A big part of getting into a consistency trance is your stroke pattern during your warm-up strokes. An entire book, Pleasures of Small Motions by Bob Fancher Ph.D., was written with this aspect of his game as THE most important part of performing at the pool table. There is some merit in this.

If you take a look at videos of Efrén Reyes at various stages throughout his long career and pay attention to his pre-shot stroking pattern, you’ll notice how little variation there is in what he does as the years go by. All the best players develop their warm up shots and that becomes very useful or necessary to create rhythm within their game.

Coordinating your eyes with the movement of your sign is very important and you should work on finding a way to do it that works for you. Once a player “starts the stroke”, that also means their arm and grip warm up along with the eye movement sequence in relation to the warm-up strokes and final cue execution. If you perform all of the above components of your pre-shot routine, tighten the bridge firmly, and THEN go into your stroking/eye movement pattern, your chance of success on any given shot will increase by 10x.

There is no magic right way to organize your practice shots or magic number of practice shots for you to take, however when you find one that works for you it becomes your magic result producing sequence. You may be in “dead hit” and only take one or two practice shots on each hit. This is possible with superior attention to detail in the shot setup process. Three, four, five, or six warm-up shots might be your magic number, or 15. Somewhere in the single digits should do the job, though, and it can vary a bit in shorter, easier shots versus longer shots. long and hard.

A general guideline is to look at the cue ball as the cue tip enters the cue ball and look back at the object ball as it moves away from the cue ball. Then, before your last backswing, set your eyes on the object ball and THEN start your last backswing and then deliver your actual shot. There can be so much variation that I give this as a GUIDELINE, but work at it, look at your favorite professionals and decide on something that works for you…

My grandfather always marveled at local players who ‘sawed too much wood’, meaning they just sat there practicing strokes forever before every shot. As you improve, your pattern should become more refined without the need to be stuck forever on one shot. With the discipline to adhere to all components of the pre-shot routine, finding a good rhythm will find its way to you.

Good luck with that and see you soon…

Max Eberle