Straight Cuing Overrated?

W

WobblyStroke

Well-known member
I've known for a long time that Bustamante and to a lesser extent, Earl cue on an arc. If you listen to Earl's commentary, it seems as though he believes all rightees have the tendency to make the tip go slightly right and lefties are the opposite. I believed this to be his personal misconception based assuming more ppl are like him than there really are, but after this talk between Judd Trump and Hendry, I'm starting to think that Earl wasn't as way off as I originally thought.

In the interview which touches on many topics, around the 7min mark Trump says, "I'm not someone who ever thought about cue action or anything like that--I honestly don't care" before talking about not even knowing he doesn't cue str8 till Mark Selby told him at age 15/16. He went on to mention that many top players don't cue str8 and Mark Williams aims up 'miles off'. To add to my surprise, Hendry chimed in that he too used to get the cue on line late and that having coaches through his career try to change that def was to the detriment of his game. Judd himself, tried to cue str8 for about a week before quitting and just going back to natural play how he sees it.

Are these guys the ultimate examples of focusing on WHAT instead of on HOW when it comes to cue sport performance? How many players would benefit from forgetting all about making sure every little thing on their checklist is ticked off before they shoot and instead just focused on the shot they need to make and let their subconscious take care of the rest. That said, these world class players have very repeatable strokes. As I've said before when discussing Busty, if a stroke can repeat perfectly, u don't need to be a genius to make it work, even if it moves on an arc.

Lotsa other interesting tidbits in this interview. Worth checking out.
 
Their are deficiencies in the way that all people cue. Their are a lot of moving parts in the swing. I believe that you should work on your cueing that with the deficiency you should be hitting the correct point of contact on the CB.
 
The stroke can be ironed out with a universal machine for pool strokes. However you set it up, it's hard grooved and you simply work it till your arm gets it. The pool on the other hand won't benefit if the player's technique isn't centric to a linear stroke based on center ball and ball control that radiates <from> center ball. So yeah, in that regard, straight stroke and center ball can amount to overrated.
 
As a young man I had numerous shoulder and arm injuries from racing motorcycles. Now in my twilight years I am paying for my sins. My stroke was never a classic straight stroke. I had to adjust over the years. Also, everybody's physical anatomy is different in one way or another and for some, the classic stroke is impossible. Despite this, it's amazing how many "defects" have Fargo ratings over 700.
 
WobblyStroke said:
I've known for a long time that Bustamante and to a lesser extent, Earl cue on an arc. If you listen to Earl's commentary, it seems as though he believes all rightees have the tendency to make the tip go slightly right and lefties are the opposite. I believed this to be his personal misconception based assuming more ppl are like him than there really are, but after this talk between Judd Trump and Hendry, I'm starting to think that Earl wasn't as way off as I originally thought.

In the interview which touches on many topics, around the 7min mark Trump says, "I'm not someone who ever thought about cue action or anything like that--I honestly don't care" before talking about not even knowing he doesn't cue str8 till Mark Selby told him at age 15/16. He went on to mention that many top players don't cue str8 and Mark Williams aims up 'miles off'. To add to my surprise, Hendry chimed in that he too used to get the cue on line late and that having coaches through his career try to change that def was to the detriment of his game. Judd himself, tried to cue str8 for about a week before quitting and just going back to natural play how he sees it.

Are these guys the ultimate examples of focusing on WHAT instead of on HOW when it comes to cue sport performance? How many players would benefit from forgetting all about making sure every little thing on their checklist is ticked off before they shoot and instead just focused on the shot they need to make and let their subconscious take care of the rest. That said, these world class players have very repeatable strokes. As I've said before when discussing Busty, if a stroke can repeat perfectly, u don't need to be a genius to make it work, even if it moves on an arc.

Lotsa other interesting tidbits in this interview. Worth checking out.
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If its straight thru the all-important 'impact zone' who cares what comes before or after? I've known a lot of REALLY good players over the years with somewhat funky actions.
 
WobblyStroke said:
Are these guys the ultimate examples of focusing on WHAT instead of on HOW when it comes to cue sport performance?
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I doubt it. Hendry is part of the team hawking SightRight.

If you listen to Earl's commentary, it seems as though he believes all rightees have the tendency to make the tip go slightly right and lefties are the opposite
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Another righty data point: I always hit to the right of centerball when trying to hit centerball.
 
Speaking as someone that touts he own mechanics and "straight stroking". It really doesn't matter IF you hammer in you're own method. In the end it just needs to be repeatable for you.

