be honest. Does it really matter??????

As my husband says (non-PC), "It ain't the arrow, it's the Indian".

You can run racks with a Dufferin one-piece bar cue. Myself, I need to have a pro taper, for my small fingers, and I don't like the varnish, or for it to be sticky. I also prefer a lighter cue, with a narrow shaft and butt. The tip has to be able to hold chalk and I like for it to be about half the height of a new tip.

With all that said, I have won with a bar cue. My scuffer goes with me everywhere on my key chain, so all I do is rough up the tip and away we go!

My only requisites (if I had to go with a $19 cue) are a pro taper and a good tip.
 
cueball1950 said:
I would just like everyones honest opinion on whether it really makes a difference in you game if you shoot with a $2500.00 cue or a $19.00 cue. does the custom cue really make you play better.
The reason for this type of question is i have a couple of custom cues (both a Russ Espiritu and a Phillippi) that i can shoot with but yet i can shoot just as well with a cheap cue like a players or what ever.
What makes me ask this question is the last 2 times i saw Jose Parica shoot he cashed ( 2nd at theJoss event at turning stone casino last year, and at the open last year) he was shooting with a $19.00 cue with decals. He told me he shoots better with these cheap cues.... just thought i would ask. Thanks for taking the time to read and reply to this thread........mike
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Efren played with a $10 cue for years & Strickland still plays with a $119 cue (Overpriced) and I play with a $2500 cue and I wouldn't have a chance getting the 3 out against either of them.
 
Ok I've read this post long enough. I started out using a $255 Mcdermott, then switched to a 2500 custom cue....It improved my game dramatically, expecially in tournament and money play...

Ok, now 10 years later, I've played with a $400 cue and a 2500 dollar cue and I've broken and ran out four straight racks of nine with a house cue....Does it make a difference...Damn straight it does....

A custom cue will absolutely improve your consistency.. A lot of what people here have said regarding a specific shaft on any cue is true to an extent... then comes feel, anything about the feel of a cue that distracts from your concentration will decrease your consistency.

Can Archer or Parica or Efren play well with any cue or a broomstick?

Absolutely, but they can't play their best game...Plus they have dedicated themselves to achieving a level of concentration that most will NEVER get.

So in answer to your question, anything above about 4-500 dollars is aesthetic value only, a custom cue is only good for intimidation if the players don't know you, or for custom weight feel aesthetic value. Until you start getting to the really high end cues, then they start getting you to the "zone" of cues A feeling of euphoria that gets your mind off of the equipment and on the game....by making you feel you can't miss with that cue....

Was some of what I just wrote a joke.....??????

Absolutely...
 
PoolSleuth said:
One of the BEST PLAYER who play were I play mostly Plays with a 50 Buck Cue.
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Yup, a guy on our team has a $40 Lucasi sneaky pete, and it looks like it's worth closer to .40 cents than $40.
 
I have six cues. Five I let visitors use, and two of them get raves.

The sixth I bought about a year ago, and nobody gets their paws on it. By comparison, the other five are clubs.

It is a plain jane, bottom of the line Dufferin (made before they became reincarnated). Cost? $60.00, a small fraction of any of the others.

When I first started visiting billiard boards I came across a posting noting that no two pieces of wood are alike. Fancy inlays and rings won't improve the wood. However, precision fitting of the pieces does count.

It seems to me that if anyone could define what characteristics make a good cue, cues would be made out of precision engineered materials like carbon fibre, and such materials would monopolize the high end market as they do for such sporting equipment as hockey sticks, tennis rackets, golf clubs, yachts, skiis, snowboards, and bicycles.
 
Whatever...

Yes. I does depend on what you feel comfortable with and that could be a $60 Dufferin or a $1600 Lambros. Now that I said that, if you were to do a blind folded test (have someone take a cue line you up and then you stroke...), with different production and custom cues, you might be suprised at the result. I know I was.

I don't care if it's a custom sneaky pete, you're going to do better with a cue that is made specifically for your game...period. If you take that $60 Dufferin and chop it in half, match a 314 or whatever shaft, tip, and ferrule you like, you're still "customizing" the cue! The cue that I'd play $1000 plus for if I had the money, is the Lambros I mentioned earlier. I bet if you'd hit with his "ultra-joint", you might second guess getting a $60 cue...but then again, you might not.:rolleyes: :D
 
Here is what I feel are the most important things a cue should have:

1.Wood that has been properly seasoned before making the shaft to prevent extreme warping.
2.A good leather tip and ferrule (but not both like a slip on or screw in tip)
3.Shaft should be a species of wood that is well suited for pool such as maple (not anything like ramin wood)

The rest is personal preference. I once read where someone said that people buy cues and pay most for the least important four feet of the stick (meaning the butt of the cue).
 
