question again

[Solartje]

hiya all,

after having had my new poolcues, first thing i noticed. The wrap was not in the right place for me. I always used to hold the but instead of the wrap... I thought maybe the cue was to small, but its the standard 59" cue. I am 6'3" (1.85m?).

Then i thought of my snooker cue ive been playing with for several years. As most know , snookercues get thinner on the buttend, and its there where every snookerplayer holds its cue.

now from my greath friend snapshot, he told me i had to stop playing like a snooker player and play pool.

I did some research about cue's, and here is what i came up:

distance between bridge-tip should be same as distance from balance point and grip. around 8". So i measured my usual bridge-tip (or cb) distance, and my hand should be right in the middle of the wrap. Then i asked someone to tell me at what angle my elbow was when playing like this, and she said it was 90°. So it seems i have been playing for years with my griphand not under my elbow when hitting the cb.

now the questions:
Do snookerplayers play different? (grip not right under the elbow?)
Are snookercue's differently balanced, so they its better to grip it further (there where it goes tinner?)
should i start using the new grip placement, instead of my snookerhabit? (I feel really uncomfortable playing with such a close grip... my potsucces goes down ALOT if i do so..)

so again: short time changment for longtime investment? or should i stay with my unusual but comfortable to me (non tekstbook grip)?

 

[Jal]

distance between bridge-tip should be same as distance from balance point and grip. around 8".

I think the "elbow at a right angle" has supplanted this guideline.

So i measured my usual bridge-tip (or cb) distance, and my hand should be right in the middle of the wrap. Then i asked someone to tell me at what angle my elbow was when playing like this, and she said it was 90°. So it seems i have been playing for years with my griphand not under my elbow when hitting the cb.

now the questions:
Do snookerplayers play different? (grip not right under the elbow?)
Are snookercue's differently balanced, so they its better to grip it further (there where it goes tinner?)
should i start using the new grip placement, instead of my snookerhabit? (I feel really uncomfortable playing with such a close grip... my potsucces goes down ALOT if i do so..)

so again: short time changment for longtime investment? or should i stay with my unusual but comfortable to me (non tekstbook grip)?

Let's assume that the point in the stroke where zero force is being applied happens when the elbow is at ninety degrees, or close to it. By having your grip farther back, you're now likely accelerating at impact. This tends to give you more cue speed at impact, or conversely, you don't have to apply as much peak force to get the same amount of cue speed. This is one of the advantages to having your grip hand back. There are others, such as reduced sensitivity to various errors that affect cue speed.

One error that is made worse is setting up at different distances to the cueball (different bridge lengths). But this is only true for small changes (around 10%) and the resulting error in cue speed is not very much (around 2%). With larger changes in bridge distance (20%-30%), the grip farther back situation regains the advantage and produces less speed deviations.

One definite disadvantage is that you're wasting some stroke energy this way.

I can't speak to the biomechanics, this is from a purely "force moving stick" point of view. But from this limited way of comparing them, my opinion is that if you're comfortable with it, stay with your original way of gripping.

Maybe someone will explain some problems that I'm not aware of.

Jim

 

[pooltchr]

If you are gripping behind the 90 degree point, you are limiting the distance you have for your back stroke. Consequently, you need to accelerate your forward stroke more quickly. By working with the 90 degree grip, you can get a much smoother stroke with less effort. Also, you are making contact with the cue ball when your arm is at 90 degrees. This is the point where the tip is traveling at it's most level path of your stroke. Makes it a bit easier to make sure you are contacting the cue ball without the tip traveling up or down at contact.
Steve

 

[Icon of Sin]

All good advice, one thing that got me out of that bad habit when I first started playing seriously is the pendulum reference, think of your arm as a pendulum just hanging straight down and waiting to be swung back and forth.

 

[Solartje]

hi all, first thx for reply's,

Now:
i know the advantages of a 90° angle. Maybe ill use it in my breakshot to gain a more powerfull brake, but on the regular strokes i was wondering if it was worth changing my habit, as the changes are very small. Im a bit afraid of changing habits im used to for several years. ill try to explain why:

about where i hit the cb i think it doesnt affect it. When im adressing my stroke, i can see where i will be hitting the cb. (even if a 90° will make me hit the cb a bit higher or lower) i can see that im hitting it lets say 2mm higher then if my arm was 90° while im adressing. But as i can see where im hitting im not hitting higher or lower then i think; i hit it where im adressing it, so where i want it. So the only disadvantage is the small loss of speed.

thats what my common sence tells me, but im hoping someone can explain me and convince me to change it.

is a small % loss of power really the only thing that will change?

just a small thought:
if my arm is lets say 40cm long, and my arm angle is 80°.
The difference in height compared to 90° = 0.6 mm, so AFTER a hit, my tip will move 0.6mm downwards till my arm is at 90°. But does this effect the stroke? I thought only the things Before and AT the moment of the hit has effect, not what happened afterwords.
The diffference in gripdistance compared to 90° = 69mm.

another thought: The balance. If i grip it further like im used to, more balance/weight will be in front. what effect will this have? (loss of weight that can be transfered into power? , more deflection? nothing exept how the cue feels in my hand?)...

just trying to find different reasons why i should change my habit.