That said... all the non-pros I've seen play with 'wobblystrokes' (see what I did there ;)), have horrific swings in proficiency. If their timing is off, it's a comedic thing to watch. I'd imagine if you were playing constantly, like pros do, then the dips in timing are all but a non-issue
 
The_JV said:
Speaking as someone that touts he own mechanics and "straight stroking". It really doesn't matter IF you hammer in you're own method. In the end it just needs to be repeatable for you.
That said... all the non-pros I've seen play with 'wobblystrokes' (see what I did there ;)), have horrific swings in proficiency. If their timing is off, it's a comedic thing to watch. I'd imagine if you were playing constantly, like pros do, then the dips in timing are all but a non-issue
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lol. My swing is pure, and I've got my understanding of it down 100% so it is easy enough to troubleshoot if something goes off. But you are absolutely right about ironing out the precise timing required on the table... Back in my playing days, I'd compete for about 15hrs a week and practice alone (hard practice, half of which happened on a snooker table using 2.25" balls) for at least another 15hrs. I was a potting machine with tons of cue power and assumed i had a laser str8 stroke. Then I blew my back out and couldn't play for nearly 6months. When I finally got back on the table, I couldn't play. And I'm not talking "I played horrible" like Judd says it about himself as he's making finals with his B game, either. I mean the type of horrible where I came back and tried to play a guy I was giving the 8 to and would not be able to beat him getting the 7. He was a friend and halfway through our 2nd set he just shook his head and said, "it's like you're a completely different player. Let's just go get drunk instead cuz this is sad". So we did, and that's how a 12year absence from the game began. I had no idea how flaky and timing-dependent my stroke at the time was. But I just played so much that I was able to time it out perfectly and trust it completely under pressure. Nowadays I cue the ball as well as I ever have, but at 5-10hrs a week at the table, half of it a lil too far from sober, and no hard practice, I'm nowhere near the player I was. But I'm pretty sure if i tried to play my swing from back then, I'd be even worse.
 
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It’s crucial that you (1) select the right point on the cueball to contact and (2) actually contact that point. I agree that if you’re already doing #2 consistently then what’s the point of tinkering with it? But if you’re not doing #2 consistently then there’s a wealth of guidance that can help get you on track, e.g. stroke drills, staying down, following through, decisions on elbow action, etc. While there’s no one way everyone should do it, there’s a million ways they shouldn’t do it. Might as well let the results speak for themselves.
 
There is a bit of a misconception that there is only one way to get to a goal. That is often not the case, but there is usually one BEST way to get to a goal, or EASIEST way or FASTEST way. Sure, you can get good with random playing in your basement, or with a stroke flaw, or playing with bad equipment, but it will take 99.99% of us much longer to reach a certain skill level than by following established good practices and in some cases it will be impossible to reach the goal because of the randomness introduces by a wandering cue and tip.

My pretty much # 1 saying to people who need to adjust how they play is that you want to play good because of your mechanics and habits not in spite of them. Yes, someone can run a rack waving the cue in random directions, the tip not going where you are aiming and never standing the same way twice on a shot, by accident every so often, but they tend to let that one success fool them into thinking that is how it will be for you from now on, because the results won't be there.

I had some woman in a league I played with a few times try to explain to me that to make a cut shot to the left, she hits the cueball to the left, and opposite for the right cut shots. Not that she really aims it to the left, she just kinda shoots it with spin to make the shot. I tried to explain what spin does and how aiming works, so she got mad at me, shot it for me 5 times her way, made it once, and said "see I told you that was the right way to shoot it" LOL Needless to say after several years of playing pool in league, she is still a 2 or a 3.
 
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Worth noting that it is also said when Judds swing goes wrong it really goes wrong, although winning a bucket load of tournaments last year and the year before it's hard to see the inconsistency.
 
Kids and adults learn differently. Kids can much more easily work around these kinds of defects because they develop their skills much more quickly and easily than we do.

At the end of the day the objective is to hit the cue ball where we want to. There is no way around that. and the most efficient way to do that is cueing in a straight line. For an adult to try to learn to cue the ball like Judd, they are in for several more years of practice, if they ever manage to compensate for the flaw at all.

The real message here is when you are working on your technique, try to understand what is actually causing problems and don’t make changes just because what you are doing isn’t orthodox.
 
