why do pros aim so low on the cue ball at cue ball address???

Jimmorrison said:
I was waiting for someone to mention this, I think Efren does it almost every time.
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ALL these players have a somewhat 'Pump handle/Pendulum' stroke. The cue goes up & down.

A player with a 'Piston' stroke (most 3C players) start and finish the stroke on the same, 'Horizontal & Vertical' plane.
 
Jimmorrison said:
I was waiting for someone to mention this, I think Efren does it almost every time.
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I’m not seeing Efren doing it. I always notice he’s like 2-3 practice stroke, mini pause, one more practice stroke, then deliver. When he’s hitting center, he appears dressed up center. That said he can dress up low pretty often for drag shots but he also strikes low in those scenarios.
 
DynoDan said:
Can’t explain it, but copying that technique has seemed beneficial for me. Not so much a lowered contact point on the CB, as much as a slight ‘dipping‘ motion of the cue. Might have something to do with initially ‘sliding’, as opposed to ‘rolling’ the CB, thus making the exact contact point less critical (?).
(started after watching Ruslan win the 14.1 finals. Maybe, because being so tall, he has trouble keeping his cue level when following thru?)
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Buste is not even close to tall and does it every shot.
 
Pure speculation, but could it be to register or get a feel for the angle they want their wrist at upon contact, i.e., cocked down very slightly to help the cue stay on its slightly downward trajectory?
 
Efren or Buste said they did it overseas when they started so competitors could not see how they were hitting the cue (what type of english).
 
I knew a semi-pro player that told me he did it on purpose to help hide his speed and make it look less like he knew what he was doing. He traveled a lot and liked to take money off of people.
 
TheBasics said:
Unnecessary comment there. So, you take advantage of'em or helpin' them?
Being a Vet that enjoys a good game.

hank
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They aren't necessarily military vets. Just eternal beginners. I help if they ask but all they really want is to shoot at stuff so I lay down - until it's time for me to hold on for the next game.
 
It's an old school stroke, and it's very good to eliminate skid with the object ball. I do it. When you hit extreme low on the cue ball, it's very stable, imparts forward spin on the object ball, and it doesn't skid. The best modern example of this is probably Efren, who always hits low on the cue ball, even if he's not drawing the cue ball.

For the bit more advanced, it's also good for a drag, follow shot, even hitting low on the cue ball. For the really advanced, find videos of Babe Cranfield, who cued extremely low on all but rail shots. He knew what he was doing.

All the best,
WW
 
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straightline said:
They aren't necessarily military vets. Just eternal beginners. I help if they ask but all they really want is to shoot at stuff so I lay down - until it's time for me to hold on for the next game.
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straightline, Howdy;

It came across poorly, I know too many that when they got out thought they could make it
as a pool/darts hustler. Especially from the Nam era. Way to many where taken advantage of.
Fortunately, I had a job that kept me from being one myself. I still see some that haunt the
VFW/AL/DAVs to rake the small tourneys that they have.

Have a nice day.

hank
 
TheBasics said:
straightline, Howdy;

It came across poorly, I know too many that when they got out thought they could make it
as a pool/darts hustler. Especially from the Nam era. Way to many where taken advantage of.
Fortunately, I had a job that kept me from being one myself. I still see some that haunt the
VFW/AL/DAVs to rake the small tourneys that they have.

Have a nice day.

hank
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Understood.
 
There was a time when information was very hard to come by. You didn't lightly give away what you knew. I hit the cue ball with a lot of low and a little left breaking on a bar table. However, I lined up dead center and only my first address and the hit were at the point I hit the cue ball.

Like others, I sometimes went as far as seeming to aim at one place on the cue ball then hit somewhere else on the final stroke. Secrecy and confusing watchers. I decided I was complicating life too much when most watchers were clueless anyway.

I think the pro's are establishing a baseline aiming at the bottom of the cue ball. When you add spin then you have to consider the true path of the cue ball. The true path has to intersect the path of a cue ball hit with no spin at the point it hits the object ball. Not quite true but true enough for the vast majority of shots. A very tiny additional adjustment might still be needed.

Few secrets now and best to keep things simple. Establishing a baseline is still a good idea, moving a tip around to try to hide what you are doing is probably a waste of time. If it isn't, time for you to get out of the kiddie pool anyway.

Hu
 
snookered_again said:
maybe if you let the tip touch the cloth then raise it you are sort of indexing the movement upwards by some calibrated amount before the shot, the cloth being a starting point.
Personally i aim as if Im going to shoot the ball not change it up half way through. some players will let their tip touch the cloth, even to point at things or retrieve balls. I personally consider that to be in bad form to ever touch your tip to the cloth, It will no doubt bother the owner of the table. For pros, the cloth is changed a lot more often than at our local hangout.
a local racetracktrack owner wouldnt let me do circular burnouts in the
middle of the track but if I won a big race, it's on a different level..
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I guess I wont be playing on your table then, my tip touches the cloth a lot on the break and on draw shots. My cloth shows no ill effects from such behavior.
 
Earl does it on almost every shot. Looks weird to me. There must be some benefit to it but I've never understood it.
 
a reply said its to stabilize the cue ball. I'm feeling like that's it for me. on my stop shots now, I'm using a very low tip position on the cue ball, very very low, and it Does seem to settle the cue ball down. getting a great stop shot now. working well for me
 
judochoke said:
a reply said its to stabilize the cue ball. I'm feeling like that's it for me. on my stop shots now, I'm using a very low tip position on the cue ball, very very low, and it Does seem to settle the cue ball down. getting a great stop shot now. working well for me
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Lightly pressing the tip into the cloth in shooting stance can be a quick confidence building warm up, especially for draw shots.
 
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