 

[Snapshot9]

Rationalizing

Because it is the right thing to do. Think about that.
If I do something wrong that I know in my heart is wrong,
I can justify it all I want, but I still know different.

This is what you are doing. Millions of Poolplayers have
come before you. The experts over many decades have
said what the proper form is to attain excellence in the sport
is. Are you smarter than they are? When you are learning
something, you don't learn what the reasons totally are upfront.
Some of the knowledge why is learned when you are down the
road with it, so to speak. Comfort is a relative thing anyway.
I have taught people that, when the light bulb came one, were
amazed at how much better a good form and stroke felt after
they gave it time and practice for about 2 months.

Good form and a good stroke are an 'investment' in your game.
A wise investment ends up yielding a good return, an not so
wise investment doesn't yield good returns, but you only find
that out after losing a critical match and after missing that one
shot that would have won you the match, then it is too late.

 

[Solartje]

i know ud kick my butt if i didnt change scott , im very stuburn in changing habits. I know, i know, its a bad character, but its in my nature.


guess ill just look at some pool movies on the tv, while staying down and do 5000 adressing strokes with my hand on the wrap on my bed (dont got a pooltable at home ) hope it doesnt take 2 months to get used to.



another q: SO many posts about bhe, squirt en delflection countering, pivot point, etc Colling is a expert in that, is this also something i should learn? His posts are chinese for me....

 

[Tbeaux]

guess ill just look at some pool movies on the tv, while staying down and do 5000 adressing strokes with my hand on the wrap on my bed (dont got a pooltable at home ) hope it doesnt take 2 months to get used to.



another q: SO many posts about bhe, squirt en delflection countering, pivot point, etc Colling is a expert in that, is this also something i should learn? His posts are chinese for me....

Hey Solly,
Use a bed or a table....something the height of a pool table. Sarah Rousey recommended a drill something like that to me.
I'd stay away from trying BHE and all that other stuff right now. Concentrate on using and improving what you already know how to do.....Colins explainations are a little complicated, so worry about learning chinese later when you have everything else working right.

Terry

 

[Solartje]

ok

well ill make it as a goal. The day i win a B ranking event or i get in the A ranking, ill start trying to understand what collin means. Right now i got to work on my stroke. So weird. Ive been playing snooker for so long and other ball games,and potting is my strongest part and only now am i starting to adjust what i should have started with. sounds abit silly but hey its SOLLY ur talking about .

also i got a trickquestion for u guys:

IF ud put the exact same amount of force, and hit the cb at the exact same low% of center ball for a draw shot. Wich balls would draw the longest? snooker or poolballs? (dont be silly and ask what cloth it is etc, just imagine 100% same situation, execpt snooker vs poolball?

snooker lighter: less force needed for more draw
poolball heaver: OB will bounce the cb into draw with more force
snookerball smaller : needs more rotation to travel same distance
pooball bigger: needs less rotation
snooker lighter : less grip on the cloth, less draw
pool heavier: more grip, more draw.
snooker lighter: less resistence
pool heavier: more resistence, less draw..
...

dont know why but im breaking my head on it... (prolly cuz i cant seem to draw as much as i did in snooker, i could draw 1.5 - 2 full snookertable lenght back then, and in pool only 1 pool table... wonder if its my stroke or drawtechnique that has changed, if its the cue? or if its just the ball difference?

(YES this is the silly sally solly question of the week gn8 folks. im off to bed, 2am here)

 

[Jal]

...i know the advantages of a 90° angle. Maybe ill use it in my breakshot to gain a more powerfull brake,...

?????

...So the only disadvantage is the small loss of speed.

Which grip position are you refering to here Solartje? Moving your hand back should give you more speed, given the same bridge and backstroke distances. If you have an especially long cue so that you can position your grip hand way back, there is a point, as pooltchr pointed out, where your backstroke becomes restricted. But I don't think this is necessarily true for a moderate deviation from the 90 degree position.

...thats what my common sence tells me, but im hoping someone can explain me and convince me to change it.

