Cue delivery push ! Swing ! Clarify ?

[denja]

Could TERRY or someone clarify the cue delivery is it a push or a swing or a combination of both how do you avoid the snatch feeling at the end of delivery, some suggestions of how to play very soft screw back shots would be most helpful

[shaun]

Hello Denja, i will try to clarify according to the coaching DVD/s and books i have studied.

The final delivery is neither a push nor a swing. Most people have a way of finding out how good you are as a player by asking you "what is your highest break?", or watching you knocking in some breaks during a match, but in both cases a player can knock in 40, 70 or even 100 if lucky with flaws in their basics. but again player of those kinds will knock in 70 in a frame and the next frame they might become single red potters.

i personally judge how knowledgeable/ decent a player is just by observing their back swing and final delivery.
Most amateurs will have a choppy back swing and a quick delivery.
Where ALL the pros will have a relatively slower back swing and a gradually accelerated delivery
So lets say you are having a stun shot with a bit power, then from your bridge to cue ball if you have 10 inches gap, and before final deliver you pulled the cue 8 inches back, if you want to deliver the cue like professionals you have to make sure that the first inch or two of you delivery is slow speed but as the tip gets closer and closer to the cue ball the speed builds up till it strikes the cue ball and yet try to build up some more speed as you follow THROUGH the cue ball, but you wont be able to do that as your grip will come to rest by your chest giving you a slight body movement i.e. snatchy feeling, but its ok an natural as it happens way AFTER, However if the snatchy feeling and body movements happens before or during the strike you should be worried and try your best to wipe it off your cue action.
I am not trying to sound like a snooker guru or coach here, i m new to the site but not to the game. i am merely trying to share my knowledge i gained from studying Coaching DVDs and books.

[shaun]

Hi Denja
Its Neither a Push nor a Swing.
A professional delivery (as seen on tely) is a gradual acceleration.

Lets say just before the final delivery you pulled the cue back 10 inches away from the cue ball,
now to deliver it professionally you have to make sure that the cue starts slowly in the first inch or two
but as it gets closer to the cue ball it starts building up speed till it strikes
and you should try to build up more speed through the delivery i.e. you should try to follow through or accelarate through the cue ball unless you are playing a drag shot,
and your cue should only come to rest as the grip finishes on your chest giving you a slight bodymovement which is natural but acceptable as it happens way after the strike, but if that happens before or during the strike you should be concerned about it and try to wipe it off your cue action.
So a professional delivery is not a push nor a swing
its a gradually accelerated through the ball strike where your grip finishes on chest.
hope it helps.

[Sam-Romford]

Decent reply Shaun,
i cant add anything into it now, waiting to see what Terry or nrage has to say about your reply.
in the mean time whatever i understood from your reply have put together in a graph

I am not trying to be a geek here, i just love mathsFinal Delivery.jpg.

[shaun]

I am not trying to be a geek here, i just love maths

humm i never saw u in my life but i imagine you are one of those blokes who wear glasses and just love to hide behind piles of books...LOL.. joking mate
yea , you got it spot on... good drawing skills on MS paint...lol.. i think you are kind of a player who like to take the time out to develop a mathematical model before playing each shot which will enable you to have the perfect position on the black...LOL.

[Sam-Romford]

i think you are kind of a player who like to take the time out to develop a mathematical model before playing each shot which will enable you to have the perfect position on the black...LOL.

I wish if i could do that mate, only problem is if i did that i would have lost all my practice partners and would solely have to rely on solo, even in solo i would have played 4 shots in the whole day (as it would be spending more time with pen paper and books and graphs rather than cue and table), so i say to my self what the hell, i will just play the game and let my subconscious do all the maths for potting angles and positional play, and he does a good job sometime you know, only he is in a good mood, lazy ****.

[nrage]

Excellent reply by Shaun, and I like the graph Sam

If you want a really good example with a high speed camera which you could use to take definite values for a graph you want to look at Nic Barrow (jump to about 7:40):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCRcNZWQ53s

Also, check out the next video in the series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOWO6D6JDAs

Nic uses Dartfish to do a super slow motion capture of his cue action, and draws lines every N frames to give you an idea of the distance traveled over equal slices of time for a complete delivery.

Co-incidently these videos feature Terry, albeit several years back when he first started going to Nic. The whole series of videos is worth the time to watch, you'll see the body motion that Terry has been battling and why he is so adamant about removing it. Nic has an amazingly still, controlled cue action, and one we should all emulate IMO.

I wish I had the ££ for Dartfish and a high speed camera, though I think I'd be a bit horrified by what I saw in my own action

Anyway.. once you have the concept of this acceleration in mind you need to get on the table and experiment a bit to try and discover how it "feels" because there is a definite and very "nice" "smooth" "controlled" feeling when you get this right, you just "know" it's working.

It's very hard to force this cue action artificially, and you should be conscious to avoid things like "front loading" it, which is something I tend to do sometimes, what I mean by that term is that I sometimes start the cue action with a squeeze, which originates in my shoulder and results in the butt of the cue lifting up and subsiding a bit like a pumping action.. it's a nasty habit I seem to have. Annoyingly when I do it, I also seem to get the acceleration right. I have yet to master the acceleration without this extra movement consistently.

[Terry Davidson]

denja:

What they ^^ all said. Think of the delivery as an airplane taking off and starting from stop (rear pause usually) and building up speed to take-off (strike of cueball) and continuing to accelerate to gain height (follow-through).

