Get rid of jump cues for Mosconi Cup
- Thread starter hang-the-9
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Simple and slightly long winded answer. A little bit about me. 5'8", 50 years old and grew up in Canada playing snooker. At any height playing snooker you learn to play well with a reach/bridge or you die. Most tables or at least every snooker hall has an assortment of bridges for various tasks. Short, Long (10-11 feet + plus matching cue), specialty stuff like goose neck and other toys.
Fifteen years ago switched predominantly to pool with still a lot of Golf played on a 12 foot snooker table for laughs (probably my strongest games). To play top level golf for the $$$ you need an extensive arsenal of shots including multiple rail kicks, masses, multi-rail banks and exotic carom shots...with and without a bridge and sometimes even the long sticks. Snooker and Golf allow no jumping.
When I go to the states i see great players...world class who can barely operate a bridge. I find it comical. Then they watch me draw the rock 8 feet with it and are god smacked. For me it's a natural extension. It doesn't help me make the shot. It simply allows me to reach. Not that I play on any but even on a bar box I cannot reach table length. The reach is like a the lights (or chalk) and does not make the shot easier.
I think our friend JB (and others) confuse good for the industry with good for the game. Selling jump cues and Matchroom showing cute jump shots for TV is attractive to the uninitiated and thus maybe the industry. Not the sport.
I can jump. Considering how little I do it I'm remarkably adept at it. I have good fundamentals and a consistent stroke and a cue that pops the ball makes most types of jump shots pretty standard. When I play someone who doesn't jump, my JC stays in the bag. Period full stop. Intentional hook, fluke hook to an easy jump....don't matter. No jumping. When gambling I prefer no jumping but I won't lose a customer over it. The reality is that most people over estimate their probability to execute most jumps. So fill your boots.
For the game I think all of us understand it's not right. In Hockey the Goal Keepers pads became ridiculous. it became like the arms race. In the end the NHL stepped in for the integrity of the game and made them scale back. Ditto in tennis otherwise rackets would be 4 feet round.
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Oops. I shouldn't do hungover math. 3/32" difference, total. Thanks!
$10k was official added to Lou's pocket 2 years ago. You don't like it....play him for $10k again. Play the man if you want, but whining about it won't get you your money back.
I wish you approached your life the way you approach the argument for jump cues.
Well it's not in all games , Joe Tucker's fast growing American Rotation does not allow jump cues
Also room owners are banning them also our 130 APA team room does not allow them
So are some Pro's matching up like Bergman are stipulating no jump cues
So I would say the revolution has already started
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Perhaps that's part of why Americans lag behind when they should be leading in billiard sports. They always want to change the rules, even the pros.
I wouldn't call it a revolution. When people match up it's like in boxing, they can negotiate lots of variables.
More room owners allow them in America than don't. Outside the USA every room I have been to allows jump cues. Some even have them available as house cues. And I have been to at least a hundred different rooms around the world.
What happens if the room that caters to the APA hosts an APA Master's Division tournament there? Will they allow the master players to use jump cues? If not then they are going against the rules of the league that pays their rent AND handicapping the players who showed up to play by taking away a legal cue.
As I mentioned before, the nicest room in OKC, Jamacia Joes, allows jump cues on the big tables and forbids them on the bar tables for no other reason than the previous owner did it. So it's not even consistent within a pool room.
I have also seen rooms that ban jump cues for certain levels of players but not for higher level players. For example if a decent action match happens then jump cues are allowed.
I think it's all silly. Just get with the program and treat the game as a sport and let the players use all legal cues just like the amateurs and professionals can in all other countries. There is really zero need for this debate.
The only reason it still exists is personal sensitivity. No one in this thread who is anti-jump cue has given any logical reason to keep them out. The main reason is "I don't like them".
Well, that's too bad....I don't like some things either but if I can't change it and I refuse to do the work to change it then I have to live with it.
We can go tit-fot-tat forever here and it won't change anything. American players are still going to be handicapped against their foreign counterparts because of this schizophrenic relationship with jump cues. In 50 years when the last of the "old school" pre-1980s players are long dead no one will ever remember than anyone ever argued about it. Jump cues will just be as accepted in the USA as they are in the rest of the world as simply part of a complete arsenal for any player.