Let's see:

Find a cue you like on the racks of your local pool hall and have a joint put in.
You get to try it out and the price is cheap.:)

Buy a cue on E-bay.
A pig in a poke:confused: :confused:

Buy a brand and model cue that prolific posters on billiard boards recommend.:eek:
As my daddy used to say: If all men were running after the same woman life would be hell.
As George Bernard Shaw used to say: Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Your tastes may not be the same.
Assumes that all cues of a particular model are of uniform quality and playing characteristics. Is a verifiable assumption?

Custom cue
Assumes that you know what you want, can communicate it to a cue maker, and the cue maker can deliver. If loaded up with bling and from a famous maker, a custom cue is an excellent tool to intimidate opponents, until you disgrace it. At that point you are marked as having more money than brains.:o

Buy a cue and experiment
You will become as famous for cue modifications as Earl is for playing accessories. :D
 
I have played better with my own cue (Joss) than bar or cheap cues. When I shoot a game at my father-in-laws house, all he has are these cheap $10 cues that are poorly maintained, warped, & flat-tipped.

I just bought a $540.00 Viking cue.........I absolutely love the feel of it. I told myself that I need to raise my game a level, to be deserving of such a beautiful stick. So, in this manner......it will affect my game.

If someone had a chance to play with a $10 bar stick, or a $2000 custom cue, why the hell would someone choose the bar stick??
 
Look, custom cues don't come off the rack and can't be ordered over the internet. When you buy a true custom cue it's just that, custom made for you and how you play, what game you play and what you expect to happen with english you apply and anything else you want the cue to do.

Ill agree that there's a limit to money vs cue quality. Yes inlays cost extra money but there are many fine CUSTOM cue builders that get well over $500
for a plain jane looking cue - but boy do they hit well! These cue builders don't make many cues and don't make them for just anybody, they select their customers as carefully as they build their cues. There's a lot more to building a cue than simly turning some wood to a certain diameter and cutting some threads for a joint.

Find a real custom cue maker and if they decide to make you a cue, feel honored and enjoy the ride.

Having said all this I too have seen racks run with a house cue. The last time was 1976, The best player I ever personally knew ran 11 racks with his house cue. It's also part of the hustle but this was his choice of weapon.
 
If we limit "Custom Cue" for a moment to mean a cue made to the customers specifications as to balance, butt and shaft diameter, weight, ferrule material, wood combination and tip. I am talking about what makes the cue play not how it looks. I would say that half the time the cue built the way a customer tells you to make it, plays inferior to the normal cues you would build. If they ask you to go very far outside of your normal dimensions you can come up with some funny playing cues. And often the customer doesn't like the way the cue plays and can't understand why it plays worse than your other cues instead of better, since he was sure his idea would produce a superior hitting cue. On the other hand when a cuemaker and customer agree on a design that the customer likes the looks of and it is built to normal specs, the customer usually loves the cue and it plays like the cuemakers cue is supposed to play and the customer feels great about it and plays better with it than he would with a off the shelf cue.
Chris
www.hightowercues.com
www.internationalcuemakers.com
 
It's alright to say test out a cue at your local hall if you have a local hall.

Unfortunately I live in Australia where 8-Ball is played with snooker cues. I used ebay to find an American styled cue, and used suggestions from the forum to end up with a mid range Lucasi, which was in my price range.

Before this I used a 20 year old Dufferin with a 10mm tip which cost me less than $50Australian new, and had good time, consistently playing good racks. My reason for change mostly cosmetic, as I want something that looks different from everyone around me. I'll only sell it on only when I have the bucks and see anther cue that appeals to me "asthetically".

I'm not in the ITP, nor the premier league in Australia. I play for the pure joy of that clearence that I can see from the break. As many have said, people get a "fancier" cue to show off, like getting a new car. We all dream, and when I win the lottery, I'm getting a RC3 cue, but until then I'm happy to play with a production cue, and enjoy the moment,

Cheers all, Daniel
 
cueball1950 said:
I would just like everyones honest opinion on whether it really makes a difference in you game if you shoot with a $2500.00 cue or a $19.00 cue. does the custom cue really make you play better.
Click to expand...