Slow screw is nothing more than hitting very low (no side) with a loose grip and not a lot of acceleration, which should avoid the mis-cue

Terry

[denja]

A lot of coaching information states that during the screw shot the bridge should be as low as possible and parallel to the table however in a Del Smith coaching video he advocates a slight downward slope of the cue into the cue ball, I have noticed that some of the pros have this slight downward slope into the cue ball the cue not being dead parallel to the table could you clarify the right way. THANKS.

[shaun]

in a Del Smith coaching video he advocates a slight downward slope of the cue into the cue ball, I have noticed that some of the pros have this slight downward slope into the cue ball the cue not being dead parallel to the table could you clarify the right way. THANKS.

I asked Del Smith exactly the same question about bridge on stun and screw shots and why he advocates this higher up bridge and downward slope cue position on cue ball as i read in the Steve Davis book that in screw shots the bridge needs to be flattened and cue should be parallel to the table?
To explain this he told me that like all other sports snooker is evolving as well, what used to be the norm in the days of Joe Davis was considered old school and new methods were introduced, for example in Joe Davis's coaching book he advocates the bridge arm needs to be ram rod straight but later Steve Davis introduced an angle in the elbow of the bridge arm and that was copied by a lot of followers due to comfort issues. Steve Davis himself in his book says that for screw back the bridge needs to be flattened and cue should be parallel, but however some coaches and pros have identified that, that parallel method is best for mid or long range screw back or stun, however when you have all the reds opened up and need to score heavily then you can enslave the cue ball with this downward slope style cue position.
To prove it to me he placed the black and the pink on the spot and a red in between and the exercise was to pot the red and then pot the black, and each time you pot the black the red will be re spotted,
He asked me to do this with my old school flat bridge + parallel cue method. after 2 or 3 blacks i was losing the white near the cushion, but to my surprise when he was showing me how to play exactly the same shots with this new downward slope method the cue ball was staying in the middle of the table and i had a much better control on screw and stuns, specially with this method a soft delivery with few inches follow through gives the cue ball like a deepscrew effect.
But i told him i will use this from now on short range screws and stuns for better control but will use the old school flat bridge method for mid and long range stuns, and i saw him using the old school method for long and midrange pots as well.

But how realistic it will be to apply it to long and midrange screws and stuns, thats something i will have to ask him he returns to Romford. Currently he is away for playing world cup qualifying rounds, wish him luck guys, he is a good chap and it will be nice to see him telly this year.

[Terry Davidson]

The cue can't be parallel to the bed of the table because of the height of the cushion. The bridge should be lowered and the butt should not be raised (although I've noticed Mark Selby uses a higher bridge for screw shots, but that is not considered correct technique)

Terry

[denja]

The cue can't be parallel to the bed of the table because of the height of the cushion. The bridge should be lowered and the butt should not be raised (although I've noticed Mark Selby uses a higher bridge for screw shots, but that is not considered correct technique)

Terry

Del Smith advocates shortening the the bridge hand distance from the cue ball slightly what would be your comment on this.

[Terry Davidson]

I don't know Del Smith or his coaching theory, but I do not agree with shortening the bridge distance except when the balls are close together.

Terry

[thelongbomber]

Decent reply Shaun,
i cant add anything into it now, waiting to see what Terry or nrage has to say about your reply.
in the mean time whatever i understood from your reply have put together in a graph

I am not trying to be a geek here, i just love maths[ATTACH=CONFIG]9807[/ATTACH].

What a nice graph!

[thelongbomber]

Excellent reply by Shaun, and I like the graph Sam

If you want a really good example with a high speed camera which you could use to take definite values for a graph you want to look at Nic Barrow (jump to about 7:40):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCRcNZWQ53s

Also, check out the next video in the series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOWO6D6JDAs

What an awesome set of videos! Thanks for sharing!

It's very hard to force this cue action artificially, and you should be conscious to avoid things like "front loading" it, which is something I tend to do sometimes, what I mean by that term is that I sometimes start the cue action with a squeeze, which originates in my shoulder and results in the butt of the cue lifting up and subsiding a bit like a pumping action.. it's a nasty habit I seem to have. Annoyingly when I do it, I also seem to get the acceleration right. I have yet to master the acceleration without this extra movement consistently.

Same as what nrage says. I recently started to conciously implement this cueing motion as I used to be a power stun player before (thus the nickname), but I'm much more refined now. What I did was to slow everything down from the feathering, to the backswing to the delivery and would do it in slow motion on the practice table watching it and seeing every part of it with simple pots. Once I started understanding it a little better, I was able to relax the grip hand right through the delivery until I could catch the cue at the end with a firmer grip. I also took a close look at a m8 (specifically the grip hand from behind) who has this cue action already and is very smooth.

When you are cueing properly, you should be to hit the black at medium pace and have the cue ball "bite" like the tires on a car or "float" into position off a stun shot. If it's done properly, you should be able to get to just about anywhere on the snooker table with a medium pace on a 1/2 ball pot.

Proper cueing in snooker isn't a jerking action, it's smooth as silk, effortless and the cue ball always has the soft or hard "bite" that makes it spin. In pool, you make the ball bite off cushions with english and side spin, whereas in snooker, primarily you make the cue ball bite with back/forward spin on the table cloth.