When it Comes to Fundamentals, do You Need a Straight Stroke?

The goal of this article is to find out if a straight stroke is right for you.

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If a straight stroke works for you that’s great, carry on as you are and enjoy your game.

However, if you don’t, should you spend valuable practice time trying to achieve a straight stroke?

Is there any proof that working on a straight stroke will improve your game.

Will a straight stroke make you a better player?
Will shooting across the line of the shot stop you from playing great pool?
If your elbow sticks out to the side like a chicken wing does that mean you can’t play as well?
If your arm is tucked over your back like many Filipino players, will that affect your game and make you play badly?
Could a straight stroke make your game worse than it is already?

If your stroke is straight and you are hitting the ball where intended every time, good for you.

Keep doing what you’re doing and leave your stroke alone.

There are more important things to spend your time working on, for instance actually playing the game or working break or on your position play.

If your stroke is straight then you probably have less moving parts and require less practice to stay in rhythm. So all things being equal if you have a straight stroke keep it and if you’re teaching beginners how to play you should have them develop a straight stroke from day one if at all possible.

Why Do I Say This To You?

After all, most coaches will tell you that you should spend some time working on your Stroke? I would agree with them for most beginner players and there are of course standard fundamentals which are essential early on in a playing career.

But….

The history of pool and cue sports in general is littered with top class players who have changed their stroke in an attempt to improve their game or to look more conventional.

These stroke changes have caused them to lose all of their “natural ability” to play the game. They go from great to mediocre and can no longer compete at their initial high level.

If you have a cue action that works consistently under pressure, leave it alone.

What About – Hit a Million Balls and Muscle Memory?

In order to become proficient at any skill It requires a vast amount of time and practice. But how much time should you spend and how much practice do you need to ingrain a physical skill at a professional level?

Maybe 20 to 25 hours of deliberate focus and practice to become competent at a given skill
It can take up to 256 days for a new skill to become automatic.
It takes 20,000 to 25,000 hours to become truly expert at complex skills.

At an average of 8 hours a day that will be almost 7 years of utter dedication to achieve expert level.

That is without doubt a lot of time and most pool players that I meet these days have put in that amount of time over a number of years. It is also fair to say that these players are experts at what they are doing physically and mentally.

Unfortunately, they may not be as successful as they would like to be in their chosen sport, but they are most certainly competent and expert at the way that they do it. But for some reason their stroke isn’t working as well as they had hoped for.

So What’s Wrong With Trying to Develop a Straight Stroke or Cue Action?

Nothing, if you have read this far and still want to go for it then who am I to stand in your way. However I think that if you read a little further and perhaps answer the initial questions posed in the opening paragraph you might change your mind.

Changing your stroke fights against everything that you have been doing since you started to play. You have maybe been doing the same thing for 20 years. Your skills are well ingrained into your subconscious mind.

Although this is the standard advice, straightening your cue action is way more difficult than most people think, every neural pathway in your brain will fight you all the way along the tedious path to finding a straight stroke.

Most if not all players have a series of subconscious corrections in their strokes that they are unaware of, but it is these very corrections which when added together result in the players current stroke. Changing just one of these actions may result in a complete breakdown of the whole cue action.

Just a Side Note on Players and Change.

John Morra, the Canadian pool professional, one of the best players in the world, was suffering from chronic muscle pain in his neck and shoulders. The pain was getting worse and it began affecting his pool play and his mood.

He made the initial gut wrenching decision to quit the sport but after 2 days he decided to try to play left handed.

It would be a miracle for most players to even play at a reasonable standard again after switching from right to left. John however had all of the necessary mental toughness to see the task through and eventually made his way back to playing professional pool, Fargo 794.

I am always amazed by this story of determination and his love for the sport.

(I find it hard to brush my teeth left-handed.)

What about your Pool Stroke?

If you are not getting consistent results from your stroke you may be striking the ball away from your intended location. Your results rather than your vision will tell you this but you can also see this with a video camera or cell phone.

You are most certainly striking the ball in the same place each time that you play a particular shot. Whether that place is your intended destination of your cue tip or not is not the point, you always strike the cue ball in that particular position.

To give an random example:

You aim a ½ tip below the horizontal center on the vertical center axis.

but every time that you play that shot, you actually strike the ball ½ tip to the left.

Some days the balls go in and some days not so much.

Perhaps you make the cuts to the right and miss the cuts to the left.

You intend to strike the ball in one place but you consistently hit another.

In other words you are hitting the ball with your tip in the wrong place but you can hit there 99 times out of a hundred. That is what I call a consistent stroke, not necessarily a straight stroke but extremely consistent for sure.

The cause of the off center strike doesn’t really matter, but if we wanted to look for a cause it could be any one of, a few of, or all the following so called stroke flaws:

Head movement
Body movement
Shoulder drop
Elbow drop
Snatching
Wrist twisting
Etc, etc.

The Alternative to a Straight stroke.

Here is my premise: changing the stroke is very difficult and unpredictable, but it can be done.

The alternative however, is making a small adjustment to your initial alignment which results in the correct strike on the cue ball.

This can and is being done by many, many top players in snooker and pool.

What would that look like in the above example pictures?

You would start your cue tip ½ a tip to the right of center, in the address position.

This results in striking the cue ball in the correct location.

Individual players need custom solutions to solve the shot this way and I have only given one example for the sake of clarity.

Perhaps you move from left to right or down to up. Make the necessary adjustments at the address position for your particular cue action.

Where to Adjust for the Ideal End Result.

In all cue sports the players hold their cue with both hands one at the front bridge and one at the rear grip, the exact positions are similar but varied depending on the player.

Most players, who are aiming correctly, place the bridge “V” directly over the aim line.The bridge then stays fixed throughout the shot. It follows that any unnecessary movement must come from behind the bridge

In order to make an allowance for the front error, the position of the back hand will need to be adjusted. This can be accompanied by an adjustment of the body position so that the cue remains in contact with the chest if needed.

Let’s Check Our Pool Stroke after Making These Adjustments.

To start with as you are learning this new approach you will go down onto the shot line as usual then make the adjustment with the back hand and body. This will be a conscious, deliberate adjustment at first.

As time moves on you will start to make an adjustment from a standing position which will make the process feel and look more natural.

For now, to fix the particular issue illustrated above, you will aim as usual then make a 1/2 tip adjustment to the right using your back hand.

This will be your new set position.

Without changing your stroke, proceed to strike the cue ball as usual. Your tip should strike the cue ball in the desired location.