Until then the American player will have to just go from tournament-to-tournament and room-to-room adapting to whatever rule changes local overlords want to impose on them. I bet I could find 20 different sets of rules for 20 9 Ball tournaments each week in the USA. That's the real problem, not jump cues.
Oh gee, that burns.
Not only is the analogy not even close to being right it's a weak attempt at an insult as well.
I do approach life the same way, I live based on facts that I control. That's why I sold jump cues, BECAUSE THEY ARE LEGAL.
I didn't lobby anyone for jump cue legality in order to sell them. The people who make the rules made them legal and I had some built and sold the shit out of them. Along the way I learned everything I could about jump cues and jumping and the history of them. I have listened to all the arguments on both sides.
And come to the conclusion that they are INDEED a good addition to the game based on the facts.
IF I were against them as passionately as you pretend to be then I would gather my facts and present my case to the rule makers. But the fact is you owned 10 or so jump cues so you're not really against them, you like to blather on in threads like these where it makes ZERO difference.
If I were against jump cues the rules would be changed already. Just like when I put up $10,000 to play a challenge match instead of constantly blathering about it.
And 20 years ago the people who make the rules looked at the equipment, wrote specifications and officially made jump cues legal for use.
No, not all of us think the same way on this subject. Many in this thread and MOST of the people who play pool around the world think that there is no problem at all with jump cues. They see them as good additions to the game adding a lot more shots and excitement and another level of skill to pool.
Jump cues are GREAT for pocket billiards sports. Matchroom gets it as did the WPA and the BCA and The Texas Express group more than 20 years ago.
Want to be a zillion dollars I can give you a regular cue with a regular tip that you can jump with and feel like a world champion and then give you another regular cue that you couldn't jump to save your life with?
The three year old jumping with a shaft shows that even a three year old needs to have a solid bridge and a good stroke and know the right angle. Plus, he jumped over a shaft because a three year old doesn't have the POWER to make a 6oz ball ball clear an object ball.
I see though that you conveniently ignored the video of the SAME three year old doing a bunch of kick shots. Proof that even a three year old can learn to do legal kick shots but can't perform a legal jump shot.
Again your opinion , most I know who play around the world don't like jump cues
I don't know about the getting it part either some people just do believe in anything but what's in thier pocket , it's like voting with your wallet ,
Traditionalists and Purists are only considering things from the stand point of the integrity of the game ,
Often they can be blinded till the see enough body of work that makes them realize sometimes even a minor change can have a catastrophic effect
This is what they saw in the case of the goalie pads , or what golf saw with square grooves ,, so the changed it back
It's quite obvious as people were grasping at straws trying to pick up the falling pool product and making game altering changes that had zero impact on saving the game and the only ones who prosperd were the makers and sellers of the cues
It's sad that pool had to become the whore to the industry just to line a few pockets
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Intentional jump shots should be illegal in a pure game. They aren't though so no problem here with jump cues. I'm not convinced that Matchroom needs them to sell the game - that has to be driven by the characters in the game for longevity. So no real need for jump shots. But they are allowed so....
The room hosts all that Areas APA anuals and Tri from masters down ,, if I'm not mistaken that room has the most APA teams in it of any place in the country , and that Area is the second largest ,
Your assessment of why people don't approve are incorrect as your stance on why pool is falling behind
I'll state it again maybe it will sink in ,, jump cues go against the way the game was ment to be played ,, that is by rolling the ball ,, not by flight ,, there has never been one rule or piece of equipment that has changed that or any other part of the game
Where are falling behind because here in America winning 10 dollars can't feed us for a week pool ofers no more that poverty money here and there are 1000s of ways out of the gutter besides pool ,, so our pool of players who has a intent to make a living is dwarfed by the rest of the world
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That's excatly correct not one viewer would not watch if they took jump cues out of the match
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In 9 ball under ball in hand rules jump shots are needed. I doubt Matchroom really cares but if they were asked - and keep in mind they can make whatever rules they want to - I am 99% sure that they would opt to keep them because of the excitement and drama that jump shots bring. And since jump cues allow so many more opportunities to jump I think that they would be fine with jump cues staying part of the Mosconi Cup.
Snooker is way different in that there is no requirement to contact a rail after contact and often more than one ball to shoot at. In rotation games the shooter has only one ball that must be contacted and penalty for not making a legal hit is severe.