Played the quarter final last night and somehow scraped home. The way this competition works (Oxford and District Billiards league Sherlock cup) is similar to the league where each team plays off in up to six frames. The way that the result of a tie is determined is by the higher aggregate score at the end. Anyway, it turns out that I went into the last frame needing to win by 10 clear points to take the match. Of course, it went to the black ball to decide it all and I managed to pot a good long black ball to wrap it up. I was pretty chuffed with that to be fair, most of the frame I'd struggled - especially with safety play. So now it's the semi-finals, and surely this will be seriously tough now. I can't really see us going any further, but to reach a competition semi final so soon after returning to the league is a great result whichever way it goes. I just have to remember to dress smartly and enjoy the experience. Got some days off coming up so I'll make sure to put in plenty of practise to help me as much as possible.
Efforts to Improve
There's an excellent snooker resource on the net called the snooker forum where players can talk about the game - including the technical side. I'm actually learning a lot from reading the various threads and listening to good players give generous advice to new and aspiring players. I'm beginning to believe that the greatest thing that I can do for my game is to learn to cue as straightly and consistently as possible. For now I'm not going to worry so much about my visualisation issues (I can come back to this when the data my brain receives is not muddied by my poor technique). The way I see it, if I spend the next year or so trying to build myself a rock solid cuing action then I can move onto the other stuff thereafter.
As I already mentioned, my technique must be pretty poor (or I'd be better, surely?). I've identified a few things where I think that I can do it better.
1/ Grip - I've always held the cue butt pretty tightly, and I think that this has led to inconsistencies in follow through due to tension and unnecessary wrist movement. I have now changed my grip to a looser style, as described on the forum. I used the new grip in the match last night and suffered no negative issues (although it felt a little alien). In fact I believe my long potting improved a little, but of course this could just be an illusion of standard deviation.
2/ Moving into position - While I've stood behind the shot and walked in for a number of years, the places I've put my feet and the process of bringing the cue down has not been a mechanical thing; I've kind of just moved into the shot and let those things sort themselves out. This cannot be good, my body/arm/shoulder/head probably only changes small fractions in alignment but the effect must surely compound. From now on the process is going to involve placing my right foot down the line of the shot and then the left foot directly to the side (about 2 feet) before bringing everything else down into line. I'm also going to try and get my arm vertical (it tends to 'tuck - in' towards the body just a little.
3/ Developing a longer follow through - One thing that I read multiple times is that the great players have a good long follow through (5 inches or more). This improves accuracy and cue power. I'm pretty sure my follow through is only 3-4 inches at the moment (probably why I struggle to get a large amount of top/back spin on the cue ball). The consequence of this is probably that I tend to hit the ball harder in an effort to compensate which obviously brings problems.
Hopefully I can incorporate these ideas into my game and they will become second nature; I'm convinced that I'll improve much more quickly if they do. I'm not sure I'll find it that easy at first, but once it's all settled in my cuing action should be a lot more consistently straight. I'll keep this blog updated with my progress. One thing I may do if I'm still struggling in this regard a year down the line is sign up for some coaching. Whether with Grant Conquest from the club or from Nic Barrow (a respected coach based in Milton Keynes).
Right, enough mindless tekker's talk. Will blog again after the semi-final.
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