Snooker Pool 9-Ball Tips Techniques Training

If the eye, which is doing the sighting, is not directly over the cue, you will have a strong tendency to hit across the ball.

To determine which eye is your master eye place a piece of chalk at one end of the table and stand directly in front of it at the other end. Point your forefinger at the chalk with both eyes open. Close your left eye and see if your finger is still pointing at the chalk. If it is, you will know you are right-eyed.

To confirm it, close your right eye. If you have to move your finger to keep it pointing at the chalk you have further proof that your right eye is your master eye. Obviously, if by closing the left eye you have to move your index finger - but not when the right eye is closed - you are left-eyed. If you are even-sighted your finger will deviate slightly to the left or right dependant on which eye you shut.

Translated into snooker terms you may be on the black with a three-quarter-ball pot into a top pocket, but you don't just want to pot the black, you also want to split a cluster of reds. You line up correctly on the black, but just before you come through to hit the cue ball your eyes switch not to the point on the black you are trying to hit but to the pack to see if you have opened the reds. Have you any chance of potting the black? This is what happens without players realizing it. They miss the black because they are looking to see what will happen to the cue ball when their eyes should still be on the object ball

Your eyes are not going to help you hit the cue ball to open the reds. Where you put the tip to the cue ball - right or left of center, above or below - how much you move the cue in preparation for the shot, the strength of the stroke: all this will take care of the positional side of the shot. But you have to pot the black and that is why you have to have your eyes on the spot on the object ball that needs to be hit.