I watched a live stream of an 800 Fargo rate player, competing in a $20 weekly tournament, recently.

So Alex Kazakis (824) played in the Scottish Open last May. This is what he was doing a few weeks before and a few weeks after.

I'd say Athens players are pretty fortunate.

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Incredible that he didn't even win that open tournament. Looks like it was single elimination and he lost to George Antonakis, a 750 rated pro.

Take all of the weight out of your break cue

I disagree
You usually don’t grip the playing cue and the break cue the same, so balance and weight should not be the same. Any good instructor will teach you to grip the break cue more forward.
Grip the break cue more forward? I never heard that. That would tend to shorten your stroke...like telling a baseball player to hold the bat more in front of him.

What beginner pool tip do you wish you learned sooner?

The stick thing is bs. I believe there are three phases a person should go through.

First, a beginner who is serious about getting better should buy a decent cue that is 18-19.5 oz. Play with that exclusively until they have developed decent cueball control.

Second, it is important to pay with anything. This is cross-training, and will assist in showing flaws and fixing them. It will also show that a cue is just a cue and not the reason someone is a good player.

Finally, the absolute best probably need to stick with the same cue.

If you believe that the cue is much of a factor, you are wrong and will likely always have it as an excuse.

Chalk Habits and A Doozy of an AccuStats

I agree that most of the sales are for that reason. I've had a home table many times over the years, and they stay much cleaner with the Taom. To each their own, but $20 is nothing nowadays when everyone seems to have thousands of dollars worth of gear. My current piece has lasted me several months now and it's maybe halfway done.

A home table is a good reason for cleaner chalk and with what I have spent on other equipment I sure wouldn't grudge spending on equipment that made for better success competing if I still was. I have spent over a thousand dollars to gain less than a tenth of a second or a hundredth of an inch smaller groups.

I ended up with six pieces of one super chalk or another in my case. I kept using the Master. After toting the other stuff six months or longer I gave it all to a friend. Master has never seemed to handicap me. Some of the other classic brands seem more inclined to cause miscues so I don't use them.

Hu

Take all of the weight out of your break cue

In physical theory it semms like that the cue speed is the more dominant factor than the cue weight, this means for example 10 % more cue speed is accelerating the white ball more than 10 % more cue weight. That's theory.

I think the anatomy of players are even more dominant than cue speed or cue weight. It would be to me much more practically relevant that the playing cue and the break cue should have the same weight (and perhaps also the same balance point), because this is the dominant issue if it goes about muscle memory. The final question is: Until which level of action + power given by the player into the cue stick can a controlled stroke result!

Going into this question, it will result into the answer that the muscle memory is the most important and limiting factor. Knowing that we perform much more strokes with our playing cue than with the break cue, the muscle memory is calabrated mainly during the playing strokes, not by the break trokes.

For these arguments my conclusion is: Weight of playing cue and break cue should be identical.
I disagree
You usually don’t grip the playing cue and the break cue the same, so balance and weight should not be the same. Any good instructor will teach you to grip the break cue more forward.
The body mechanics are also different, you should drop the elbow on a break shot but not during normal play, not to mention those who move the whole body during the break.

In my opinion, the break cue should have a bit forward balance point.
As for weight, it should be as light as possible while not losing control.

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