Baron said:

I feel the exact same. It's weird - the thick nickel ring the Tascarellas do looks great, and yet thin it up just a little bit and the same cue looks cheap to me. It's a problem I have with a lot of Scruggs cues.

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I had a nice deal offered to me on Russ Espiritu cue that I passed up because of the thin metal rings he most often used. I do already own one of his cues.

It's also one of the reasons I have never been into Schön cues. I don't own any.

I don't typically like metal rings, especially thin ones, anywhere in cues and have relatively few with them.

So, it is one of the things that stands out on a custom to me when I come across it.

Bavafongoul said:

a lot less Pepper.

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Are you sure? Double it! Ok, maybe it's just me. I am known to put cayenne pepper in my peanut butter.

I think anyone should be able to join, it's called an "open" after all

That being said, I think the likelihood of winning literally 0 racks is somewhat high if you're below 500 or so

Follow up question: if spots are limited and you are towards/at the low end of the Fargo range, do you think etiquette requires waiting to register until late, to give as many higher rated players as possible a chance to register before you? Or is it first come first serve, and tough luck to any 810 full time pro who was hoping to make a few bucks but forgot to early-reg? Is it on the organizers to implement a "players below X rating must wait until the week before to register" type rule?

june-bug said:

Yeah, kind of like that hill hill, long straight in 10 ball I missed last night at league. Stung real bad. Went home and shot that same shot for about 30 minutes. Just pissed me off to miss a shot that I ordinarily nail.

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Can you recall what was different about the miss in competition? Sometimes the problem is not just the shot.

I won't mention the cue builder's name, but I was shocked by the appearance and feel of a legendary builder's cue. This was in Japan around 25 years ago, and the cue's owner had recently taken delivery of it. The points were so round that I thought the cue looked like a Fisher-Price toy. Despite the points and inlays, the cue struck me as quite basic and underwhelming. Worse was the dead hit. I would have been disappointed if I paid $600 for that cue, let alone the 10 times more that the owner paid for it.

To be fair, I don't know what description or drawing the owner gave the builder when he was ordering the cue. I've order a few cues that way and learned that I'm better off buying finished cues that I can see and try. But the cues I ordered at least had a good hit and feel. Even if the builder gave that Japanese customer what he asked for, the cue's hit still had the grace of a foam dowel.