So What Is Really Important In A Pool Stroke?
In my opinion the only things that matter are alignment and delivery.
That’s it, just those two things will make the difference between success and failure for a serious player. Get these two aspects correct early on in your training and you will improve much faster.
What Is Alignment In Pool?
Start by standing behind the shot during your preshot routine.
Pick out the shot line and visualise the result.
Keeping you eyes on the balls, start to move into the shot line
Moving into the full stance position with your bridge hand, head, shoulder, elbow, back hand and cue all on the selected shot line.
Alignment is the placement of your eyes, body and cue onto the intended path.
When you are fully down in position does the shot still look right or not.
What Is Cue Delivery?
Delivery is the ability to keep the cue on the intended path throughout the stroke.
As the cue moves from the final backswing, accelerating towards and through the cue ball does the cue stay on line?
Stay down at the end of the shot, is the cue still on the shot line.
On a straight shot the cue should still be pointing towards the pocket.
Most Pool Players.
You see a couple playing pool in a bar on a Saturday night. The music is loud, the conversation even louder. People walk by the table as the players are ready to shoot at the next ball and no one there has a clue how complex the game is and they don’t care.
For them pool is just something they do to pass the time as they engage in more important pursuits.
Playing pool to an expert level is an endeavor that requires complete mental and physical coordination over an extended period of time.
The level of skill required to play pool at the top level is hard to even imagine.
Learning To Play Pool For Beginners.
However, when you are learning to play you are bombarded with a menu of physical positions, stance, elbow, grip, types of shot, ways to aim, rules of the game, etc. etc.
There are fundamental aspects of playing pool that are visible in all players. Even professional players have these fundamentals even though they all look totally different from each other.
Given that they are all different, what is it that they do that makes the difference between being a top player and a ball banger?
Why This Helpful To Pool Players?
Using alignment and delivery as a framework, if a shot doesn’t work out as planned, there are just 2 options to consider:
- Were you aligned correctly with the selected shot?
- Did you deliver your cue on that line correctly?
If not then you know which area to work on in practice.
The Old Advice Is The Best.
Its funny but sometimes when you are stuggling the most with your game you have to go back to the basics.
When I was younger I asked a good player what I needed to do to get better?
He said, “Slowly back, accelerate through the ball and keep your head down.”
