So, at my last tournament there was a sea of REVOs. I was kind of surprised, but people seem to have gotten hold of them in spite of being sold out. There didn't seem to be any connection between having that shaft and finishing high, however. Quite frankly, I'm astonished with how fast it has been adopted and used. Nobody seems to want the wooden Predators anymore, unless they allready own them and cant afford the new wonder.
This does show that there is a market for high priced items in pool, as long as people consider them to be upgrades. However the market for lessons still sucks, as the top players around here are struggling to get even a few clients. Which is a pity, because they know a lot and some are good at teaching as well. Guess people are only interested in buying skill, not working for it.
With the Cuetec coming out, I foresee even more black shafted cues next year. At this rate I wonder if any of my friends will be playing with wooden shafts next year (my friends are mostly serious players). I always felt that carbon was the future of pool, but it's now proving to be the present. Maybe there is a market in snooker as well? I kind of doubt it, but I was wrong about just how quickly the pool world was taken over. I thought it would be at least a year or two longer to see this level of acceptance.
I remember thinking the 314 being a bit of a hyped up shaft when it started to become more widespread. I compared it to my (admittedly shitty) Meucci black dot, and thought the deflection reduction wasn't much to write home about. Whatever advantage there was was only noticeable at speed and the 314 I thought behaved very strangely, suddenly deflecting a lot more at a certain speed, while the Black dot seemed to behave more predictably even with higher deflection. I didn't change until the Z came, which IMO was a genuine improvement, more so than the 314 in the deflection department, but actually was a downgrade in playability. The black dot was garbage, I even thought so then, but I played ok with it. Perhaps the deflection it had suited me better than the Z.
Now there are dozens of shafts that deflect very little, and I'm struggling to see the advantages of the carbon shaft. It feels clumsy to me, numb and I think the jury is still out as to any actual PLAYING improvements provided. So far I haven't seen any in my opponents. It will be interesting to see wether the people who actually bought the REVO will keep them and if their level of skill will change for the better. I still remember the massive unloading of Z shafts about a year after the introduction...People realized they played worse, but it actually took a full year for that to set in. Suddenly you could get a Z for very little money.
Also, it will be interesting to see wether the REVO players playing styles will change. Will they adopt longer bridges, will they play with more sidespin, more offensively maybe? It will be an exciting year for sure and it will be interesting to watch from the sidelines for once, rather than jumping on the bandwagon directly as usual.
This does show that there is a market for high priced items in pool, as long as people consider them to be upgrades. However the market for lessons still sucks, as the top players around here are struggling to get even a few clients. Which is a pity, because they know a lot and some are good at teaching as well. Guess people are only interested in buying skill, not working for it.
With the Cuetec coming out, I foresee even more black shafted cues next year. At this rate I wonder if any of my friends will be playing with wooden shafts next year (my friends are mostly serious players). I always felt that carbon was the future of pool, but it's now proving to be the present. Maybe there is a market in snooker as well? I kind of doubt it, but I was wrong about just how quickly the pool world was taken over. I thought it would be at least a year or two longer to see this level of acceptance.
I remember thinking the 314 being a bit of a hyped up shaft when it started to become more widespread. I compared it to my (admittedly shitty) Meucci black dot, and thought the deflection reduction wasn't much to write home about. Whatever advantage there was was only noticeable at speed and the 314 I thought behaved very strangely, suddenly deflecting a lot more at a certain speed, while the Black dot seemed to behave more predictably even with higher deflection. I didn't change until the Z came, which IMO was a genuine improvement, more so than the 314 in the deflection department, but actually was a downgrade in playability. The black dot was garbage, I even thought so then, but I played ok with it. Perhaps the deflection it had suited me better than the Z.
Now there are dozens of shafts that deflect very little, and I'm struggling to see the advantages of the carbon shaft. It feels clumsy to me, numb and I think the jury is still out as to any actual PLAYING improvements provided. So far I haven't seen any in my opponents. It will be interesting to see wether the people who actually bought the REVO will keep them and if their level of skill will change for the better. I still remember the massive unloading of Z shafts about a year after the introduction...People realized they played worse, but it actually took a full year for that to set in. Suddenly you could get a Z for very little money.
Also, it will be interesting to see wether the REVO players playing styles will change. Will they adopt longer bridges, will they play with more sidespin, more offensively maybe? It will be an exciting year for sure and it will be interesting to watch from the sidelines for once, rather than jumping on the bandwagon directly as usual.
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