7stud said:
Another righty data point: I always hit to the right of centerball when trying to hit centerball.
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Me too (right handed). Go figure. I have to aim just slightly to the left of center to make a straight-in shot, and I have a straight pendulum stroke.
 
Few of us hit the cue ball where we intend to. I assumed it was just inaccuracy and that my failure to hit the ball where I wanted to would show in hits all the way around that spot, like a rifle's group. I found that wasn't true. Out of stroke I consistently hit a hair left and a bit over a sixteenth high. I hit that spot like a machine but it is the wrong spot! That inaccuracy is very consistent so I could tune my game to it. I won't, too complicated.

However, I did collar a double handful of people at the pool hall for testing one day. I found one player that hit the cue ball very consistently where intended, he looked at the cue ball last. Testing an absolute banger at my shop, he hit exactly on target. Another player that looked at the cue ball last! Strong indication that focusing on the cue ball last will help where you hit it but will that lead to a larger error in where you hit the object ball?

We need to stroke consistently for an inch or two after contact with the cue ball. It is easiest to build your game around a stroke that is straight for this short distance. However, most strokes can have a very solid game built around them. I'm still trying to remember that I have to aim a touch lower for maximum draw until I start miscuing then my stroke has probably straightened out and I can start assuming I hit where intended.

Playing several times a week my stroke can be trusted. Playing once a month it can't be trusted. Better fundamentals and a straight stroke for a few inches would make life simpler.

Hu
 
Few of us hit the cue ball where we intend to. I assumed it was just inaccuracy and that my failure to hit the ball where I wanted to would show in hits all the way around that spot, like a rifle's group. I found that wasn't true. Out of stroke I consistently hit a hair left and a bit over a sixteenth high. I hit that spot like a machine but it is the wrong spot!
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When I started using one of the red dots on a measles ball as my target, I also thought I would have a random spread of chalk marks around the red dot, and I was interested in seeing how big that spread would be. However, I found that I missed the middle of the red dot to the right and slightly high very consistently. No matter what I try, I cannot hit the middle of the red dot--okay maybe 1/200 shots. I can go on streaks where every chalk mark for 20 shots is inside the red dot, but it's always to the right of the middle. I find it pretty frustrating. I've tried taking my cue back more to the outside, so that I swing outside to inside across the shot line--but that doesn't work either. I thought SightRight might be the answer, but I still miss the middle of the red dot the same way while employing the SighRight pre shot positioning and the SightRight stride into the shot.

I look at the object ball last.
 
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7stud said:
When I started using one of the red dots on a measles ball as my target, I also thought I would have a random spread of chalk marks around the red dot, and I was interested in seeing how big that spread would be. However, I found that I missed the middle of the red dot to the right and slightly high very consistently. No matter what I try, I cannot hit the middle of the red dot--okay maybe 1/200 shots. I can go on streaks where every chalk mark for 20 shots is inside the red dot, but it's always to the right of the middle. I find it pretty frustrating. I've tried taking my cue back more to the outside, so that I swing outside to inside across the shot line--but that doesn't work either. I thought SightRight might be the answer, but I still miss the middle of the red dot the same way while employing the SighRight pre shot positioning and the SightRight stride into the shot.

I look at the object ball last.
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To you and the others going through this...you have 2 choices and 1 is way easier than the other.
1. Alter your swing so it hits where you aim up.
2. Alter where you aim up so your consistently repeating swing hits the spot you want.

Busty and Earl went with choice 2, as did every guy on TV that sights it way low and hits higher. Wonder if they onto something.

A big unrelated question:
Busty 100% shoots on an arc as the arc is visible. BUT Judd looks like he delivers it str8. Could it be that he is aiming up 'wrong' and then delivers the cue from his all the way back position in a str8 line, just on a different line than the backswing took due to some minor pivot in the pulled back position? Both are possible. I guess I'm just wondering bc he looks soooooo str8 coming through to me. But so does Earl for that matter when not using BHE.
 
The question about being overrated is all relative.

If your stroke is the weak link in your game then improving it will be a good return on your efforts.

If your stroke is imperfect but satisfactory and there are bigger issues with your cue ball control, patterns, mental game, and in other areas, then trying to improve your stroke is not the best use of your time.

I personally believe there are many people in this latter category that are beating their heads against the wall in a purist pursuit that leads to frustration and stagnation. But there are also people that really need to work on their stroke. You have to be your own coach in this game. And if other people are stubborn and ineffective, be grateful they are your competition.
 
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