Any one else go back to cheaper cues ?
- Thread starter lorider
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animatedvmaker
Banned
You could order a custom 1 piece pool cue from a British Snooker cue builder, like Trevor White for example. They are the best at building custom 1 piece cues, and I am sure they would be willing to custom build you a 1 piece pool cue, for pool, not Snooker.
I play with what some would call expensive cues and I play with cheaper cues, but I don't play with a cheaper cue somewhere because I'm afraid to take my more expensive cues.
I take and play with whatever cue I want to play with for the day. I can adjust to all my cues, even though they aren't all the same specs.
When I lived in the Philippines and played some of the best pool I ever played and gambled every day, I always used my cue that I had Richard Black make for me.
I carried that cue into some of the seediest places with pool tables and never worried about it. The cue cost me $175, which was about the price of a Balabushka a couple years before that, and it was considered a top end cue at the time.
All the Filipino players used house cues or locally made cues...the kind that Efren had. I had a chance to buy a thousand of them for $10-20 each, but I never bought one...I always took my Black with me.
If you are afraid to take your cue out to play with it, you should sell it...unless you have a table at home.
I don't buy cues to keep locked up. I buy cues to play with...no matter how much they cost me.
I take and play with whatever cue I want to play with for the day. I can adjust to all my cues, even though they aren't all the same specs.
When I lived in the Philippines and played some of the best pool I ever played and gambled every day, I always used my cue that I had Richard Black make for me.
I carried that cue into some of the seediest places with pool tables and never worried about it. The cue cost me $175, which was about the price of a Balabushka a couple years before that, and it was considered a top end cue at the time.
All the Filipino players used house cues or locally made cues...the kind that Efren had. I had a chance to buy a thousand of them for $10-20 each, but I never bought one...I always took my Black with me.
If you are afraid to take your cue out to play with it, you should sell it...unless you have a table at home.
I don't buy cues to keep locked up. I buy cues to play with...no matter how much they cost me.
Yes Sir you are right , It seems to take a lot of the fun out of having them by not playing with them. I do not own a real expensive Cue . My Meucci is the Nicest cue I have and I really like the look of it. I do not have a table at home and play at a few places. One of them a few of the guys have a habit of picking up your Cue and shooting with it, One of them is a good guy but he will handle you cue more than needed and I have to hide it . Some of the Guys treat it with respect like it was theirs and I do not mind at all if they play with it. I get way to crazy over this stuff . It does take a lot of fun out of it.
Personally I made a rule 40 years ago that no one would use my cue, cheap or expensive. It's easy enough to say "no" in a friendly way. Ever seen someone chalk up and then tap the end of the shaft on the edge of the table?? :angry:
I'm a "dent-free" shaft kinda guy. I wouldn't let someone borrow my truck either.
Not all higher level players play with low-deflection shafts. So, to many, they aren't "relied on".
Many of the higher level players that use standard maple shafts would probably do just fine with an inexpensive cue.
Just my opinion.
Maniac
Just curious....did you take your Richard Black cue with you when you went to the restroom?
Serious question.
I won't take any of my better cues with me if I'm going somewhere that I don't have a family member/friend/teammate with me to watch my cues/cases while I'm taking a leak.
Maniac
The most expensive cue I own is my Jacoby D-11 at about $1,000. It was given to me as a gift. I rarely use it, but for reasons that aren't commonly seen on this thread. I am not a fan of 13mm tips/ferrules. So, I bought a 314-2 shaft for it and played with it for some time (a year maybe) and decided I didn't like the hit/feel of the 314 shaft (but I liked the tip diameter).
So eventually sometime down the road, I wanted to get rid of my 2-ton Instroke Cowboy leather 4x8 case and put it up for sale in the For Sale section here on AZB. I had a member offer to trade me a Larry Vigus 60" cue w/2 shafts for the case. As I already had had Larry make me a 30" butt, I knew what king of quality and workmanship went into his cues, so I instantly jumped on that offer, and that cue has been my main player every since (about seven or eight years now). I think back then that Vigus cue was valued around $400, but the way I understand it, it is now valued higher than it was back then.
For me, it isn't about the cost/value of a cue that does it for me. There is a certain hit/feel that I want, along with a preferred tip diameter (12.5mm give-or-take a couple of mm's), and my Vigus cue(s) deliver that.
I have plenty of other cues...Lucasi, Jacoby, JD cue, Players, Cuetec R360 to name a few. I can shoot just fine with them, but I prefer the hit/feel/balance/tip diameter of my main player to any of them.
