Either they don't look right or worse case scenario they do look right... But we still miss. Pool is a ***** at times.
I have some words and thoughts to share with you on why I think this happens. I want to state now that some times we will miss... OK, OK... A lot of times we will miss because we simply hit it bad. It happens. Brain tells hand to move in this direction, but hand thinks nahhh, and moves in the opposite direction and we screw the pot up. This isn't for those situations. I've got plenty of posts on how to make your hand and brain see eye to eye.
This thread is purely for approaching the shot. Getting your personal vision centre (of which me and many others have threads on btw) approaching the shot correctly and consistently.
When ever I approach a shot and get down and it doesn't look right it is because of two reasons. Either I selected a line of aim with my vision centre way off this line of aim, or most commonly I selected the correct line of aim but in the process of getting down my vision centre left this line of aim.
So for the first scenario of the above paragraph...
Once you know your vision centre you can manipulate this to your advantage for not just hitting the cue ball accurately, but for aiming very precisely also. If your vision centre is under your right eye, then when you are stood up aiming the shot you should be selecting a line of aim with the right eye directly behind the centre of the cue ball. Regardless of where your vision centre is to your eyes, you should have this behind the centre of the cue ball when you plan on hitting without side spin. This takes practise to get used to, especially when you've been doing it different for a long time. Lots of people learn to aim 'wrong' but as they get down they re-laid without knowing it.... Ronnie O'Sullivan is a prime example. He aims with the right eye, cuts across the line of aim when getting down and places the cue under the left eye. Very rarely will you see someone get anywhere near his level doing this.
The second scenario... You don't keep the vision centre on the line of aim when getting down...
This is what sets the professionals from the amateurs apart. Pros do it so well. American pool players actually do it better than snooker players. The side on stance makes this easier to achieve... Especially for cross dominant players. With a square stance and a cross dominant player as you place the front leg your vision automatically moves over to the side of the bent leg... Bad, very bad!
A little practise technique is to get a tall mirror and place it behind the table and stick some electrical tape vertically up the mirror. Then place an object ball on the table so the tape in the mirror directs it into 2 equal parts. Do the same with a cue ball. Then stand behind the shot aiming them straight (centre cue ball to centre object ball) then as you get down notice how your vision centre deviates either side of the tape In the mirror. The trick is to always have your vision centre covered by the tape from standing to getting down. Practise this and make adjustments to your stance as necessary to allow this to happen and I promise you will be seeing and hitting the balls a lot cleaner and consistently with a little practise.
Then take it to the table and set up angled shots whilst approaching and getting down in your new method. You should be hitting the pockets centrally (or which ever part of the pocket you intend) a lot more often. Minor stroke flaws and unintentional side will stand out more for you. You will know why you miss. No more did I aim wrong? The shot looked right but I still missed! Your misses will mostly come from bad contact with the white. Because you will be viewing the shot a lot more accurately you can narrow down why you missed and work on a fix.
Hopefully this makes sense to everyone. Sometimes I struggle with getting words from my head into text!
