Snooker Cueing Tips For Straight Cueing

To pot this ball, the cue ball needs to travel straight along this line into exactly this position, and to make this happen, the cue needs to move on exactly the same path at exactly the same angle. When it's not at the right angle, this makes the pot a lot harder, but not impossible, because an exact amount of sidespin will cause a precise deflection and cancel out the misalignment. You can pot any ball without cueing perfectly straight, but the more sidespin you use, the harder it is to line up. And if you don't play these shots hard enough, or slightly overhit them, it can make you miss by a long way. So by using the right amount of sidespin and speed, you can compensate for cueing across the ball, but it's so much easier not to have to do this. So here's seven tips to help you get your cue in the right position and push it through a lot straighter. If you can't get your cue in the right position, you'll subconsciously add sidespin, so tip 1 helps you get your cue on line. Don't just approach the table from any angle. Instead, stand directly on the line of the shot, and hold your cue on this line. Then when you go to the table, keep your cue on this line until you get down on the shot properly, and that means you should at least start out with your cue in the perfect place to pop the ball. And don't worry, you don't need a physical line to see exactly where to aim. You can use your cue like this to imagine where the line is. If you hold it right up above the centre of the cue ball, going towards where you're aiming on the object ball, you then walk into the table keeping your cue in this position, and you should be on this perfect line to pop the ball. Remember, the more accurately you position your cue like this, the easier it's going to be to see where you're aiming and push it through straight. Tip 2. Once you're down on the shot, a great way to make sure you're in the right place is to look along your cue and see where you're aiming on the object ball. Once you can see where your tip's pointing, you can just forget the cue ball's there altogether and focus on pushing your cue through to where you're aiming. Then as long as you strike the cue ball in the middle, you should pop the ball. This means you can get on the shot with your cue at exactly the right angle, and then push through the cue ball in exactly the right direction. And tip 3 helps you get in the right place as well. Nextly, if you imagine continuing this line across the floor, it'll actually show you where to stand. And if you're too far to the left or too far to the right, then your cue won't be over the top of the line, you won't be able to play the shot as straight. So the only way to get this right is to get your feet exactly in the right place, that it brings your cue in over the line. And if you get that right, then that should mean the easiest thing to do is to pop the ball. And you can see where the line of the shot is by once again holding up your cue above the shot and working out which part of your foot you're positioning underneath it. And once there, it's just a case of a bit of trial and error to see if you're in the right place or not. If you are in the right place, the shot will just feel a lot easier to pop. And once you've found the right place, just remember exactly where you put your foot. So that way, every time you stand at the table, you should automatically be bringing your cue in on line, which, as I've already explained, makes the shot a lot easier. Tip 4. But we're not just trying to get the cue in the right position at the start of the shot, we're also trying to get it to go through straight. And something that makes a big difference to that is the angle of your wrist. You can rotate your wrist quite a long way out and back in, and having the right wrist angle will help you push your cue through on the right line. Now, helpfully, if you just pick the cue up off the table and hold it in a fairly relaxed way, then this is going to be close to being perfect. There just might have to be some minor adjustments to make. You'll know for sure if you play a simple shot like this one, and it doesn't quite go in the direction you want it to. So if you're playing a shot that goes very slightly to the left of where you're aiming, the best thing you can do is think of the outside of your cue as a clock face. Then you can consider where part of your hand, be it your little finger or your thumb, is actually touching your cue. If you want it to go further to the right, you then rotate your cue very, very slightly out to the right, and it should just make the smallest of differences. And because your wrist rotates like this, I mean from the bottom, so in this case, we just rotate the wrist very slightly this way. How this works, then, if my previous shot went very slightly to the right, is I just think about adjusting my little finger from a position that feels like five o'clock to a position that feels like six o'clock, and it should just slightly make the adjustment. Once you've got this in the right place, just try to keep it consistent, because there's no way you're going to pop anything consistently if you're moving around your wrist all the time. Something else that can affect you at the table and prevent you from pushing the cue through as straight as you'd like, that no-one really seems to ever notice, is you can actually lean over, sort of like this. Or you can do, because a standard snooker technique has very little to stop you rotating very slightly over your cue like this. And with this one, I'm not sure what you're meant to do with that information, but if you get it wrong, it can definitely make you miss. So with this one, I just try to find a consistent position that works for you, and just be aware of it so you don't rotate into the wrong position, especially when you're under pressure in a game. I've got some more straight-cueing tips right after we find Loreen, who's in Monteo, Portugal. She's right about there. Tip six. Nextly, once you've got everything lined up, don't move, even if it looks like you're in the wrong place, because things don't always look right when you're down on the shot. And it can well be that you pop the next ball because you move a little bit, but then when it comes to the next shot, you're not going to know what happened. Because if you're going to the table thinking about what your technique should be doing and wondering if you're in the right place on the shot, then there's just no way you can expect to pop the balls consistently. To improve, you have to go to the shot believing you're going to get everything right and you're going to line everything up perfectly. And then even if you miss the next shot, you still have to do the same thing on the next shot. It's difficult and it doesn't feel good, but it's the only way to improve. So the only thing you're really looking at is where you're striking the object ball, and you're just looking to push the tip of your cue through to this point. Finally, it's unusual to find anybody that'll cue completely straight without sidespin. No matter how good you are, you're probably not going to be able to cue perfectly along a straight line. Or you might find you're pushing your cue through at a slight angle and you're unable to avoid this. Don't worry about this because nobody cues perfectly straight and if you try to, it won't improve your game. Because if it's just a small amount of sidespin, your body will naturally allow for it, and all you've got to do is just get used to playing the shots, and that's the way you'll improve. But if you follow the seven steps I've explained in this video, you're going to be able to get your cue on line and push it through as straight as you possibly can, which is just going to make the game as easy as possible for you to play. And that's important to remember. You're never going to cue perfectly. You're just trying to give yourself as little as possible to allow for and minimise unwanted sidespin. But if you want to find out a bit more about sidespin, have a look at these two videos. And remember, don't just watch play, and make the commitment to becoming a better player by subscribing to the channel and visit the website. See you later.