I'll be honest. Yes, it does. But, your range makes it so. If you said $75 vs. $2500, then I'd say that it doesn't.

Today's $19 cues are junk. Though people can play well with junk, they'd be lying if the said they could play their best with junk. Same holds true for bowling, darts, skiing, baseball, golf....

Fred
 
no, it does not make a difference. as long as: the balance feels great "to you", as long as the tip gives you what "you" need. as long as the shaft is ultra clean and ultra slippery, then it doesn't matter weather the cue is $15 or $15,000 it's all the same, as long as the above mentioned are intact.
 
Cornerman said:
I'll be honest. Yes, it does. But, your range makes it so. If you said $75 vs. $2500, then I'd say that it doesn't.

Today's $19 cues are junk. Though people can play well with junk, they'd be lying if the said they could play their best with junk. Same holds true for bowling, darts, skiing, baseball, golf....

Fred
Click to expand...

Fred, I ususally don't disagree with you but this time I am going to.

It's actually hard to buy a "bad" cue these. Most of the cues coming in from overseas have decent shaftwood, good ferrules, irish linen, a halfway decent tip and a fairly good balance. This wasn't the case even ten years ago and 15 years ago most of the import cues were horrible.

The breakdown in quality and the ever elusive "hit" come in the construction. A lot of the import cues are poorly constructed, especially the ones that are from unknown distributers. These are the distributers who are bringing in less than container loads from just anyone who will supply them and dumping the cues on Ebay. These guys are getting the dregs for the most part because they aren't really accountable to their wholesale customers and the retail customers buying from them probably don't know any better. Still though, it would be hard to define a lot of those cues as really "bad" for the money.

I have a $59 (retail) Sneaky Pete that is as well constructed as anything any American cuemaker has ever made in my opinion. Not to make this a "where-it's-made" discussion I just want to point out that if my Sneaky Pete had a USA birthright then it would probably cost $1500$300 depending on whose name was attached to it. The overseas shops have dramatically stepped up their quality to the point where their cues can stand on their own as credible playing instruments with little or no modification needed.

I agree that a $19 retail cue is probably not that great a cue and more than likely not one that most "real" players would choose but most of them are probably good enough to play decent pool with these days.

Having said all that, I also disagree with the "it's not the arrow but the indian" crowd as well. The best archer is going to have a hard time against a mediocre archer if the better archer's arrows are missing a flight. Having the proper equipment is an integral part of performance and what works for one person does not always work for another. Looking at the pure construction of a cue and leaving the decoration aside, a player will generally play pool with the cue that is better made. The better made cue will generally have a better feel to it to a larger group of people hence the confidence of the players using it will be higher and the players will have a higher degree of success, which is the measure of playing better.

I always encourage players to try a cue out before they buy it whenever possible. I like to have them feel the cue and make up their own minds as to whether it feels good to them or not. I can often see when a player doesn't know whether a cue should feel good or not. They just don't have enough experience to have formed good judgement on what a good "hit" feels like. I find that as players get better about understanding the dynamics of the game then they better understand how a cue relates to their style of play. That is when they can make a good decision based on feel.

Some players start with a $19 cue and that's all they need or want while others will spend a lifetime searching for "the cue".

John
 
cueman said:
If we limit "Custom Cue" for a moment to mean a cue made to the customers specifications as to balance, butt and shaft diameter, weight, ferrule material, wood combination and tip. I am talking about what makes the cue play not how it looks. I would say that half the time the cue built the way a customer tells you to make it, plays inferior to the normal cues you would build. If they ask you to go very far outside of your normal dimensions you can come up with some funny playing cues. And often the customer doesn't like the way the cue plays and can't understand why it plays worse than your other cues instead of better, since he was sure his idea would produce a superior hitting cue. On the other hand when a cuemaker and customer agree on a design that the customer likes the looks of and it is built to normal specs, the customer usually loves the cue and it plays like the cuemakers cue is supposed to play and the customer feels great about it and plays better with it than he would with a off the shelf cue.
Chris
www.hightowercues.com
www.internationalcuemakers.com
Click to expand...