Okay, how about the fact that you're wasting energy with the hand further back? This occurs even when you lower the peak force you apply so as to end up with the same cue speed as from the 90 degree position.

...just a small thought:
if my arm is lets say 40cm long, and my arm angle is 80°.
The difference in height compared to 90° = 0.6 mm, so AFTER a hit, my tip will move 0.6mm downwards till my arm is at 90°. But does this effect the stroke? I thought only the things Before and AT the moment of the hit has effect, not what happened afterwords.

I think you meant that your butt will move downward while your tip moves upward? As far as the tip moving upward at the moment of impact, I don't think this has much of an effect. It would increase 'vertical' squirt some, but hardly at all.

What happens afterwards has an indirect effect in that it is an indication of what happened before. That's why a greater follow through results in more cue speed. It indicates that the cue has gone somewhere along the scale from decelerating to accelerating at impact, and this gives you a different force vs time curve - one that is stretched out on the time scale. This yields more cue speed for the same amount of peak force applied.

...another thought: The balance. If i grip it further like im used to, more balance/weight will be in front. what effect will this have? (loss of weight that can be transfered into power? , more deflection? nothing exept how the cue feels in my hand?)...

The last one, nothing, as far as I can think of at the moment. The weight you lose ahead of your hand will still be there behind it. So the energy that you put into it will not be diminished. Nor will it change its deflection characteristics.

...just trying to find different reasons why i should change my habit.

Because you're feeling queasy about not making the change, and I think most instructors would recommend it.

Jim

 

[Jal]

...IF ud put the exact same amount of force, and hit the cb at the exact same low% of center ball for a draw shot. Wich balls would draw the longest? snooker or poolballs? (dont be silly and ask what cloth it is etc, just imagine 100% same situation, execpt snooker vs poolball?...

Same humidity, lighting, music playing? I think it's not you but the balls that are to blame.

Jim

 

[Solartje]

Same humidity, lighting, music playing? I think it's not you but the balls that are to blame.

Jim

ive tried that excuse myself different times. HUNNY!! it wasnt me!! it was my balls!!!

so just to be sure; its normal i cant draw a pool cb as much as a snooker cb?
a big tip someone gave me not so long ago is: Know your abilities and know your limitations. Just want to be sure that the draw im getting is what i can expect from a poolball, and isnt because of me changing my drawtechnique when i changed from snooker to pool.

There u go more stuff ive learned this week. Stay tuned for my new silly solly question next week. (mm make that 2, im leaving for a week to holland to try some local specialities with 10 friends for newyear)

 

[Jal]

....so just to be sure; its normal i cant draw a pool cb as much as a snooker cb?
a big tip someone gave me not so long ago is: Know your abilities and know your limitations. Just want to be sure that the draw im getting is what i can expect from a poolball, and isnt because of me changing my drawtechnique...

I gave a less than a forthright answer because I thought that maybe someone else would like to theorize. If you hit both types of balls at 2/5 of their radius below center, with an 18 oz cue (or thereabouts), the snooker ball should draw about 35% farther according to my calculations. That's really not enough of a difference to explain the 1.5 to 2 table length vs 1 table length change. Maybe either the snooker or pool cueballs were/are mismatched to the object balls in weight?

If by "changing my draw technique", you mean switching your grip to the 90 degree position, that might explain some of it too.

Jim

 

[Solartje]

i think the difference in cloth might be a answer, i used to play on good snooker tables and bad pool tables. (also snooker tables seem to have more fluffy things on it, wich might explain that the snookerballs get alot of more grip.
Also the cue might make a difference. my snookercue was better quality.
about technique, im not even sure myself what i ment maybe as snooker tips are smaller, i just dont hit it at exactly the same spot...

Overall, it seems i lose alot of spinpower with poolballs, before they actually start rolling backwords. As drawpower decreases (due to cloth resistence) in time after contact, if a poolball stays in the same place long before it starts roling (as its heavier) i lose the most important moment that has the most power (right after the ballcontact).

not sure if it makes any sence... best i could come up with after some drinks my sisters first baby got babtises today and i was in charge of the planning (including alcohol )


anyway, next year ill do some more powerdraws, i still think 1pooltable lenght is not enough to have acces to every positional shot u might need. 1,5 or even 2 lenghts should be possible. (i think)

 

[CaptainHook]

You should have a Custom Cue made for your balance point, and send all your other Cues to me.

 

[Solartje]

all?

u mean my 50$ snookercue thats 6 years old?
or my 40$ j&j playcue with a cracked ferrule after 1 day?
or my 4y old housecue i keep in mynew club?



if u want the j&j j/b, cant do that. im in LOVE with it. IVe asked her to mary me and she said yes, so cant help u there