I think the bridge is important enough that I carry my own bridge cue and head with me every where.
- My pool hall has the Russos on every table. I don't like them because the injection mold seam runs through the stroking area, plus they only have a few positions, and the bridge itself blocks the view of the shot on tall bridges.
- When I started carrying my own, my first bridge was a moose head. It's a fine bridge and very inexpensive. Although it feels a bit cheap (and what do you expect for a few bucks?), it works fine and offers more variety than the standard house bridge.
- After a few months of the moose head, I bought a Jump Caddy (small):
I love this bridge. The shot variety is very good. The side with the jump ring is a bit offset, so you can use it to reach around balls. The jump ring itself works very well for jumping, but there is an additional feature that sets this bridge ahead of the rest: the gap between the bridge body and the jump ring allows you to see the cue tips position. This is awesome when the blocking ball is very close to the cue ball.
- For Christmas, I received a Justabridge. I really love the engineering: the cam idea is great, and the shot variety is practically infinite. It got a lot of attention from my fellow players. That being said, I used it for about a month, and had a consistent problem with the felt "grabbing" the cue stick. I constantly felt as though I was fighting the bridge and forcing the stroke through the felt. I can't tell you how many times this caused me to stroke either way too soft or way too hard, but it cost me enough one-pocket games that I went back to the Jump Caddy.
My complaint with all of these is that the systems that connect the heads to the cue stick is far from universal. The Justabridge idea is sound, but still doesn't work on most house cues or my custom bridge cue. And all of them are too small for my jump cue.
So, my final recommendation is the Jump Caddy (small). I haven't tried the large one, but it must look ridiculous.