to verify the contact point on the cue ball, but no earlier on the shaft than that).
When you're sighting the shot correctly, the "break in the shaft" (where your closed bridge is located) is molded back together by the creative properties of your mind -- naturally. You don't even have to think about it, nor attempt to do it. It just happens, like when you're watching that series of incrementally-changing flashes of still frames that your mind enjoys as a "movie."
I'm trained and studied in snooker. And yes, I've had the "clear sightline virtues of the open bridge" shoved down my throat until I choked on it. But while on paper this theory "looks flawless," it isn't. It doesn't take into account the mind's natural and effortless ability to "fix" broken pictures, or to create things out of nothing.
(A slight digression -- that is what "art" is to us human beings anyway, right? The ability for the mind to "see" things in a picture of just blotches of colors? And how about clouds? How many of us have stared up into a sky of clouds, and "see" rabbits, trees, cars, explosions, volcanoes, people, etc.? It's the mind's natural ability to want -- no, need -- to do these things.)
So to that school of thought that the open bridge is "superior" to the closed bridge because of that "clear unobstructed sightline picture," I will borrow a hacked/customized quote from a Monty Python movie: "I wave my privates in your general direction!"
The true virtues of the open bridge is that it is easy to form with the hand. (Heck, it's just about as simple as slapping your hand down on the table like a hamburger patty, and, of course, forming that "V" with your thumb and the first knuckle of your index finger). Yes, it is true that for some people (that are not forming their closed bridge correctly), the open bridge "seems" to be more accurate. But this is a fault in their closed bridge itself. Either there's too much slack in there and the shaft wobbles around, or else the internal "V" in that closed bridge is not straight up and down -- i.e.: it's laying on its side, like this: ">" or this "<" (depending on whether it's the left or right hand). In that latter instance, the taper of the shaft will cause the center-line of the cue to veer off course because it's following the direction of the open aperture of that lopsided "V" (snooker players call that property "rise").
It's not that one is superior over the other. It's just a bridge and how
accurately you form it.
-Sean
<-- who uses a mix of closed and open bridges, probably a ratio of 70/30 percent respectively.
Let's make it happen!
