letting friends use your cue

R

rheester

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
hey guys,

so this comes up every so often for me.

i'm shooting pool w/ friends who don't normally shoot often. i bring my case which contains 3 cues. my friends want to see what custom cues look like.

now, when it comes time to play, i don't want to make things weird and put 2 of em away and only use my personal player, so i offer them to use them and give them a cautionary note to be careful.

lo and behold what happens, BANG, mishit due to not chalking appropriately, knocking the shaft on the rails, and the list goes on and on.

i try to be a low key guy and not be too possessive, at least outright, but deep inside i can't help but shake my head at them and myself for letting this happen.

after the session, a quick survey of the cues reveals a few new small dents on the shafts and one big on on the butt cap.

good thing they weren't $$ cues, but still.

just wondering if others have had their own experiences and if they have learned anything from it.
 
no one uses my custom shooter or my lomax jump to play. period. i have people i trust who have hit a few balls with them but that's it. my break is a players i spent 25 bucks for (hell the samsara j/b tip cost more at $45) and that i'll let people use but even then i cringe at some of the things they do.
 
I have a old beater joss sneaky that I'll let people use from time to time. They can't hurt it.

Don't loan out my player, regardless of what that might be.
 
I was practicing the other night and a stranger wanted to hit some with me and since he seemed OK I let him use an old Olivier I carry. He was respectful, polite and we had a good time. I would not let someone I do not know use my favorite cue but my old Olivier I had no problems letting the guy use. He was from Arizona here visiting and it was all good.
 
Friends

If I am playing pool casually with friends that are bangers. I do not even bust out my cues. I play off the wall.
 
I like loaning my cues out to friends, even folks I dont know. If my equipment comes back dented and dinged I just buy more....Hell I have a wall covered with beat up fighten sticks ;).











J/K
 
I bought a brand new Predator P3 a few months back and I love the stick but it cost enough that I am very careful about it getting banged around or stolen. The stick (yes, I usually say "stick", not "cue", there was a whole other thread about this and sorry for those it bothers) replaced my original playing cue, which is a Dufferin.

I also have a Predator BK2 break cue.

Anyway I have two friends that come over regularly to play. One of them is more my pool playing buddy and has his own cues so no issue there, but the other is my best friend who is not really a pool player and doesn't own a pool stick. He also doesn't seem to know how to properly treat a pool cue. We usually rotate games when we play with one guy sitting out each game, and for a while he kept picking up the P3, uninvited, to shoot with it whenever it was my turn to sit out. I kept having to take it from him and offer him the Dufferin saying, "Here, this stick is for you." He didn't seem to get it until I had to make it clear that it was a permanent arrangement that he would not use the P3.

I do reluctantly let him use my Predator BK2 to break because he likes it much better than the other guys break cue (a Fury jump/break cue), but I cringe a little bit inside every time he picks that one up because he has miscued badly a couple of times on the break. Thankfully it hasn't happened in a while. He's starting to get a little better trying to keep up with us.

Sorry for the long post. One more example of my pool stick paranoia. I recently participated in our annual military base-wide tournament as a player and the coach for our Agency's team. I've played in it before and know there are a lot of bangers and substandard equipment. I didn't even bring my new cues. Just brought the old Dufferin and broke with a stick off the wall.

So I can relate to your anxiety and I know it is hard to say no to your friends. But no matter how good the friend, if he was banging my stick around like you describe in the original post, I'd have to apologize and hand him another stick.
 
I never share my cue, girlfriend or motorcycle, everything else is in play.
 
there a few people who respect others cues. the big thing for me is they didnt buy it so they dont care if it gets dinged up or dropped...it is not theirs! unless its a beater that i dont care about, i will not let anyone use it. accidents do happen!
 
After finding a cue I really love to use I try not to let anyone else use it, but there are times when playing king of the hill and I lose where the next person asks to use my cue.

Bangers I just tell them no because I know the dents will come, even better players I might tell them no because they chalk the ferrule more than the tip.

Only a select few I would let use the cue for a game and even then wouldn't feel comfortable. Every other cue I've owned has been the opposite though, as time goes on I become more willing to let people try it out, not this one though.
 
i will pretty much let anyone use my cues as long as they are a actual pool player that knows how to respect a cue. i only let one of my friends who doesnt play often use my cue as he is very respectful and knows the value of my cues.
 
I keep a $50 Ontario (Dufferin copy) that I lend out to friends, acquaintances and opponents. Its affordable enough that I'm not going to develop an attachment if it gets dinged up, broken, or stolen.
 
strutter said:
i don't let bangers use my cue,period! only certain people can use my cue.
Click to expand...

S-man,
I let a top pro player use my cue (a Predator at that time) during a lesson. He decided to break the balls with it (incredibly powerful break) and cracked the ferrule.

When I sent the cue to Predator to replace the ferrule; they sent it back to me with a C-shaped shaft...end of the line for that cue (Predator would NOT replace it, and when I bought another one, it came new with a fair warp to it...which they also would not replace).

My thought is that it is probably bad to lend your cue to anyone of any skill level. Expensive lesson learned.

P.S. - and also buy OB-1, they stand behind their product.
 
I dont let many people use my current cue. Its just a old 233 meucci. My brother, and brother inlaw use it during are league night. But with doug patrick building me a cue no one will use it. So im giving my brother inlaw the meucci. And my buddy is giving my brother a cuetec. Thats how im taking care of my situtation.
 
There are some yokels down here at the bar tournaments that will ask to use my cue because they think it will make them play better than if they used a house cue. I say "sorry, but I never let anyone use my playing cue". Later I see/hear them slam the house cue on the tables when they dog a shot! Glad I didn't let them use mine!!
 
Island Drive said:
I never share my cue, girlfriend or motorcycle, everything else is in play.
Click to expand...

I let everyone use my cue. It's meant to be played. If it was worth that much to me, I'd put it in a glass case.

You can use my girlfriend too....but I have a strict no-return policy. You want her? You keep her.

I don't have a motorcycle so that's a non-issue. But everyone in the world has driven my cars at some point.
 
The Schwartz said:
There are some yokels down here at the bar tournaments that will ask to use my cue because they think it will make them play better than if they used a house cue. I say "sorry, but I never let anyone use my playing cue". Later I see/hear them slam the house cue on the tables when they dog a shot! Glad I didn't let them use mine!!
Click to expand...

But, if they were using your cue, they wouldn't have missed.

I will let most anybody use my cues. It's cheap feedback on the cues I make.

Larry
 
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