Like always! Some try to figure out details, others are so cool, that it might appear they are blessed from poolgod.
For me personally it made a big differenz, to leave the eye on the OB, while getting down to my shot. Most of the aiming happens, when I´m upright standing in my shotline. And when all plans are finished, the eye stays on the CB while getting down. At first it´s not familiar- like always, when you change habbits. It also feels wrong for the same reason. But if you get used to it, so many things follow automaticly- it´s amazing...
BTW- not many players talk abot their "secrets". It might help opponents as well. But just because they don´t talk about, doesn´t mean, it doesn´t exist! Some guys have also the luck to be right by nature. Others have to work on- for those some things might help to improve.
As long as it's consistent and works then it works. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
To me, keeping your eye on the OB as you get down makes sense. It gives our body a reference point/anchor point to get into stance. If you keep the same visual picture centered in your sight, level and square to the world, you know you're not shifting off line when you come down into stance.
Look up "chicken steadicam" for something similar, they are interesting videos. You want the sight picture you take in to be level and square. The ball doesn't move, but it's a bit like watching a cat stalk prey. They do not take their eyes off their meal, and even shake their butt a bit to calibrate the pounce. Our getting down into stance is the equivalent of a cat shaking it's butt, we're getting into a calibrated stance where the cue and our body hinges are on the shot line.
Keeping your eye on the anchor/target/ball minimizes visual distortions/optical illusions. I used to keep the ball as an anchor from the time I looked at it's pocket line, walking over to the CB and getting down on the shot. I tried as well as I could to almost make it appear I was rotating the world around that ball without leaning, letting it go side to side in my vision etc. It works really good. I'm too lazy to do it on every shot, but I can guarantee you that if I have my head out of my ass that day I will always do this on difficult shots. It really ups the make percentage.
If you properly do this it really doesn't matter which ball you focus on last because your stance has set you up to where the cue wants to go straight on the shot line. It's almost like auto pilot once you get the fundamentals down and aren't steering your cue.
The way the old timers would have said it, if you could pry the secret from them, would probably be something like "see the shot, make the shot" or "make sure it looks right."
Something similar to sighting the OB as you get down vs the CB would be driving. When you first started driving I bet you weaved a lot because you were looking 10 feet in front of the car (CB). Then someone said no look out way ahead (OB). Less micro adjustments. Once I'm down I'll often focus on CB last and that lets you do the micro adjustments, but I'm already 99% where I need to be from looking at the OB. I kind of see the CB in my peripheral vision so it's lined up. If you want to get real crazy while looking at the OB you will see 2 CB, and it's the middle that you want lined up, like rifle sights. It's just the way our eyes focus. Focus tight on the CB and you will see 2 OB, 2 Pockets, etc.
Drunks joke about shooting the ball in the middle, but it's pretty true if you get right down to it. Hold a pencil up at arms length and focus on something across the room, say a picture on the wall. You will see two pencils. Now focus on the pencil, you will see two pictures. You can play with this a bit and your personal vision center and actually figure out where dead center is between the two. I inspect parts for a living and I can often get a 10' long part to within 1 or 2 mm of square to my cart with just this visual trick. That's about a tenth of a degree for 1 mm off. That's pretty mind blowing for just using visual tricks.
Sorry for the long post, the morning coffee is slowly creeping into my head.