That makes so much sense that is has to be true.

It is also the funniest thing I've heard in weeks!!!

I guess I shouldn't laugh so hard. I wish I had time to do the magic cure, practice more. I guess there are a lot of others that don't have the time either. But I didn't order a 7mm shaft and a butt with a trigger finger grip to try to take it's place. LMAO
 
Koop said:
The top players in the world could beat us with a broomstick ...
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No doubt about that, but they don't generally play each other with broomsticks.

If you're good at something, you can feel the sometimes subtle differences in equipment (I know this to be the case with skiis, tennis rackets, and acccoustic guitars. I'm guessing it is also true for golf clubs.)

I think the parallels for cues are strongest with guitars. You want to get the right sound and action - a matter of wood selection & quality, design and craftsmanship. The trend in guitar manufacture is more and more computer & machine construction and experimentation with materials - the result, even using lesser woods, is a fantastic increase in playability per dollar of cost, because its like the perfect robot craftsman - which produces a better end-product than the appretice luthier. Once you get top quality sound and playability though you can still spend more money on ...jewelry! Exotic wood and abalone inlays on the neck, headstock, soundhole - even on the back of the guitar where nobody will see it!

Let's eliminate house cues from the discussion: even inexpensive house cues can be great. They have tremendous advantage at the (100% wood!) joint - much better vibration transfer. Put a good ferrule and tip on there & you've got something that plays very well indeed. But, they get beat-up, you can't always find the same one every time you play, and its tough to find a case to carry one in, and where you gonna put it in your car...So, we have 2-piece cues. Most of the joints are all trying actually to be as close to feeling like the one-piece cue as possible.

$19 might be just a bit too cheap. But, for somewhere in the range of $50 to $100 you can get a real decent cue, definitely for $150. By the time you're spending $500 it ought to be an excellent playing cue, whether custom or production, with your preferences in the subtleties.

When you're spending more tha $500, most of that is for jewelry.

But hey, aesthetics have value too! I mean my Martin D-28 sounds and plays just as well as my brother's D-45.

You should see that D-45 though! ;)
 
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jaden said it right.....

can a great player run 100's with a house cue?,,,of course. great players/artists are finely honed people who are finely tuned to their equipment. they will tell you about why they love their equipment and point out nuances you'd never think about. it is their business, THEIR TALENT, and their expertise that allows them to discern these things.

now,,,this doesn't necessarily answer the original question of expensive cues vs cheap cues, because the player/artist can love a particular piece of equipment that has little value to anyone but him,,,,,but in a broader sense, yes there is good equipment and bad,,,,,,,,,,just that many "lesser folk" may not be able to perceive this, or it may not matter.

i know a player, one of ginky's former teachers, who hates playing with cues with metal in it(inlays,, balance pins etc). now,,,i can't tell the diff(except for ss joints), but i believe him. just because I can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't so.

still,,,to answer the question posed, a cheap plain tad cue should play as well as an expensive tad,,,,,,,but both should play better than a house cue(more or less)
 
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I'll agree that the buyer should not have total control on the design of a cue unless they're a cuemaker themself or have extreme knowledge but a player can discuss with the maker any issues after the cue is made and the maker could make some adjustments such as weight, shaft taper and so on to produce what the player is looking for.
 
cueman said:
If we limit "Custom Cue" for a moment to mean a cue made to the customers specifications as to balance, butt and shaft diameter, weight, ferrule material, wood combination and tip. I am talking about what makes the cue play not how it looks. I would say that half the time the cue built the way a customer tells you to make it, plays inferior to the normal cues you would build. If they ask you to go very far outside of your normal dimensions you can come up with some funny playing cues. And often the customer doesn't like the way the cue plays and can't understand why it plays worse than your other cues instead of better, since he was sure his idea would produce a superior hitting cue. On the other hand when a cuemaker and customer agree on a design that the customer likes the looks of and it is built to normal specs, the customer usually loves the cue and it plays like the cuemakers cue is supposed to play and the customer feels great about it and plays better with it than he would with a off the shelf cue.
Chris
www.hightowercues.com
www.internationalcuemakers.com
Click to expand...


cueman
In regards to the above statement of going so far away from the norm and the customer then not understanding why it plays bad and therefore not liking the cue. I was wondering if the really good cue makers, in protection of their reputation might refuse to make such a cue.
 
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