The Bridge

When I was first starting out playing pool, this is one of the things that got me really frustrated. So I bugged my friends for snooker tips and resources with emphasize on making a hand bridge. I did use lots of those fancy hand bridging styles but it’s still best to know the basics. here’s a video of Ronnie O’Sullivan explaining simple basics of making a hand bridge

Line up

I would do this routine when I’m bored at home. This is a good routine for improving your break building. All you have to do is place all the balls in a line, place the cue ball in any position as you wish, then pocket each ball one by one as if you’re playing normal snooker. To make it more challenging, you can focus on pocketing the red balls first before the colored ones or colored ones first before the red balls or come up with a certain order yourself.

Ten insane snooker shots

okay, not really insane but they’re close to impossible in my opinion. anyway, just watch the vid. It features 10 tricky/difficult snooker shots by professional snooker players.

Gravity Cue?

Just came across this one. so Gravity cue is supposed to be a revolutionized cue that might help you play better. You guys might wanna check it out at www.gravitycue.com

A good practice for pocketing a ball

One of the skills you should when trying to pocket a ball is being able to have a hunch where to hit it and properly aim that spot. This is one of the things I did when working on my pocketing skills. Ok to do is… if your gonna hit on a blue ball. Now before hitting it with a cue ball, determine where you’d need to hit the blue ball to put it in the pocket then place a red ball beside the blue ball putting in the exact spot where you are going to be hitting it. now go back to the cue ball, the red ball should give you an idea where u’d need to aim. Once you’re done, remove the red ball then go for the shot. Practice this from different angles/position.

Snooker tips – Basic cue ball aiming practice

When I first started out playing pool, and this was even before I started playing snooker, I was very bad at aiming so one thing I would do this try shoot cue ball , aiming it towards every pocket of the table, from one location. You might wanna try shooting from different locations of the table. This can help improve your aiming skills plus you can tweak your stance, hand position, grip, etc. while practicing this.

Jack Karnehm video

Was surfing the net for some snooker resource and other learning materials then stumbled across this video with Jack Karnehm in it. He talks about proper placing of cue tip on the cue, you can use this in relation to my previous post. After the cue tip talk, he talks about cue length plus some techniques and a few playing tips. Enjoy watching

The Mushroom tip

This has been popular among my pool buddies. A mushroom tip is a cue tip that is a bit bigger than the ferrule (hence “mushroom tip”). Pool players adopt the mushroom tip because of the principle that the bigger the tip the less chance of not being able to aim properly at the ball.

the average tip size for a mushroom tip is 10mm over a smaller ferrule usually around 9.5mm. If you intend to make one, it is usually recommended that you get a bigger tip, around 12mm then just trim it down to your preferred size. You might wanna use elk or blue diamond for your cue tip for easier trimming/shaping.

enjoy playing

Snooker Tips – Importance of Stance

The stance is the foundation of a players overall playing. A stable and comfortable stance is required when playing to ensure that there is no tendency for the player’s body to move during the shot plus to give a player a good position for aiming at a ball

Most people I encounter used a horse-like stance both knees bent with both feet pointing forward which makes(sometimes not) their playing awkward.

Using a certain stance will depend on an individual(it’s usually the height).

Anyway, for right handed players, the right leg should be in line with the target point of the player. I would recommend the right leg being straight but if the player is tall the leg can be bent. The left leg should be a shoulder width away from the right, it can either be parallel or slightly in front of the right foot. Make sure the left leg is not placed behind the right foot as that can make your body liable to move when taking a shot.

For left handed players, just do what I said above except you do everything using opposite legs.

Here’s an example of a good stance. Check out the photo: