Snooker Cue Grip Technique

Your game can be seriously improved just by the way you hold the cue. It can help you pop more accurately and allows you to generate a greater amount of spin on the cue ball. Weirdly, if you hold the cue like you just picked it up off the table, you won't be a million miles away. There's just a few things we need to make sure you're getting right. Ideally, you want your forefinger and thumb to be wrapped around in a way that doesn't leave your cue any space to wobble around. But you still want this to be loose enough that it allows your cue to go backwards and forwards on a parallel line. But even if you get this right, you could still miss pots if your wrist isn't in the correct position. It's the wrist angle that you really want to get right, because this can be turned in towards your body or rotated away. This isn't anywhere near as natural as just picking up the cue in your hand. Most will play with the top part of their hand at the same angle as their arm. This makes my wrist move at exactly the same angle as my elbow. So it all should go backwards and then forwards on the same line. But everybody's very different in this way. For example, I play best when my hand's very slightly rotated outwards from my body. So how do you ensure your hand's in the correct position that will improve your ability? There's no perfect solution to this, so the best way to find out what works for you is to just try a few straightforward shots. When you're potting the balls cleanly, you're looking for the position that feels the easiest and the least awkward to play. No two players are the same, so you'll probably see lots of different solutions for the same problem. And remember, you're just looking for the angle that makes potting the ball feel the most comfortable. The only thing we haven't looked at yet is the back three fingers of the grip, because players tend to do this very differently. Mark Allen, for example, keeps these fingers wrapped quite close to his cue at all times, whereas Jack Lazowski actually takes all five of his fingertips off the cue at the back of his shot. As this is something that everybody does differently, it's impossible to recommend the perfect grip. So to help you discover your best grip and how tight you should be holding the cue, I've created some special bonus tips. The first one, if you're not sure how tight you should be holding the cue, error on the looser side, because you're far less likely to miss a pot if you're holding the cue too loose than you will be if you're holding it too tight. Secondly, try to avoid pulling your fingers away from the cue at any stage during the shot. In fact, the more you have your fingertips in contact with the cue, the easier you're going to find it to control both the line and the weight of shot. This will also allow you to strike the cue ball more accurately and generate even more spin. But your grip isn't the only contact point you have with your cue, so we can find other ways to improve your game, starting with the bridge. To make a basic bridge, put your hand on the table and raise your knuckles up. It should feel like you're gripping the table between your fingers and the palm of your hand. From this position, all you need to do is bring your thumb in and rest your cue in the gap. However, this will take a little practice to get this steady. But it's not quite that simple. You'll need to change the height of your bridge shot by shot to keep your cue as parallel as possible to the table. So when you're playing a topspin shot, you'll need to raise your bridge up and you'll need to lower it as flat as possible if you're going to put backspin on the cue ball. Getting your bridge hand the correct distance from the cue ball will also make a big difference, because if you go far too close, you won't be able to play shots with any power and you'll find shots difficult to pop. Again, too far away will create too much of a seesaw motion and your cue will rock side to side far too much. A good distance will be somewhere in between a foot and a foot and a half, but this is just really personal preference. And that's going to work great for regular shots, but not all shots. They're so straightforward. You can't always play the shot with your hand flat on the table, so here are some alternatives. For example, the cue ball could be too close to the cushion to get your hand in between. Now, you could put your hand up on top of the rail like this, but that's going to be striking down the ball and that makes the pop a lot harder. So instead, you run the cue along the outside of your thumb and the tip of your middle finger and then loop your index finger over the top. We call this a loop bridge and it's a lot easier way to pop this type of shot. However, if you're really close to the cushion and you're trying to use a loop bridge, you won't be able to see over the top of your hand. So instead, rest your hand against the side of the table and run the cue along your index finger. You can then bring your thumb up alongside. A bit of advice on this one. If you push your cue tip into the cushion as you play the shot, you make the pop a little bit easier to get. But the cushions aren't the only obstacles. Sometimes you're going to need to get to the cue ball with other balls in the way. To bridge over the top of a ball, you need to bring your palm up in the air and rest on your fingertips. The wider you spread your fingers, the more balanced you're going to be, and you just need to make sure you're looking along your cue as much as possible to see where the shot's going. If you need even more height than this, you can rest the cue across your thumb. It will feel a bit weird, but it's the best way of playing this type of shot. And of course, there are a lot more bridges that will help you play some really complex shots. But these hardly ever come up, so to improve your game more on regular shots, here are a couple of bonus tips. The first tip is to keep your thumb tight into your bridge hand, because if this starts to wobble, this can really make shots difficult to pop. The second is with shots like this one, where it's very difficult to get any power on the shot. If you rest your bridge hand against the edge of the table, this gives you a greater distance from the cue ball. It's not easy to play shots like this, but you can play them a lot harder, and even play shots with backspin. But we've got more to help you game after we find David, who's from Huddlesfield in the United Kingdom, which is there. Of course, your head is something else that will be in contact with the cue. Keeping your head as low as possible allows you to see along the line of your cue. And the only real trick to this is to keep your head as still as possible on the shot. And what's key to this is you're looking far enough down the table that you can easily see where the object ball is going to go, so you're not tempted to lift your head up off the shot. Because if you lift your head up off the shot for any reason, you're not going to be able to see where you're aiming, and you're probably going to move off-line. But you also need to be able to see where you're aiming on the shot. So to help with that, I've created a special bonus tip to help explain how to sight the shot as accurately as possible. Everybody sights the shots differently, so you're going to have your own unique place where you put your head on the cue. This matters because if it's the wrong place, you won't be able to see along the line of the shot. However, just like picking your cue up off the table, you're going to naturally find the right position that allows you to see along your cue fairly straight. I'll link a video at the end that explains how to do this better. The majority of players rest their cues against the side of their bodies during a shot. This keeps it on line and prevents it from wobbling out of position. The only mistake you can make here is to pull the cue in too tightly. This can cause you to tense up, and even sometimes drag the cue around the corner of your body. Instead, what you want to do is just rest the cue very loosely against yourself. You want to feel like this is just grazing the side of your body, rather than being pulled in with any force. After a time, this gives shots a secure, natural feeling. But it also does something else. And this can be really helpful, and that's why I created a bonus tip to explain. Because the cue's resting against the side of my body, potting the ball will be determined by my body position and where I'm standing. So I need to stand in the right place in order to pot the ball, and the more accurately I'm standing, the more likely I am to pot it. Once you know exactly where to stand, it's almost like being locked in the exact position to pot the ball. I've already made a video that explains exactly how you do this. Or have a look at the other video that explains how you sight the shot as best as you possibly can. And remember, don't just watch play, and make the commitment to becoming a better player by subscribing to the channel and visit the website. See you later.