Ebdon's plunger

Considering that he had a 144 (tied for the high break) and a 139 today in the Championship League, maybe more players should try the mushroom

Quite a few million Americans especially ought to watch Peter Ebdon and note his cue.

A cheap one piece machine spliced Dufferin his parents bought him off the shelf for £15 when he was a teenager.

No laminated chinese chopstick shaft / No Irish Linen wrap / No poncy whacko Jackson glove / No talcum powder / No blade to trim a tip to the ferrule just bungs on an oversized unlaminated tip and then kicks ass.

To play well all you need do is practice, To be in the highest catogory you need natural ability. To be stupid you need to think gadgets will improve your game.

Wity said:

To play well all you need do is practice, To be in the highest catogory you need natural ability. To be stupid you need to think gadgets will improve your game.

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Absolutely, no gimmicks. Talk about fancy cues to become champions, lol, and I thought they were pool players, not snooker players.

Are you certain it is mushroomed or is it just shaped that way? He should use a larger shaft.

Although theres some that like to play with a tip that has spread out and become mushroom shaped it's usually a sign of a poor bit of leather. Most that like the oversize will puposely fit a tip about 1mm bigger. Ebdon may go more i dunno that picture certainly suggests he does.

I grew up playing snooker with a 13mm shaft/tip. Never saw any accuracy gain from using lesser diameter shafts, in fact for me it was just the opposite. It baffles me that so many would use the tiny little twigs - is it preference or just following a tradition?

Granted that I only played on 5x10 tables using 2 1/8" balls, but I could never control the tinier shafts in my bridge hand.

Underclocked said:

I grew up playing snooker with a 13mm shaft/tip. Never saw any accuracy gain from using lesser diameter shafts, in fact for me it was just the opposite....

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It is for everyone. the bigger the tip the more accurate your shot will be but the smaller tip allows you to play side and spin far far easier.

Too small (generally speaking under 8.5mm) and the cues only really suited to uk pool with their smaller balls.

Considering Eanglish billiard cues were usually 11mm my guess is that US pool cues with the bigger balls adopted 13mm as their norm but today with snooker balls no longer being ivory the average is 9.5mm. Methinks the standard of todays pros with snooker proves 9.5 to be ideal so pro rata as per the size of balls us pool players ideal tip should be 11mm.
Is it though? 13mm still seems the most common to me.

I shoot with both a closed bridge and open bridge (depending upon the shot). In either case, but particularly for the closed bridge, there seems to be a "natural fit" so far as shaft size and my hand. Anything much under 13mm seems sloppy and ill-fitting in my fingers.

Using the larger tip never seemed a disadvantage in any respect and certainly not with regard to using English or drawing a ball. The tip shape and ball diameter determine contact area so why not use a cue for snooker that feels right in your hand rather than sticking to the "norms"?

And is there something about ash shafts as compared to good maple that I'm missing? Seriously.

If it's right for you then fine carry on. Is it however more to do with what you've grown up with and got accustomed to rather than being more suited to the job? My money says had you grown up playing snooker on full size tables with a typical 9-10 mm tip and 2+1/16th balls then you'd be a better player today. Kinda like a Kenyan distance runner, who can do the marathon in 3 hours barefoot. Give him some running shoes and he does it in 3hrs 20. Eventually he'll carck the 3 hours in them but for a good while he'll prefer running barefoot.

Ash without doubt is the most popular then maple, and a long way behind horbeam and pear. I guess because historically it was more easily obtained and cheaper than maple I'm not sure. Playing wise theres little between any of them. Actually theres probably more ramin cues in the uk than there are maple omes but thats solely because of its very low price. Ramin cues with painted butts can be found in almost all house cues and pubs (uk pool) Even so thats changing. Ramin has been overfarmed and it's getting dearer.