Just my opinion...

Nine-ball is rotation pool, the balls are pocketed in numbered order.  The only ball that means anything, that wins it, is the 9.  Now, the player can shoot eight trick shots in a row, blow the 9, and lose.  On the other hand, the player can get the 9 in on the break, if the balls spread right, and win.  Which is to say, that luck plays a part in nine-ball.  But for some players, luck itself is an art.

Uncredited voiceover by Martin Scorsese for the movie “The Color Of Money“

So allow me to teach a little instead.

A friend of mine at work recently joined a pool league.  She knows I play and sent me this in an email:

I have a bridging question. When I played as a teenager, I hooked my index finger over the cue. When I started again, I changed my bridge and was getting pretty comfortable with it. Our team captain suggested I go back to hooking my finger over the cue, so I did. It was comfortable. However, I don’t know if it was my imagination or what, but I seemed to be missing shots that I had been able to make before. Is it possible that just a change in hand position could alter your aim? 

This is a pretty common question I get from novice pool players. I’m no champion but I can give a little advice here. Here’s my reply:

To “hook your finger over the cue” is known as a CLOSED BRIDGE. Bridging off of a “V” you form with your thumb and index finger is an OPEN BRIDGE.

Depending on the speed I have to hit the cue ball, the position of intervening balls, whether the cue ball is close to the rail, etc. I constantly switch between open and closed bridges. Which one you use really gets down to a matter of comfort and the situation at hand.

To answer your question: “Is it possible that just a change in hand position could alter your aim?”

Yes. It is possible but if your pre-shot routine (aim, stance, body positioning, falling into the shot position, practice strokes, stroke) is consistent, it should NOT alter your aim.

More than likely what has been altered is that you’ve made your bridge LESS stable because you’ve removed another finger from the surface of the table. You should have as much of your hand in contact with the table (including the ball of your hand) as is comfortably possible – no matter which bridge you use. Also, you’ve altered how your index finger interacts with the cue. A closed bridge naturally introduces more friction between your hand and the cue. That alone is enough to alter your stroke.

One of the biggest mistakes (and the mistake your APA coach has made) is to tell someone to shoot like they do. He probably uses a closed bridge so he thinks others should as well. Since we all have different physical stature, we all have different comfort positions. Again, comfort and… Fundamentals.

Like any other sport, pool has fundamentals.

Learn a fundamentally sound aiming technique, how to take a fundamentally sound stance, how to make a fundamentally sound bridge, how to execute a fundamentally sound stroke and I assure you eventually the balls will start to fall. Once you’re pocketing the balls, you can move on to position play. My guess is your APA coach is also trying to teach you how to get position… Why? Until you can consistently pocket the balls, getting position doesn’t matter at all.

All the questions I get from beginners I answer essentially the same way: Learn the fundamentals.

“How do I use English?” – Learn the fundamentals first.
“How do I stop the cue ball?” – Learn the fundamentals first.
“How do control the speed of the ball?” – Learn the fundementals first.

There are numerous resources to learning the fundamentals of pool.  Do a quick Google search on the topic.   Even in the response to my friend above, I think I have it out of order.  I should have put “learn a fundamentally sound aiming technique” after stance and stroke.

Trust me on this one because it took me years to get this simple rule through my head in pool. Learn the fundamentals.  Once I got better at the fundamentals, I started running-out.  Anytime I miss a ball or miss position now, I can almost always track it down to a fundamental error.

Just finished watching the Darrin Appleton vs. Dennis Hatch Action Challenge match live on TAR.  By the way, Hatch is an absolute monster.  He won a race to 100 in 10-ball 100 to 83.  While chatting online with one of my pool player buddies I was reminded I wanted to do a post on the terminology used in the pool player community.  Tonight I started that page as an ongoing project.  It’s short now but it will grow as I add to it.  Eventually, growing to the definitive and exhaustive resource for all the pool player lingo not strictly spelled with just 4 letters.

It will always be available as a primary link at the bottom of this page (see the tab at the bottom that says “Pool Player”).  But since this is an announcement post I guess I better provide a link to it here.

You probably don’t want to take everything you read on that page as the gospel.  Given that I’m going to let pool players make additions and edits to it…  A certain degree of lying inaccuracy should be expected.