Aiming

[Snookclops]

I have heard of ghost ball and BOB.

Good players in advance of my paltry 28 best break:

How do you actually aim?

I tried gb for ages then got results from picking a spot. Sometimes my spot picking is well off.

Now, I look at the ball and walk around it. I find the spot and try to hit it. Problem is we have a spherical thing to hit it with - not a rifle. So now I have tried a hybrid of the 2 methods - visualising the contact points on BOTH balls and their position at impact.

Oddly, some pots, I walk right into them, see a perfect ghost ball and I just knock it in. Had this with a really tricky long blue but I saw the ghost ball so clearly I could even almost pick the part of the pocket I wanted it to hit. Other times, I am left with a fairly simple half ball pink and I miss the pot by 6 inches on the cushion. I don't think I have missed anything up to a half ball blue in years - I see the Bob on these, not ghost ball. Thin cuts my mind uses ghost ball and also it uses the overlap method - picking the spot between the overlap. Sometimes I see a 3:4 pot, just think in terms of 3:4 coverage and it goes in. I get this on long yellows and greens.

Some pots I just see and get down and hit them. Others I have to work out as above. Other pots I can't work out - balls close or angled reds.

I have no idea if this is what others do

[Catch 22]

Whenever I've asked a really good player how they do this they usually just say " I don't know , I just do it "

For the less naturally gifted player it's a struggle .

I was taught through coaching that 90% off potting the ball is done standing up . Stand behind the shot standing with your feet together . And position your body so that your belly button is on the line of the shot . You adjust your position until you feel that you are in a position that if a cue was protruding from your belly button you could pot the ball . Once you feel you are in that position , you step into the shot making sure your head does not move side to side off the line . Drop down slowly and you cue straight

I'm not a good player . I'm only relaying what I was taught . There will be a few folk on here will come along and advice you better than me though

[Catch 22]

I have heard of ghost ball and BOB.

Good players in advance of my paltry 28 best break:

How do you actually aim?

I tried gb for ages then got results from picking a spot. Sometimes my spot picking is well off.

Now, I look at the ball and walk around it. I find the spot and try to hit it. Problem is we have a spherical thing to hit it with - not a rifle. So now I have tried a hybrid of the 2 methods - visualising the contact points on BOTH balls and their position at impact.

Oddly, some pots, I walk right into them, see a perfect ghost ball and I just knock it in. Had this with a really tricky long blue but I saw the ghost ball so clearly I could even almost pick the part of the pocket I wanted it to hit. Other times, I am left with a fairly simple half ball pink and I miss the pot by 6 inches on the cushion. I don't think I have missed anything up to a half ball blue in years - I see the Bob on these, not ghost ball. Thin cuts my mind uses ghost ball and also it uses the overlap method - picking the spot between the overlap. Sometimes I see a 3:4 pot, just think in terms of 3:4 coverage and it goes in. I get this on long yellows and greens.

Some pots I just see and get down and hit them. Others I have to work out as above. Other pots I can't work out - balls close or angled reds.

I have no idea if this is what others do

I get this too . And it always appears on the same shots . Some shots your brain just likes and so recognises it easily . And that same angle will appear all over the table without you realising but when you line up the shot , your brain recognises the angle . And because your brain recognises it , you feel confident .

[alabadi]

here we go, here we go, here we go, here we goooooo!

[throtts]

here we go, here we go, here we go, here we goooooo!

Haha,, aiming is a important part of the pre shot routine. When done naturally and its drilled in to you its done pretty quickly. I know you do your aiming correctly.

[alabadi]

tell me about it, its the bane of my life.

i'm referring to the fact that this topic is the most talked about on the forum and has been done to death over the last few years, and in the end everyone has an opinion how to do it, and no one ends up the wiser . i'm sure that if the OP just did a search he would get enough material to sift through and work on rather than starting a new thread that will only get repeated responses.

[Snookclops]

Everything I read just talks about confirming to Bob on all occasions. It's very well saying just shoot the angle you see.

I think there is a snooker fallacy that it's 99% cueing 1% aiming. I can cue up and down spots but miss simple pots.

Maybe it's more the act of getting on the line properly that delivers l.

Sorry if this has been done to death but I was curious if using many detective methods to get the potting angle is wrong but it appears others get their brains visualising differently. I get better the more I play so I guess that's the answer

[alabadi]

Everything I read just talks about confirming to Bob on all occasions. It's very well saying just shoot the angle you see.

I think there is a snooker fallacy that it's 99% cueing 1% aiming. I can cue up and down spots but miss simple pots.

Maybe it's more the act of getting on the line properly that delivers l.

Sorry if this has been done to death but I was curious if using many detective methods to get the potting angle is wrong but it appears others get their brains visualising differently. I get better the more I play so I guess that's the answer

it is,

I have struggled with this myself for years. i have tried every method there is . BOB, Ghost ball, arc Coverage, you name it non made me much better, i had success with some on certain shots then others on other shots. i probably use a combination of bob and arc coverage now. but i always felt that if i knew where to point my cue i potted better, hence half ball and dead straight pots are my best pots. so for me i spent most of my time trying to find a way to line the shot up and trying to get down on that line. my latest coaching session with Chris Small has given me some tips how to achieve this and i am still working on them.

i can say the more you play the better you will get, solo practice is very important. i try and spend most of my time in solo practice, because playing doubles and players who are just occasional players does nothing to improve your game.

playing better players does, however i haven't had many opportunities to play the better players regularly, so i would advise you if you have a friend or have better players where you practice try and play them as much as you can, you will learn much quicker.

