Tennesseejoe said:

Thanks for sharing this post. This puts it in perspective for me, but I have a question. For a person with 8-10 inch bridge, would you suggest a regular shaft or a LD?

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That is a good question, and one that I don't have the answer to.

Are LD shafts more forgiving if there is error in choosing the point you pivot the cue around? I don't know, I'm waiting for someone to do the experiments on this.

In the meantime I will stick with a maple shaft that has a 12" pivot point. At least with it, the pivot point is in the visual field so I can see where I am pivoting.

I don’t think that at amateur levels, it makes any difference who breaks first.

KingSamurai said:

I have been playing in some tournaments where I run into players who refuse to lag the ball to determine whose break. On short races on a template rack, the break is a big advantage and I prefer to lag. It generally is the lower skilled players who insist on flipping and I been having a couple people throw a fit lately. I always thought that the default was lagging if there was a disagreement. I guess I was curious on what opinions are out there regarding this.

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I really don’t care. If it’s a lower level player as you say odds are if they win the break they aren’t going to break and run anyway .. just going to remove some balls in your way playing 8 ball or give you an easier out playing 9 ball so who cares. I try not to over think stuff like this.

Mensabum said:

It's hard to teach tricks to Old Dawgs who already know them. They wrote the book.
I know for a fact I have several wood shafts that will out perform CF any day of the week. But that's prolly just wishful thinking from this old dawg??

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It's all about the maple. The aged stuff from Canada was the best. Thus the early success of Mezz cues.

I Had an older Bushka replica by Adams, when the original CEO ran the company before leaving to work for Calloway, where he got filthy rich. His name was Dick ?

It was a damn good import cue for that time period.

Whatever works for you is just fine

Onepocketking1 said:

Hello AZB Family! I’ve just realized something the other night after shooting some 1hole. My tip had gotten kind of flat due to me not shaping it for a while. I actually was getting more action then when it was rounded. I would love to hear if any of you have experienced this. I’m thinking of leaving my tips a little flatter than my usual dime shape.

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Boom! I learned about this from Little Al Romero. He liked to leave a small flat spot in the middle of tips he installed. When asked why he simply said " better hit."

easy-e said:

Great suggestion! Went there today for a couple of hours. They definitely take care of the equipment! Probably heading back tomorrow.

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They just recovered the tables about 3 weeks ago… good timing!!

Definitely up to the tournament organizer.

But if you think youre an enormous favorite to win the lag against an opponent then it's unlikely them winning the first break is that big of a deal anyway . So in that case, you should just accept the coinflip and move on. Chances are you're not as big of a fav to win the lag as you think you are anyway. But lose the flip half the time and it won't change your win percentage much at all against those feeble players who can't lag.

Put the shoe on the other foot, do you think you're never winning the lag against a better player than yourself? Doubtful. Even against the greats you're still clipping them more than you think unless you just can't perform in the moment and then it wouldn't matter if you did win that coin flip

I have stayed in several Tru (by Hilton) hotels in MS and they all have 8' Brunswick in the lobby. The condition of the table is inconsistent, always with cheap slow cloth and cheap balls.

MattPoland said:

I don’t even think they should ensure he can make a living. That’s still on him. He needs to pay his own phone bill, rent, food, car, etc.

But that sponsorship is to turn him into a walking billboard. They don’t need to be his mommy waking him up on time by rubbing his tummy. But what kind of complacency would it be to not care if he has enough hotel and gas money to even make it to major domestic events. They should be picking up the phone after this saying “What’s going on here? We don’t want this for you.” Or go the other way…

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I think the package offered by a company should be in line with the attention the player can bring to their product. If Billy is under compensated by Meucci then some other company could offer more and attract Billy. If Meucci lost Tyler and or Billy, then they need to reevaluate their package.