Still fiddling with cue action after 50 years

[misspentoldage]

It struck me recently that I've been playing this wonderful poxy (Mark King description) game for 50 years or more, and I still can't get it right. every week or so I get a revelation. Today my revelation is my cue action is all wrong. I'm a short arse and I reckon I've been playing with my grip too far back on the cue. Today I started gripping just behind the joint of the 3/4 cue and I did seem to be cueing straighter and with more control. But is this another 24 hour phenomenon that will disappear tomorrow. Or is It right that short guys like me should grip further up the cue? I did notice tonight that fellow short arse John Higgins seems to grip well up the cue, though that varied depending on where he was at the table. Thoughts? Advice?

[JohnF14722]

You should aim to have your arm roughly vertical when your tip is addressing the cue ball, might mean you have to move your hand up and down the cue depending what shot you're playing.

[jonny66]

Short arses do generally grip a bit further up the cue, but it's not that simple. It's all about keeping your grip forearm about 90 degrees from the floor and your bridge the same distance from the ball about 9-12 inches apparently. You can put a little tape on the butt of your cue so you know where you like to grip it. Some friends of mine told me I bridge a mile away from the cue ball recently, I videod myself and they were right. So I'm trying to change it and it seems to be working. But there's no right or wrong way, I think the only wrong way is to change things all the time which is what I do too.

[Ramon]

It struck me recently that I've been playing this wonderful poxy (Mark King description) game for 50 years or more, and I still can't get it right. every week or so I get a revelation. Today my revelation is my cue action is all wrong. I'm a short arse and I reckon I've been playing with my grip too far back on the cue. Today I started gripping just behind the joint of the 3/4 cue and I did seem to be cueing straighter and with more control. But is this another 24 hour phenomenon that will disappear tomorrow. Or is It right that short guys like me should grip further up the cue? I did notice tonight that fellow short arse John Higgins seems to grip well up the cue, though that varied depending on where he was at the table. Thoughts? Advice?

nothing wrong with it, imo.
especially when you end up with the CB near the cushions. This in order to close your grip on time and at the same time keep the cue stright during delivery.

[adebisi10]

After 50+ years of playing, you probably just need to stop caring.

[vmax4steve]

It struck me recently that I've been playing this wonderful poxy (Mark King description) game for 50 years or more, and I still can't get it right. every week or so I get a revelation. Today my revelation is my cue action is all wrong. I'm a short arse and I reckon I've been playing with my grip too far back on the cue. Today I started gripping just behind the joint of the 3/4 cue and I did seem to be cueing straighter and with more control. But is this another 24 hour phenomenon that will disappear tomorrow. Or is It right that short guys like me should grip further up the cue? I did notice tonight that fellow short arse John Higgins seems to grip well up the cue, though that varied depending on where he was at the table. Thoughts? Advice?

Note that John Higgins and his fellow short arses can actually move their grip up and down the butt depending on the distance of the shot they are playing, short bridge when in the balls and longer for long shots.

Note also that their cue arms are not exactly 90 degrees at the address position but slightly behind it, which means that their grip hand at the address position is still slightly open and doesn't close until after the cue ball is struck. This is especially so with Mark Allen.

This is something that I can do as a tall player with my longer than standard cue: that being said it all really boils down to having good hand eye co-ordination and a well defined cue action that is accurately repeated.

[bluenose1940]

Yes I too am a short arse at 5' 6" and I have found in recent times that moving my grip hand up the butt, along with shortening the bridge a little too, has yielded an improvement in my game.

[misspentoldage]

After 50+ years of playing, you probably just need to stop caring.

I will never stop caring, not if I'm still playing after 70 years, never mind 50. I play a game once a week with a guy who is 79 and if I care as much about the game as he does at that age I'll count that a bonus. It's a big mistake to think that people stop caring when they're a bit older. Arguably the opposite is true.