New shaft needed to match changes/progression in your game?

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What I can tell you is that thinner shafts require a straighter stroke. You may not recognize it at first, but it will bite you under moments of intense pressure.

The best shaft for you is whatever you're used to playing with.
I've found that in general, the better the player, the harder it is for them to change to a new shaft.

Efren's been playing with normal shafts his whole life and he seems to have done pretty well with them.

I can only speak for myself so...

A while ago I started playing with a high squirt / deflection shaft after years of lower squirt / deflection and shortened my bridge to compensate. It worked well but my stroke felt constricted. Went back to a lower squirt / deflection shaft and it felt much better.

Different length bridge lengths work better with different shafts. If you have adjusted your bridge length it might effect your result.

***Please remember when someone mentions a pro using a "regular" shaft that many of these have been tapered down to 12 mm or below effectively reducing end mass and lowering the squirt / deflection of the shaft. Just because it doesn't say Predator on it does not mean it is high squirt / deflection.

Squirt / deflection should be measured on a scale not just high or low. 13mm ivory ferrule squirts / deflects more then a 12.5mm and a 314 2 deflects / squirts more then a z2

Eagleshot said:

I can only speak for myself so...

A while ago I started playing with a high squirt / deflection shaft after years of lower squirt / deflection and shortened my bridge to compensate. It worked well but my stroke felt constricted. Went back to a lower squirt / deflection shaft and it felt much better.

Different length bridge lengths work better with different shafts. If you have adjusted your bridge length it might effect your result.

***Please remember when someone mentions a pro using a "regular" shaft that many of these have been tapered down to 12 mm or below effectively reducing end mass and lowering the squirt / deflection of the shaft. Just because it doesn't say Predator on it does not mean it is high squirt / deflection.

Squirt / deflection should be measured on a scale not just high or low. 13mm ivory ferrule squirts / deflects more then a 12.5mm and a 314 2 deflects / squirts more then a z2

Click to expand...

Many top players use traditional shafts that are 12.0 mm as you said, effectively reducing the cue ball's deflection.

Also, I have known some pool players who swear they shoot with a 13MM shaft and it really is much closer to 12mm. When they bought the shaft, it was most likely 13MM but as the months go by with "cleaning" and play the shaft narrows more and more resulting in lower deflection. Some players call it "having the shaft broke in". Lol

I play with a shaft that I am becoming more and more familiar with and I can estimate the effective squirt very accurately, not only because I am more familiar with how the shaft/cue performs but because the margin of error is smaller than with a traditional shaft.

So to the thread starter, YES, a new shaft sometimes matches your progression with your game.

Sometimes, a "better shaft" can be disconcerting to the user if they are not honest or knowledgeable enough to know where their limitation begin and end as well as that of the equipment. A "better shaft" is defined by me as one that shoots the cue ball straighter even with side spin applied and most often this is with a shaft that is engineered to reduce the squirt to the point where the squirt is equally reduced by the swerve. Some of that has to do with how the shooter hits the cue ball (speed, location, & angle of insertion).

Some "better shafts" help a person to shoot more accurately but if the shooter has a crooked stroke, he or she will most likely have "issues" even with a "better shaft".

All that being said, a good player can play well with any equipment.

Although my opinion is that it is easier for most players to play with engineered, low-deflection equipment.

JoeyA

hang-the-9 said:

I started changing a bit how I line up on the shot to find the center better. I have a huge issue where my stoke goes to the right where my left spin is almost useless as it works maybe 20% of the time.

A funny side-affect of that is that now shots with either spin that I used to make fairly easily are missing a lot more. My stoke is straighter but due to me not being able to automatically adjust the same way, the deflection even with the LD shaft I use causes me to miss by quite a bit. Straighter shots and shots with no spin seem way easier now with any shaft, but spin was making me miss.

On a hunch I switched to an OB1 I had in my case, which is actually one of the two my son got from OB and was not even mine, and I found that I was able to make the spin shots a lot better.

Anyone go through changes in their game then found that the equipment they used before was no longer as good of a match?

I am understanding more now why so many pros and players go to as low of a LD shaft as they can, but I could not before until I started to fix the swerve my stroke had.

Click to expand...

First verify how you apply spin! When I started around the time we met at chalks, I used to use parallel English for one side and bridge/backhand English the other! What this does is give you an inconsistent aim for shots when playing the same shot but opposite angles! Joe Tucker immediately found this for me and told me I needed to correct it! It took a good long time, but it worked!

If you have a table at home, what I used to practice is take the cue ball and put it on the spot, take 2 balls and and place them on the rail and leave about a quarter inch space between the 2(go the short way first) and verify you can hit center ball by hitting cue and it comes straight back to the tip! Then, start hitting them with English and make sure you get the same results for both sides. Example, my 1 tip of English in my table brings me 1&1/4 diamond over either way! That's how you know you're applying the same amount I spin on both sides. The 2 object balls just add a little aiming to keep your eyes in check and verify your straightness to the rail for accuracy purposes!

If you need a hand with what I just said, feel free to call!

Sounds like you would benefit from a more consistent pre shot routine. Maybe look into using a cte system.

Really

thefonz said:

Sounds like you would benefit from a more consistent pre shot routine. Maybe look into using a cte system.

Click to expand...

Did we really have to go there! Go back and read the OP then comment intelligently.

David Marcus said:

Did we really have to go there! Go back and read the OP then comment intelligently.

Click to expand...

Intelligently?? And you thought everyone was going to chime in "intelligently"?? Welcome to azbilliards good luck with that

The correct answer is: work on your fundamentals
But in reality, we like different things, based on our physique. The size of your hands, length of your arms etc. etc.
So even though a dog standard 58" cue with a 13mm tipped shaft is the "standard" and we all can play decent with such a cue, as long as it has a decent tip. Looking around for equipment that you feel comfortable with is worth it. But as hang-the-9 has noticed, your stroke will change over time (hopefully for the better...) so that means that your prefrence for equipment might change too.

David Marcus said:

Did we really have to go there! Go back and read the OP then comment intelligently.

Click to expand...

Firstly, who are "we"? Other than your ad hominem remark, you've yet to make a contribution to the OP's thread. In any case, the only person with a vested interest in this thread is the OP.

Secondly, one of the most commonly overlooked issues with consistency is alignment. In many cases crooked cueing is a manufactured compensation for poor alignment. Any aiming system that addresses alignment would be where to look first.

LD, no LD, or LSD isn't the issue. As others whom have chimed in, this Indian would benefit by have his fundamentals corrected, and not complicating issues further by including more variables with different arrows.

Thefonz<== forums benefit from diversity and freedom of thought. Let's not all fall to the nAZi stereotype.:grin: