Follow through Loser

Back form Sardinia and ready for a practice. Went to the club and ended up on rather a poor table. Took me a little while to get going after the break but spent 10 minutes playing long losers from the middle and some cross losers around the black spot. Got going quite well and managed to get my cue action following through the ball. I had already decided to practice a couple of routines today. The follow through losers and potting the red in the middle to leave a middle table loser on the red to try and get position in the middle again.

The follow through loser is all about cueing. It is easy to spot the aiming point on the red ball but you really have to get the side on the white. I practiced for 15 minutes and only got a 4 or 5. I altered my aiming point slightly and marked the position of the ball but was still failing. I moved the red closer to the pocket and tried again. After another 10 minutes I was getting the shot nearly each time and started to move the red back along the cushion. I finally started to cue the shot properly. It is TOTAL side that gets the shot. If you strike through the ball and get lots of left the ball simply bounces along the cushion and can hit the pocket at any point and the side simply runs it into the pocket. You can actually move the red a large distance from the pocket and still make the shot.

Once again it is not only hitting the ball in the correct spot that counts but 100% cue action. I am going to try and take my video camera take some film of these shot's. I dont think I can get a better site than Martins site although he hasn't got round to putting all the shots on.

I spent the last 30 minutes potting the red in the middle and playing a cross loser into the top pocket and trying to get the red back up the table for a middle loser. Got little runs of 15 and 25 going without to much trouble? Not a bad day’s work, less than three weeks to go before Norfolk.

I finally understand what Martin calls ‘Widening the pocket’ the side on the cue ball whips the ball into the pocket as long as you have hit it right, you have at least an extra inch either side of the pocket where the ball can strike and it will still go in.