Like I said, If I going anywhere to play or the bar is really seedy, and I don't have anyone with me to watch my cues/case when I go to the head, I will take one of my inexpensive cues and a cheap Action J/B cue.
Maniac
So eventually sometime down the road, I wanted to get rid of my 2-ton Instroke Cowboy leather 4x8 case and put it up for sale in the For Sale section here on AZB. I had a member offer to trade me a Larry Vigus 60" cue w/2 shafts for the case. As I already had had Larry make me a 30" butt, I knew what king of quality and workmanship went into his cues, so I instantly jumped on that offer, and that cue has been my main player every since (about seven or eight years now). I think back then that Vigus cue was valued around $400, but the way I understand it, it is now valued higher than it was back then.
For me, it isn't about the cost/value of a cue that does it for me. There is a certain hit/feel that I want, along with a preferred tip diameter (12.5mm give-or-take a couple of mm's), and my Vigus cue(s) deliver that.
I have plenty of other cues...Lucasi, Jacoby, JD cue, Players, Cuetec R360 to name a few. I can shoot just fine with them, but I prefer the hit/feel/balance/tip diameter of my main player to any of them.
Like I said, If I going anywhere to play or the bar is really seedy, and I don't have anyone with me to watch my cues/case when I go to the head, I will take one of my inexpensive cues and a cheap Action J/B cue.
Maniac
Well celo...like i have said before.....always next year. Just not sure if i want to try again when i will be 66 years old. Hard to keep the stamina up against these younger guys all day long.
I think practicing a few nights this week helped and overall i am satisfied with how i played....except for a few key errors at critical times.....like scratching on the 8 once.
In my first match my opponent dry broke and i ran the table. He won the second rack in one inning. I won the third. He won the fourth. Tied at 2 apiece and i scratch on the 8 putting him on the hill. The scorekeeper who is a 6-7 said he didnt see how that cue was able to scratch....told him thats the way my luck goes sometimes. Hate to say it but i let that scratch get in my head and didnt recover and lost the next rack also. Props to my opponent who played pretty near flawless the whole day and won the tournamemt going undefeated.
My next match was a forfeit due to a no show. Now i made a thread a while back about the looong wait between matches in tournaments and this was no exception due to a forfeit and its just the nature of the beast in these tournaments.
This time was pretty bearable due to i kept busy by offering to keep score on matches and was asked to observe close shots a few times. Made the day go a lot faster than the previous tournament along with the fact that it was a well ran tournamemt due to the league operators and a few helpers keeping scores and updating brackets. Props to every one involved.
My next match was basically a repeat of my first match and again a 4-2 loss due to zome uncharastic mistakes by me ..another scratch ..which is a first for me in these type tournaments. Just a couple mental mistakes was the difference . both opponents were at the top of thir game and i was not.
So. I started to leave and was asked if i wanted to play in a 9 ball tournament....open to all handicaps. I looked at the list and said ...you want me to pay 20 bucks to be the first person on this lists rack boy ? Got a laugh outa that one . yea why not.
My firs match was against a 5 and i am a 6. Second rack he broke dry and i was hooked . he got bih ...made the 1 and then a 2-9 combo. I thought oh boy...this aint gonna turn out good. Didnt know how right i was . i had asked a guy i know to keep score and around the 4 th rack my opponent asks me if i knew what the score was . i sand no and thsts why we have a scorekeeper...turns out the scorekeeper had left the table for some reason or another. Aww fug. The scorekeeper just showed back uo and him and my opponent was trying to figure out who made how many balls each rack and i had not a friggin clue . well.lemme say i didnt win thst match cause my head damn near exploded over that screw up and the blame lays entirely on me for asking this guy to keep score and my failure to get my head straight after his screw up.
Later on my name is called for my second match and as i walk up to the counter to get the score sheet the guy handing it to me says i feel sorry for you. I looked at the name of my opponent and said aww crap. He laughed .
So my opponent win the lag. 3 dang break and runs in a row. One time as i was racking and he looked it over i said i wish i knew what to look for. He says well lemme show you . oh yea ...he also managed to make a couple 9 on the breaks ...along with a couple more balls during the match.
Couldnt believe it when he finally had to rack and he said come here and look at the rack. Well i did and he told me where to break from. Damn thst was cool.as hell as i am telling you no one and i mean no one around here that plays at a highrr level has ever offered to give me advice when i asked and this guy was doing it while playing me in a money tournament. I thanked him profusely severl times during the match and a nd a couple more times after the match and even told his wife how grateful. I was for his help and he just smiled and said no problem.
