Champ with 18oz, Chump with 20?

[Donny Lutz]

cue speed

One thought I had was, stroke speed could be faster with a lighter cue. This is the prevailing belief with break cues. Maybe not applicable with the playing cue, I don't know?

You are correct about lighter cues. But how often, (other than a power break), do you need a lot of stroke speed?

 

[FranCrimi]

Fran, I can certainly understand where you're coming from and in a sense you are correct under certain conditions.

If the physical fundamentals and the alignment are true, then the added weight makes no difference because the alignment and weight of the cue are not competing with each other; however, if a player is using poor fundamentals and their stroke arm is not aligned properly, then they are likely using more arm to make adjustments in the stroke delivery to ensure a straight line.

In this case, since the fundamentals are really working contrary to the alignment, added weight would play a factor as it would create minor variations in the delivery that will not have been accounted for under the players previous programming.

Agreed, but I also recommend considering the possibility that a lighter cue can actually cause a player to stroke off line due to the player feeling the need to move the cue stick faster, which is what I've experienced myself and in working with players. That will often result in the player restricting their stroke, which does fix the issue in a limited way but hurts the player's stroke in the long-run.

Ray Schuler was my cue maker, and he always challenged me to experiment out of my comfort zone. One day he handed me a 16 1/2 ounce cue and said, "Break with it and play with it and give me feedback." I did, and these were some of my findings in the experience. It led me to also experiment with 17 and 18 oz cues. But my results are not scientific as I didn't measure anything specifically.