First of all, thank you for starting this podcast.
Nick was my hero when I started getting serious about pool. He was great but remained humble, and had great character. Easy to choose him. I love the opportunity to get to know more about the personality of the greats, and and how they got to where they rose in pool.

cueball2010 said:

I am more impressed by the man who plays with a $8000 dollar cue instead of locking it up in a windowed closet.

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There's an older gentleman I know that shoots with an original Balabushka in a bar league. It looks nothing like the CoM cue so most folks wouldn't recognize it.

Bump

BasementDweller said:

It's actually ridiculous how many great players there are. This may end up being a problem for Matchroom if they really want to develop known commodities. There's just too many players that can play + .900 level TPA even on tough equipment.

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I don't entirely agree. I think there’s a lot of very good players, but great ones? I'd count fewer than 10 truly elite players at the moment. Filler, Gorst, Yapp, Biado, SVB, Chua, one of both of the Ko brothers and perhaps Shaw.

Next up are the near-great category. I'd put FSR, Alcaide and Eklent Kaci (post injury) into that category, but a case can be made they are still elite.

Albin Ouschan has really fallen off in the past year, but I am not ready to punt him into just “very good” status.

In any case, the winners of the 19 Big Matchroom majors since 2022 - really the start of the WNT touring era - come almost entirely from the small group of players listed above.

The only exceptions were Dang Jin Hu, Robbie Capito and Mickey Krause.

Lots of new players, of course, are aiming for elite status. More than ever, it seems.But it takes tremendous effort to get there – and stay there.

Capito and Krause, for instance, have yet to break into elite status despite winning MR majors.

Krause is the more likely of the two to get there, but he’s been up and down since winning the European Open in 2024.

Beyond those two, there are plenty of potentially great players. They have yet to arrive, though.

garczar said:

No. CF tube/rod down the center. That's what Oscar said and he uses that shaft. They aren't weaving cf fabric between the plys. Near impossible to do.

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Quick question. I hate to dig up this thread, but its less than a year old and don't wanna flood the forums with excessive topics.

On both the Lucasi and Pure X, when it comes to the tip end of the shaft, is the front end hollowed out like predator etc etc, then a cf tube, then hollow, or do they fill that void up front with foam? I am thinking about the Mezz HPII, or the new Predator Centro, where I believe the inside of the CF tube in the front of the shaft is hollow.

As always, thanks for the info everyone.

Iwishiwasrich said:

I think the op was talking wood shafts not carbon cored.

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Wood over a CF is what I am looking for. I'm open to other options, and after looking at a few of the ones mentioned here I'm really interested in the Kielwood and Kielwood over CF shafts.

fastone371 said:

Can layered tips be pressed and milked like a milk dud?

Maybe AZB needs an "Ask the Tip Maker" section??

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The problem with layered tips is the glue layer. As the tip wears the glue is at the point of contact at times. This changes the tip / ball interaction. Fly specks on whitey is evidence of the glue layer leaving the tip. The lost traction could be the fraction that caused a miss. Triangle is my go to tip.

Have we entered the Twilight Zone????

Stroke without a cue ball, key words include oily, soft, buttery, smoooooooooth.

In practice, stroke all the way back and through as if there's no cue ball.

Curious to see what anybody else has in just ebony/maple spliced cues, no veneers. Please post pics! Maybe some customs?

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People are going to get tired of seeing this one since i've posted a couple times in past, but since you asked: