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dominate eye

Postby cazmac

I didn't hold too much stock in this but I'm starting to question my approach. I've always thought that I cued dead center of my chin but found out that I'm cuing over my left eye ( right handed player). I've done all the test which are suppose to tell you what your dominate eye is and it is my right eye. No wounder I miss so much.
Now like I said I've never been a big believer but after watching a few video's of Ronnie I've changed my mind.
I've always know that ROS is left eye dominate and this is where the cue is when playing right handed and the cue is on the inside of his chin closet to his body. Then when he switches to his left hand he keeps the cue under his left eye and the cue is now on the outside of his chin away from body and under his left eye.
So it is clear that ROS ensures that the cue is always under his dominate left eye.
Thoughts pls

Re: dominate eye

Postby cazmac

Feel free to jump in guys.
I went down the club today and done three hour with just hitting the white up and down and I've made a lot of adjustments which have brought about some startling improvements.
Quick question for you guys. how many times can you get the white to travel up and down the spots without coming off line. I've managed 3 and 1/2. I wounder if there is a record for this?
Last edited by cazmac on 27 Dec 2015, edited 1 time in total.

Re: dominate eye

Postby Holden Chinaski

There was a time when i was thinking about stuff like this a lot and it did not improve my game. In fact the more I was thinking about my dominant eye and where my cue was the worse I played. Nowadays I just focus on walking in the line of aim and staying down after the shot and that's all I need to think about. Sometimes it's better not to overthink things and play naturally. Your stance has to be good of course.

Of course if you're missing a lot of easy balls it's probably good to think about your dominant eye and change some things, but for me it's not necessary to think about that. I think my cue is always under my dominant eye, but I'm not sure.

Re: dominate eye

Postby cazmac

what I've found is that my natural set up puts the cue over the dominate eye, but I have been doing things that have been forcing the cue over the none sighting eye. Now that I know what I've been doing wrong I can cut this out of my game and as you have already said let my natrual game take over. So the transition has been very easy. I'm by know means perfect and still have a lot of work to do to get a consistence pre shot drill put i'm up for it. just one final point and that is I don't think you can overthink the game of snooker. The greatest players have all tinkered with there game. Even ROS is constantly changing his set up. I would only agree with you in so much that it should be done on the practice table so it comes naturally when your playing. You will never have consistency unless you know your game inside out. Simply turning up and playing is leaving too much to chance.

Re: dominate eye

Postby Holden Chinaski

I agree that you have to work on your game. But sometimes too much tampering can make you play even worse, when you're just an amateur. And that's what happened with me when I was thinking about my dominant eye and the cue position too much..

I'm not a professional player. Of course pro's like Ronnie work on every little detail. They do things on a snooker table I would never even try.

For me personally I have found that the most important things for me to think about are walking in on the line of the shot, have the correct stance, feather three times and most importantly stay still after the shot! Also make up your mind before you are down on the shot, and if you have doubts get up again and start over!

I think if you're just an amateur player sometimes it's just better to have just those basic rules, and just play naturally. I play better like that anyway.

There is a lyric by the band Tool in their song Lateralus that goes: "Over thinking, over analyzing, seperates the body from the mind." I think sometimes that's true.

Re: dominate eye

Postby Andre147

Yes Holden, great post there <ok> It's exactly the same thing for me, casual players like us or even amateur ones can't overanalyze things like the pros do, because putting it simply we just aren't as good as them, so it won't work for us the same principal they use.

Pros can give us some very useful ways to improve our game, but sometimes like you said focusing on the most basic things is the right way forward. only when we have fully mastered them can we focus on more technical details.

For me at least if in a friendly match I make a 20 break I'm happy :chuckle: I only play rarely nowadays, because tables here can be quite expensive and very few in my area anyway.

Re: dominate eye

Postby Dan-cat

Yo caz,

I've always wondered about this and yet never done anything about it. I do miss some stupid shots sometimes and think it could be to do with sighting. Not sure how to analyse it though, how did you do it?

Re: dominate eye

Postby Sickpotter

Cazmac, I think if you look around some of the coaching posts there's been some discussion on the dominant eye concept.....aiming/potting posts most likely location.

Re: dominate eye

Postby Cue Guru

cazmac wrote:I didn't hold too much stock in this but I'm starting to question my approach. I've always thought that I cued dead center of my chin but found out that I'm cuing over my left eye ( right handed player). I've done all the test which are suppose to tell you what your dominate eye is and it is my right eye. No wounder I miss so much.
Now like I said I've never been a big believer but after watching a few video's of Ronnie I've changed my mind.
I've always know that ROS is left eye dominate and this is where the cue is when playing right handed and the cue is on the inside of his chin closet to his body. Then when he switches to his left hand he keeps the cue under his left eye and the cue is now on the outside of his chin away from body and under his left eye.
So it is clear that ROS ensures that the cue is always under his dominate left eye.
Thoughts pls


You can adjust the position of the cue under your chest, cue centre chin and fool you brain into believing the cue is 'straight' to your right eye without having to shift it under the R side of the chin. In this position, the cue is a little further away from the hip. You can also do something similar at the other end of the cue to get the same result, by straightening your bridge arm, as Joe Davis did.

Personally, I switched from centre chin to R of chin but I'm able to switch back to centre chin quite easily. It took a while to get used to R chin, about 6mths. For very fine shots, R chin is dreamy, the ball appears to be bigger and clearer as do the edges of the OB and the intended potting angle.