So how did it end up. I shot pretty great...when i got to shoot lol. I scored 38 with me going to 46 so i was very happy with how i shot when i got those oppoelrtunities at the table. Props to my opponent who besides being one of the top players in town is a darn good guy who toom the time to give advice to his opponent during his match. A very rare occurence in the pool world in my opinion.
loaning a cue
I normally don't loan my cue. However my brother came home on leave from the army and I didn't have anything but my player and junk so we were passing my player back and forth and he had it when we were gathering up the balls. Before I could warn him not to he tapped a ball towards the rack area with my stick, hit the ball near or on the ferrule. About two inches of the shaft snapped off. Never seen that before or since. I would have expected a very small dent at worst. My brother couldn't understand why I was angry, not particularly angry at him because he didn't know better, plus I have never seen anything like this before or since.
My brother didn't see why it was a big deal at first, then he offered to buy me a shaft or another cue. He had never been a serious player so he didn't understand that the shaft he snapped and that butt were extensions of my hands. Finding another cue like that was unlikely to be possible. I eventually bought another shaft for it and the new combination played OK. The magic was gone though.
Ever since then I have been kinda froggy when somebody, especially a stranger, reaches for a cue without permission. It was a freak thing that makes no sense at all where and how that shaft broke. I think the pool gods were pissed at me and when they saw a chance to take a shot at me they did! Maybe they just wanted to impress on me that you never loan your weapon. Either way, no more loaning my weapon. When I hold somebody else's cue I am very very careful with it, the pool gods may be looking my way!
Hu
Personally I made a rule 40 years ago that no one would use my cue, cheap or expensive. It's easy enough to say "no" in a friendly way. Ever seen someone chalk up and then tap the end of the shaft on the edge of the table?? :angry:
I'm a "dent-free" shaft kinda guy. I wouldn't let someone borrow my truck either.
I normally don't loan my cue. However my brother came home on leave from the army and I didn't have anything but my player and junk so we were passing my player back and forth and he had it when we were gathering up the balls. Before I could warn him not to he tapped a ball towards the rack area with my stick, hit the ball near or on the ferrule. About two inches of the shaft snapped off. Never seen that before or since. I would have expected a very small dent at worst. My brother couldn't understand why I was angry, not particularly angry at him because he didn't know better, plus I have never seen anything like this before or since.
My brother didn't see why it was a big deal at first, then he offered to buy me a shaft or another cue. He had never been a serious player so he didn't understand that the shaft he snapped and that butt were extensions of my hands. Finding another cue like that was unlikely to be possible. I eventually bought another shaft for it and the new combination played OK. The magic was gone though.
Ever since then I have been kinda froggy when somebody, especially a stranger, reaches for a cue without permission. It was a freak thing that makes no sense at all where and how that shaft broke. I think the pool gods were pissed at me and when they saw a chance to take a shot at me they did! Maybe they just wanted to impress on me that you never loan your weapon. Either way, no more loaning my weapon. When I hold somebody else's cue I am very very careful with it, the pool gods may be looking my way!
Hu
Ouch!! :embarrassed2: That would be a surprise. You should have thanked him for his service and then kicked his ass. :grin:
I hear ya though. I don't wanna be pissed at a friendly for a mistake. Easy enough to say it's your pool wife and point at the wall of sticky, dented cues.
I appreciate you taking the time to write a book in hopes it will help my game. :grin-square:. On a serious note i think you are absolutely correct in your post and i am already aware of most of what you typed and have not purchased a new cue in quiye a while....just 2 carbon shafts. Just cant help but pull a cue out ofthe closet every once in a while lol..
As for practice ? Well you are exactly spot on about my lack of practice. Although we have free practice time before and after matches i have always just showed up and then pull my cues out when its time for my match.
However i did decide to go and practice last Wednesday and thursday for our 8 ball regional held saturday. Had league friday. I took the sneaky Wednesday but took the revo Thursday and played with it...thursday...friday...saturday and sunday.
I believe i have settled on the revo and a sneaky break cue i have had for a while and have used it constantly since Thursday also. Also looked at tilor lowery videos but i found a video from sharivari that will help be more because i am hearing impaired and sharivaris videos have a great visual aid in having a cue ball at the top of the screen thwt displays an x where to contact the cue ball before every shot. I belive that video will help improveme my cue ball control and position play greatly.
Thanks for the advice.