Why...

B

birdy

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I have two questions about the differences between fundamentals of pool and snooker:

1. Why in snooker 100% of players have their chin on the cue and in pool there are a lot of players that have a upper stance and they play very good?
I watched a lot of snooker in the past and I have more a snooker stance when I play pool. For a few weeks I changed my stance (the distance between chin and cue is now 1-2 inches) and I shoot better and I have a better view about the table and the positional play is better.

2. Why in snooker at every shot the players hold the cue from the end of the cue and in pool is the warp section to hold?
 
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In snooker from what I've seen, they don't use power strokes that often. In pool, sometimes you have to juice up the cueball or stun it hard to get around the table. With your chin on the cue, it kind of inhibits your stroke from having alot of power. With your chin a few inches above the cue, your arm can swing freely and deliver a more solid and powerful hit IMO.
 
Simple, snooker tables are much bigger with tighter pockets. You can't get away with having your head in the air like you can in pool as much more accuracy is required to make balls.

More power needed in pool, apart from the break its a myth!
 
In snooker players are taught to use a 12 inch bridge. In order to achieve this you often have to hold the cue at the butt. At least I think this is the reason. The One would probably be able to answer this better than I can.
 
I think its a vision thing , along with the huge tables myself. Try setting up a short shot, and you can stand upright and make it easily. Now, set up a table lenght shot off the rail, and putting your chin on the cue gives you a much better look at the shot.

Gerry
 
The square looking stance used by many snooker players keeps the body very still even if you try to move. It is hard to describe, but your hip gets kind of locked in place, and it is hard to stand up. I will often use a snooker stance for a very tough and important shot where I might be more likely to jump up during the shot, and would use it more if it were more comfortable. I can only play using that style of stance for an hour or two before the pain in my hip becomes to much to bear. The stance and the low head position you mentioned are both condusive to very accurate shooting, which is much more important playing snooker than other billiard games.
 
I think a big part of the answer is that when snooker is played well, there's very little cut angle to most of the shots. They play for very shallow cuts and not moving the cue ball very far. Pool players would do this too if the table were huge and the balls were all in the center of the table; they would never really need a lot of angle if they played their patterns well.

Anyway, the point of what I just said is that straight shots are far easier to sight with your chin on the cue for maximum aim precision, especially longer shots like you find on a snooker table, but with a shorter shot and a significant cut angle like you often find in pool, there is also benefit to being a few inches higher, to see the angle better. Some players are more comfortable with this higher viewpoint.

As far as gripping at the back of the cue, I believe this is due to a greater distance between the bridge hand and grip hand due to shoulder alignment. If you look at the bridge-arm shoulder of a classical snooker stance (like Hendry), it's pushed forward. It's difficult to describe in text, but the way they align their shoulders, it's like they're pushing their bridge arm way out in front of them, so even though the elbow has a slight bend, their bridge hand is way out in front. You can tell that this has an effect if you observe how much of the cue is in front of their chin at address. They've got quite a large distance of shaft to sight along when they address the ball; much more than the average pool stance.

I think this is also built for rifle-like aiming accuracy, and means that if their shooting arm is to be properly aligned, they have to grip all the way at the back of the cue. I think pool players don't like to have their chin so far back on the cue because it inhibits a very long follow-through, and many feel they can't get as much juice on the ball that way. Thus they turn their shoulders slightly more square to bring their bridge back in and move their face forward, making more room for their shooting arm to swing.

I'm not an instructor or a snooker player, but I focus a lot on body mechanics in my game, and I just watched some snooker videos for several minutes trying to analyze their stance. And I once thought about staying at a Holiday Inn Express :p

-Andrew
 
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