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**j6uk** · 18 July 2014, 09:27 PM

need to see you in action to properly diagnose your problems.

**Terry Davidson** · 18 July 2014, 09:37 PM

It's usually cue delivery that's the problem but if you think you always deliver the cue straight then try this:

Black on spot, place the yellow ball in the plant position to one of the top pockets, place the cueball for 1/2-ball black or so. Take your cue and place it on top of the cueball in the centre and through the centre of the yellow ball and to the cushion. Now place another ball on the cushion exactly centered on the cue and take away the yellow ball. Now get down into the address position and aim the cue directly at the centre of the ball on the cushion...do not even look at the black ball.

Now try and hit the ball on the cushion centre-ball and you should pot the black centre of the pocket. Use any power you want but try soft, medium and hard and if you miss the black then it isn't your aiming or sighting rather it's because you either delivered the cue off-line or else put some unintentional side on the cueball.

Try exactly the same exercise with pink, yellow, green and brown and see if you pot every ball at every power. Do not ever look at the actual object ball, just the centre of the ball on the cushion. Now if you pot every ball then you don't have any problems at all.

If you are truly delivering the cue straight then I believe it's got to be a problem with your sighting but not your aiming. When standing behind the shot everyone chooses the correct line of AIM but the problems come when they get into the address position and have lost the line of aim when SIGHTING along the cue. The body could be moving during feathering, the backswing or the delivery.

Shooting the spots is not really a true test of straight cueing. Try long blues from the baulkline with top spin and if you can pot both balls into the same pocket 10 times in a row then you have a cue action as good as Steve Davis' when he was in his prime (according to him, I'm just the messenger here). If you have trouble potting either ball then you just aren't delivering the cue straight and that's a whole other issue.

You might think (if you're having trouble) that potting both blue and cueball into the same top pocket is impossible but believe me it isn't and anyone with a straight cue action should be able to pot both balls 6 or 7 times out of 10..

Terry

Terry

**thelongbomber** · 18 July 2014, 11:31 PM

Terry says its usually a cue delivery problem, but actually I have to disagree with that in your particular case. I would say that some cueing issues are present in nearly all players, but I would say that on average, problems like yours are more often misdiagnosed, and actually an addressing and alignment problem.

You see, when you don't stand behind the CB in the correct position, then you won't cue properly by the very nature of your hand wanting to correct the cue mid-flight. Your eyes are saying "its too thick" or "its too thin", but you keep feathering and you don't stand back up, and so your cue hand swerves in or out of natural position during feathering. But because final cue delivery is nearly unconscious, it goes back "out" of alignment on strike. So whats looks like a cueing issue because your hand and body are swerving and your wrist opening/closing/etc is actually a mis-diagnosed alignment problem.

Because of the nature of our body mechanics, we will start to develop mechanical patterns on how our body and cue comes into shots. It will become more specific and consistent the more you play. It's very hard to correct these built in patterns, and so it's better to actually work on your initial standing position. Where you stand will ultimately determine where your cue ends up. So stand in the right place first.

From my point of view, it's almost always an alignment issue but that's where we start running into problems. Firstly, and most importantly, you have to understand that you should be standing behind the CB directly behind IT'S path. This is easy to understand for full ball shots because you simply line up CB, OB, and pocket. The moment, you are slicing the ball in any way (anything other than full ball), however, figuring out the CB path isn't as straightforward. You need to be able to imagine where the cue ball is supposed to go (the ghost ball).

To determine where you should be standing before you get into your shot, think of aiming in a different way. Realize that you only have direct control over one ball: the cue ball. You don't actually control the object ball at all. You THINK you control the object ball, but actually you don't (at least not with your cue). How the object ball behaves is directly determined by how you control the CUE ball. If you can control the cue ball then, by deduction, you will also control the object ball (barring kicks of course).

So the little "secret" is that you should focus your efforts on making the cue ball go from it's present location, to some future spot on the table. That future spot is the "ghost ball". And so in the art of aiming, as you feather, you are moving the cue ball from it's present location, to a future location. I actually do this in feathering: present..future..present..future.. I use my eyes and hands (thus hand/eye coordination) to determine if what I feel is what I see. The added benefit of this thought process is that I also develop better and better hand/eye coordination each time I play. Once you understand that this is all you need to do, then you will start standing in the right place, will start your bring your cue into its correct position, and will start cueing more specifically and accurately, thus greatly reducing cue delivery problems. I have actually seen this with students. The moment they "got" what I just said in this paragraph, the suddenly realized they could make the cue ball dance and still make the shot.

Get it out of your head that you are supposed to aim at the object ball. It's actually incorrect advice based on a misunderstanding of aiming. Aim instead, at the ghost ball. Realize that the ghost ball is actually the cue ball at some future point in time. So send the CB from its present location to a future location. If you can do that accurately and consistently, you can then start to diagnose cueing issues like accelerating through, pauses, etc.

In regards to where you should be looking on strike, you should be looking at the ghost ball (which is the cue ball at some future point in time).

**vmax4steve** · 19 July 2014, 08:53 AM

Originally Posted by thelongbomber View Post

Get it out of your head that you are supposed to aim at the object ball. It's actually incorrect advice based on a misunderstanding of aiming. Aim instead, at the ghost ball. Realize that the ghost ball is actually the cue ball at some future point in time. So send the CB from its present location to a future location. If you can do that accurately and consistently, you can then start to diagnose cueing issues like accelerating through, pauses, etc.

In regards to where you should be looking on strike, you should be looking at the ghost ball (which is the cue ball at some future point in time).

Pretty good advice there longbomber apart from the H G Wellsian bollocks above. The past is gone, the future is not set, there is only now. Now is where we all exist and when playing snooker the contact point on the object ball is the only 'now' you should be interested in and looking at.

If your slant on the ghost ball as the future of the cue ball is a metaphor for finding the contact point then fine, but it can cause confusion if you keep referring to a point in future time as a ghost.

If one of your ancestors was a billiards/snooker player and you're accessing his physical prowess through genetic memory in lucid dreamstates and seeing ghosts as a result, then by all means bring your experiences to the coaching table.

Apart from that there is no such things as ghosts.

**thelongbomber** · 19 July 2014, 11:15 AM