sense & nonsense of cueball draw

What stroke is required to draw a cueball? The frequent cause of failure is addressed as are some common myths

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• billiards
• pool
• instruction
• cueball
• draw

[devindrabhagwandin]

how come Mike Massey drops his elbow when shooting a power draw? nearly all pro's drop their elbow...

[FargoBilliards]

Massey raises his elbow on the backstroke and lowers it on the forward stroke on a power draw. This allows him to hit the ball harder. Where Massey differs from nearly all other humans including most pros is he can hit the ball at warp speed WITHOUT sacrificing much on the close-to-miscue contact point.

[ffswhatever1]

in the acceleration portion of your stroke. though its not absolutely crucial to do so when you are accelerating well when your tip strikes the cue ball it compresses like a little spring and (every action equal and opposite reaction) adds TONS of action. this is true for all english. the main culprit of not being able to draw is that you are not extending well from your practice stroke to your strike stroke and are decelerating (no or very little cue tip compression)try drawing without a tip :P

[ffswhatever1]

not a bad video but just saying that your right doesn't make it so, unfortunately. though i admit most of this vid is correct he is wrong on some critical areas. basically all he said was 1) not enough chalk (and imo if you are a lazy chalker you already suck) 2) not hitting where your aiming (facepalm!) all in all not much help. his discounting and inaccurate explanation of those 3 things that do help kind of piss me off. the reason they all help (and they do help) is that they ensure you are

[gunneralquist]

"One school of thought, consisting of people that are right"

That's funny

[iTzCeeJay]

It's all about timing and a smooth cue action.

[GetMeThere1]

This is a BRILLIANT video! I have to admit that, as a much younger player, I was PROFOUNDLY perplexed by the "mystery" of stroke--and spent at least a year in real confusion. Finally, I came to the intuitive conclusion that people who could draw more must in fact be hitting nearer the miscue limit--and it WORKED (i.e., I got a little "braver" about extending my hits outward if I needed more action).

Thanks to the internet (and people like you--and DrDave), one can actually learn THE FACTS!

[ihcug90]

great video! very helpful, auto subscribe :D

[LeonFleisherFan]

Nice instructive video, thanks!

You do mention acceleration, but never get to the explanation part there. One would think it's what in any sport that involves a pendulum swing motion, acceleration at contact is what people refer to as "timing", i.e. while there may be draw action with inferior timing, there will be more draw and better feel with good timing. My two cents worth...

[OsirisGOLAD]

I think a lot of misscues are caused by a movement after or during the hit, or a change of direction in the hit. If you hit the ball low, and the ball starts moving forward and then your cue goes up slightly, it is quite possible that the cue will drive the cueball up. A good screw shot I think is a combination of hitting the ball as long as possible(every nanometer counts, and force=longer hit), but also giving the cueball space. The best screw shot is perfect harmony between these two things.

[OsirisGOLAD]

If you have a good cue action, I think it is better to use a longer bridge and a slightly diagonal cue movement. A misscue is caused by the cue trying to force the ball up. If you strike the ball horizontally, there is more chance that you force your cue into the cueball causing a misscue. If you use a short bridge, there is a good chance that you will still be heavily accelerating at the moment of contact; it is best to be on the verge of slowing down when hitting the cueball.

[Astralsupreme]

After this, you line up with the cueball putting the tip all the way to the cueball to about 1 cenimeter before the impact, and simply follow thru into the felt. Most people are scared to do this because the cueball can hop, but in this case the impact is precise as the tip hits the cueball before the felt, as you fixed that in the warm up exercise i mentioned, for true draw, simply drive the stick into the felt.