Instead one should lay his hand on the cloth; raise his knuckles and the thumb to form a channel for the cue. The bridge hand should touch the cloth now with the 4 remaining fingers and the palm.
This bridge can usually be seen when it comes to the ordinary play around the table. Although, there are occasions which require a changed bridge to make the best of those awkward strikes when the cue ball comes to a rest tight under a cushion, or surrounded by other balls. If there are intervening balls during a strike -it's straight forward enough to place the hand close behind this ball(s) and raise the bridge in order to cue over this ball(s). The bridge arm should be straight to replace the stability which where given up by raising the palm off the surface. There are four and three finger elevated bridges known, which involve either four or three fingers to be placed on the table.
The shot from under a cushion needs also a supplemental bridge by placing the hand onto the rails of the table and letting the cue run through thumb and the point finger, letting it also rest on the rails. Now the rails of the table take the weight of the cue while the bridge hand leads it. Faced with so little part of the cue ball playable, it's no good to try to strike down in order to make a better cue - cue ball contact. Indeed, it turned out to be better to strike parallel to the table as usual.
Pictures show how to support the Cue with a sufficient Bridge in certain situations (from left to the right: a ordinary bridge, an elevated bridge and two ways of bridging on the rails when the ball comes close to the cushion)
see also the Glossary articles:
As a matter of fact, the sighting is one of the trickiest things which took me a long time to work out. When I started to play
Billiards, I used to lead the cue directly under my chin. And there's nothing wrong with that, except the fact that I'm not even sighted,
which means that my right eye is my master-eye. Once I learned that, I started cueing under the right side of my chin and my standard
improved faster.
The so called elevated Bridge comes into use when obstacles like intervening balls
make the normal cueing useless. The pics above show Steve Davis making a shot from
two perspectives. These pot seems to be very easy, but can be difficult for a novice
due to lack of practice.
Note that there must be always at least one foot on the ground during any shot.
The last but not least factor which influences the cue swing during a strike is the way of holding the cue . Too fierce a grip tends to
produce no straight cue swing just like too relaxed a grip. As always in snooker a compromise must be developed. The best
grip can be made as follows: relax only the outermost finger(s), while the fingers in direction of the thumb should be firmly formed
around the butt. Employing this, it's possible to hold the weight of the butt and lead the cue straight in a swing.
When it comes to the actual shot, the aim is to strike the cue-ball in a way that it hit's the object-ball on a certain point of its surface.
This issue of right sighting is solvable through the lead of the cue under one's chin, either :
The pictures above shows how it should look like, if sighting is correct applied. While Steve Davis is leading the cue under the middle of his chin (he's even sighted) Tony Drago prefers to lead it under the right side of his chin (his master-eye is the right - These picture where taken after the actual shot, that's why his way of bridging looks so loose)
These picture shows the view that a player can enjoy who's using the correct way of sighting. To aim over the cue is just like a hunter, aiming his shot over the gun.