When a world class pro is at the top of their game, it looks effortless. Object balls slamming into the backs of pockets; the cue ball bending to their will, going exactly where they command. As an observer, it’s easy to forget where this precision starts. 

As a player, it is easy to hyper-focus on what the balls on the table are doing.

Missed a ball? Must have aimed wrong.

Cue ball didn’t go where you thought it would? Must have chosen the wrong english. 

These diagnoses might be true some of the time, but we tend to blame our aim first and stroke second.

The truth is that the only thing you do as a player in any given shot is align and stroke your cue.

When you shift your focus away from the movement of the balls to the one thing you actually have control over, it becomes clear what separates bad from good, good from great, and great from world-class. It all comes down to how good a player is at aligning their cue and delivering a straight, accurate, and precise stroke. 

I started seeing much more progress when I shifted my focus away from making balls and started focusing on the quality of my stroke.

The core to improvement at pool is the removal of flaws in your fundamentals, but they must first be identified before you can get rid of them.

The best methods that I have used to find flaws in my own stroke include:

One of the best pieces of advice I got from Mark Wilson’s book “Play Great Pool” was to add a post shot analysis to my shot routine.

Adding this to your shot routine is all about being more mindful so that you can identify the true cause of any mistakes you make and identify recurring issues in your stroke that you can address later.

In my post-shot analysis I take note of any of the following:

After documenting any recurring issues that come up, I have a list of things that I can focus on in future practice sessions that are almost guaranteed to move my game forward.

I previously had a recurring issue of hitting with a bit of unintended right spin when shooting power draw shots. I noticed the unintended spin quite a few times and decided to investigate in my next solo practice session. We’ll dive a bit further into this in the video review section, but it was my habit of performing a post-shot analysis that helped me first identify the issue.

By being more mindful when you play, you can also identify niche shots that you struggle with.

Sometimes you find a shot that you keep missing the same way. For example, a shot I kept missing was when a ball was about two inches off the rail. I kept cutting it thin, straight down the rail.

In my opinion, this is actually a good thing as it shows consistency in your fundamentals and that you just need to dial in your feel on this particular shot. Any time I find one of these shots, I practice it until I can comfortably make it ten times in a row.

One of my favorite drills to do that gives you a very good baseline for the accuracy of your stroke is 100 Long Straight Shots.

This drill definitely gets in your head and will expose any weaknesses in your fundamentals. When I do this drill, I try to hit perfect stop shots with no left or right spin. Pay attention and take note of things like.

This week, find 45 minutes and just commit yourself to completing this drill once. I’ll see you on the leaderboards this week in the WPB App. If you’re able, record yourself doing it and do a video review of your fundamentals. Remember that you’ll make the ball with good fundamentals, but just because you made the ball doesn’t mean your fundamentals were good.

Some of the biggest eureka moments I have experienced in my journey to improve my game have come from video review of my own play. There is nothing like being able to watch yourself in third person to really dive into the nitty-gritty details of the underlying issues.

Going back to the unintended right spin I was getting on big draw shots, I set up my camera and my cell phone to record myself from multiple angles.

My favorite camera angles to review my stroke are

I shot the same draw shot until I had a couple of instances of unintended side spin that I could reference.

I noticed a slight tensing of my hand right before impact with the cue ball. At the same time that I tensed my hand, the tip of the cue would move slightly down and to the right.

The funny thing is that this ended up revealing another bad habit that I had on powerful draw shots of engaging my upper arm, which caused my elbow to drop before impact with the cue ball. Dropping my elbow moved my tip up, but the tensing of my hand counteracted that movement and pushed the tip back down. When I stopped tensing my hand, it no longer counteracted my elbow drop that was moving the tip up, which meant I wouldn’t get as much draw. The dropping of my elbow before impact was the next thing I focused on once I stopped tensing my grip.

All of this was developed and performed subconsciously. Before I addressed these issues, I needed to perfectly time the drop of my elbow, not drop it too much, and tighten my grip just the right amount so that it perfectly counteracted the upward movement of my tip caused by the elbow drop.

I had to perform a symphony of movements to deliver my cue precisely and accurately. You can see how this can lead to inconsistent results.

A few weeks of focused practice later, and all I had to do was move my arm like a pendulum while staying perfectly still.

I also find it helpful to just watch yourself play in third person. You can look for patterns for when you are playing well and contrast it with when you are on your B game. 

You might find that you have a tendency to get up early on your shots when you are playing poorly, and that can then become a single thing you can focus on not doing to help you get back into your A game.

Coaching is another great way to find out what you are doing wrong, but you need to be sure that the person you get advice from knows what they are talking about. Just because a player is better than you doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a good coach.

I am always open to listening to advice and feedback I get from anybody. It doesn’t matter if they are a world-class pro or a mid-rank league player. Everybody has a unique experience and something to offer. Take what you like and leave behind the things you disagree with.

In my experience, most players are willing to give you advice. Any time I get a chance to play some sets with a top player, I always ask them if they saw anything in my game I should work on.

I had the opportunity to get some coaching from former US Open 9-Ball Champion Jeremy Jones in 2024. If I remember right, the price of that coaching only came out to about 100, maybe 200 dollars, and even though I was in a group of four people, I was able to get some one-on-one attention. There were a couple of key takeaways that I got from him, and I am going to talk about one of them next week.

For now, try out the 100 Long Straight Shots Drill in the WPB App and film yourself doing it. Pay attention to any inconsistencies in your stroke and use video review to try and identify what you are doing wrong.

See you next week.