Chalking the Cue
During the cue sports tournament match, like the game of snooker, you notice that professional players chalk their cues (i.e, they rub the tip of the cue with a chalk) after executing every single shot, so that every shot is predictable.
What is the reason for doing so?
Image Credit: Billie Billiards
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
Chalk adjusts the friction on the tip of the cue. This increases the grip of the cue on the ball, and allows the player to make trick shots. In which he can provide the ball a rotation with a speed. Consider the following diagram in which he does not put chalk on the cue and does not have enough grip to rotate the ball,
Now, if the cue is properly chalked it will get a good grip and the ball will rotate do its tricks.
The amount of chalk will decide the angular velocity of rotation, therefore the players will need to adjust the quantity of chalk.