When I am shooting poorly I get bad rolls. I scratch a lot. It’s not bad luck. It’s me not visualizing the shot and anticipating that the CB will go there to scratch or get hooked, or not consciously avoiding running into other balls where it can carom and scratch or get hooked. Scratches and hiding the CB of these types are indeed avoidable if one plays the percentages by taking utmost care of the CB.

The only “bad luck” roll might be scratching on the break after parking the rock center of the table and having it get knocked in. Even worse playing 8 and snapping it but also scratching (under rule sets where that is a loss.)

Conversely, it seems that when I am shooting well the rolls come. Don’t know if that’s good luck or the subconscious planning the outcome when I might not even realize I saw and planned the good outcome.

I truly believe “luck” plays less of a role than we might be inclined to admit.

Very interesting interview with Crossroads cues and Carmeli cues just posted on Facebook about the different hit of different woods in cue butts. For those that say a butt is just a butt, I wouldn't be so sure about that.
I must correct, wasn't specifically just dealing with different woods, that just came up when discussing a few different ones on display. Also as to how they have adjusted their coring methods since laminated cores have been hard to get.