I'm a casual pool player and recently decided that I want to learn to play left-handed.

Mostly just for fun, but I guess I'd like to be able to play some cash games with my friends (they're bad) who refuse to play me now.

Used to shoot some of the rail shots left-handed, but besides that I've never tried it. Yesterday I finally decided to start and played ~30 mins left-handed.

Biggest problems:

1) My break is really weak. Need more power, but don't know how. Just break, break, break?

2) Cue position. My left arm got tired after 15 mins. One thing I noticed that I naturally had it higher and too close to the armpit but I couldn't force myself to get a better position.

3) Aiming. I had difficulties to aim with the left eye as the right eye is dominant.

Some shooters use these to be able to aim with both eyes open:



Has anyone tried those kind of things for pool or is there anything else to do?

Any other tips?

Compensate by dialing in your accuracy. If you have a tight rack, you can turn the power right down and still have the rack explode if you get all the power to transfer. You'll be able to up the power gradually.

Not much you can do but re-teach yourself the fundamentals. I learned leftie quite a bit after learning pool, and after awhile my off hand stroke was better than my regular stroke, just because I knew proper technique when that arm "learned" to stroke. If my right hand could bridge as well as my left, I'd switch full-time.

Edit: This might also be a product of an awkward stance. Really consciously keep tabs on your body position until it's ingrained.

Just hold your head off center enough that your dominant eye is directly above the cue. I'm not sure it would be possible to even use your non-dominant eye successfully. You'll probably really have to concentrate on doing this at first. It's not at all natural.

I was kind of lucky in that I was fairly ambidextrous to start with, but I found it quite easy to get to acceptable proficiency. You'll probably have more trouble if you're really right hand dominant.

It's reliable enough for me that any shot that's less of a stretch to play left-handed gets played left handed. I don't really see a difference in percentages. My left stance strokes better, right stance bridges better (and a touch more power when needed), but it all seems to balance out. One handed, I'm about the same with either left or right as well.

Edit: My right break is still about 2x as strong as my left, even after decades of practice.

Thanks.

I tried using the right eye to aim today. It felt really awkward at first, but got a bit easier after a while.

Still struggling though. For some reason I almost always cut too much to the right but do much better when I have to cut to the left side.

Just drill **** like lineups a lot, this will really help out a lot. Also you might want to sight the ball differently on different sides. Your eyesight may not be symmetrical so doing the exact mirror of what you do with your other arm may not be the most optimal choice. But main thing is just to practice a LOT. Good luck!