[sealer]

Try to see the shot as a whole while standing up. Pocket - object - cueball - the whole setup. Trying to visualise a line between pocket and object(which does give you BOB btw) Then you see the line between the white and object. I find that this gives me high accuracy on most shots. When I dont see the lines I go to see the BOB lining against pocket and focus on bob exclusively. So for instance when I am in the zone I would stand behind a half ball pink to the middle and will just instantly see the line between the pocket and the pink. I would not go to line it up behind the pink. It is similar to where the balls are very close to each other and you want to send object to a pocket far away. You would just stand behing the shot and try to feel your line rather then go see the BOB and then try to shoot it. Hope it makes sense.


BTW: I have astigmatisim so what I see may not be what there is on the table:-) that is why I get down on a fill for the shot rather than forget everyting and look at BOB. Very often use both. Line from pocket which gives you BOB but at the same time while getting down trying to not loose the path of the object to the pocket :-)

[ste bed]

Whenever I've asked a really good player how they do this they usually just say " I don't know , I just do it "

For the less naturally gifted player it's a struggle .

I was taught through coaching that 90% off potting the ball is done standing up . Stand behind the shot standing with your feet together . And position your body so that your belly button is on the line of the shot . You adjust your position until you feel that you are in a position that if a cue was protruding from your belly button you could pot the ball . Once you feel you are in that position , you step into the shot making sure your head does not move side to side off the line . Drop down slowly and you cue straight

I'm not a good player . I'm only relaying what I was taught . There will be a few folk on here will come along and advice you better than me though

I would not class myself as a very good player but better than average ( good player ) and this is what i would honestly say I just see the point of contact straight away as i stand behind the shot.

[vmax4steve]

It's about contact point for me, focus on the contact point of the object ball before you get down into your stance and 99% of the time you will be on the line of aim; get down without really looking and you'll be struggling.

This works for me on all balls except the brown, can't see it clearly for some reason, I really struggle on the most simple of browns to actually focus on the contact point, even when a couple of feet away and dead straight, so eyesight and reflection of light from certain colours will effect your ability to focus clearly. I love the pink BTW, hardly ever miss it, see the contact point on it clearly from all angles.

But you do hit what you're looking at IMO, it's basic to effect a straight cue action of six to eight inches in length, as the op says he can shoot straight up and down the spots, but if your eyes wander off target when getting down into your stance then you will not be on the line of aim, and if your eyes wander off target on the strike your hand will follow to whatever you're looking at for that split second.

So stay stood up behind the cue ball until you actually see that object ball contact point, don't look for it on the way down, find it and move you feet into position while looking at it, half way down flick focus to the cue ball and address the centre of it and then find object ball contact point again and keep it there on the strike.

This is what all the best players do subconsciously; some will tell you that they don't (they're wrong) or not to think about it, but if this isn't a natural subconscious thing for you then think about it you must.

I managed it in yesterdays practise for about ten minutes out of two hours, cleared the line up once, and again with only one miss the next time (yes it was a 1/2 ball brown), could hardly string five balls together the rest of the session. When that starts happening I think I'm still doing it, but I'm not, start missing, get anxious and move on the shot and it all gets worse.

I really can't emphasise enough that a coach cannot help you with this, he can point it out but he can't make you do it, it's all about you in the end.

[alabadi]

I really can't emphasise enough that a coach cannot help you with this, he can point it out but he can't make you do it, it's all about you in the end.

that statement is very true, we are all hoping that someone will actually show us a way to do it, in the end you can watch others do it, but its up to you to then do it yourself

[tetricky]

that statement is very true, we are all hoping that someone will actually show us a way to do it, in the end you can watch others do it, but its up to you to then do it yourself

This is my problem. If I could aim consistently, I could pot consistently. My cue action is good enough, and my sighting is okay, but nothing replaces the repetition of aim by trial and error until it's a grooved mental process.

....and then slow shots against the nap, on slow tables, can still make you (me!) look a fool.

[alabadi]

i posed a similar question to a coach once during a coaching session. i said if i can pot most balls i go for i would be happy , once i am confident that i can pot i can then work on positional play.

he then said next time you come to a shot just focus on the pot don't think where you want the white don't think of the next ball just pot the OB. i then started potting most of the shots i went for.

he explained most times when i miss is because i am trying to do something with the white, and sometimes im trying to create angles that are just too difficult which is making the pot more difficult.

this is why now i try and make all the decisions standing and try not to think about anything than the pot when i am down in the address position.

don't get me wrong i still miss, from either miss judging the angle, or cueing errors, however i am much more consistent. and as VMax said it takes a lot of energy and focus to do this , and you can get tired very quickly and your mind starts to wander without you realising it.

[tofushop193]

Whenever I've asked a really good player how they do this they usually just say " I don't know , I just do it "

For the less naturally gifted player it's a struggle .

I was taught through coaching that 90% off potting the ball is done standing up . Stand behind the shot standing with your feet together . And position your body so that your belly button is on the line of the shot . You adjust your position until you feel that you are in a position that if a cue was protruding from your belly button you could pot the ball . Once you feel you are in that position , you step into the shot making sure your head does not move side to side off the line . Drop down slowly and you cue straight

I'm not a good player . I'm only relaying what I was taught . There will be a few folk on here will come along and advice you better than me though

Tried the belly button trick just now with the tuca. Tot it was weird at first as the usual way was to step on the line of aim.

But somehow it works quite well. I can cue through the tuca like 9 out of 10 times. Wonder will it work on the table. Will try it this sat.