Jump sticks have changed the game
- Thread starter u12armresl
- Start date
JC
Coos Cues
What's "artificial" about saying no to gimmick gear?
Next thing you know people will be convinced playing video pool on their phone is better than playing on a table.
Oh wait, these morons already exist.
Jump cues are stage 3 cancer to the game.
I have mixed emotions about the jump cue. A properly executed jump shot looks spectacular and the crowd loves it. I see that. But somehow it changes the whole dynamic of the game and removes a key ingredient, a properly executed kick shot. I remember when Earl made that jump shot with his playing cue at the Caesars Tahoe event in 1982. The crowd went wild and it made for some great TV. That was a very difficult shot to execute. Then along came the specially built jump cues and that same shot became routine.
I don't have the answer. I know one thing. The players will play either way if the promoter puts up the prize money.
I don't have the answer. I know one thing. The players will play either way if the promoter puts up the prize money.
middleofnowhere
Registered
It comes down to just one thing, "Ball on hand". A penalty so serious that with decent players is in effect loss of game. "Why", because a player rolled you up behind a ball.
There in lies the problem. A few simple rule changes would make the game so much better. You don't have to go back to two foul push out.
All it takes is a place like DCC to come up with a set of rules that are innovative, move the game along without cheapening the game like one foul ball in hand has done.
Once somebody with the credibility of them does this just like happened with Johnson City, it would become a universal way to play as other promoters followed suit. Then the game could go through a real evolution.
There in lies the problem. A few simple rule changes would make the game so much better. You don't have to go back to two foul push out.
All it takes is a place like DCC to come up with a set of rules that are innovative, move the game along without cheapening the game like one foul ball in hand has done.
Once somebody with the credibility of them does this just like happened with Johnson City, it would become a universal way to play as other promoters followed suit. Then the game could go through a real evolution.
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Maybe back east but in the Midwest jump cues were pretty common sight by '90. There were a LOT of 9b events in the area(Tx,Ok,Ks,Mo,Neb,Ia,) in those days and jump cues were quite common. IIRC Meucci had the S. Jones line of jumpers by '85 or so. There were a lot of home-made jc's around too. I still think going to one-foul 9b was a big reason for the jc. In two-foul days you never saw them. People started making their own and it didn't take long for manufact.'s to jump(pardon the bad pun) on the bandwagon.
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it certainly adds to the options that a player has, but how does it “remove” a kick shot from the game?! Sorry, but I disagree. There are many times when a kick is the right shot and there are times when a jump is a better option. Neither removes the other from the game.
Knowing that jumping is an option also requires that I play better safeties and as a result improves my cb control and improves my entire game.
You do know you have to make a legal shot, right? You can't just roll-up on a ball like you can in snooker.
middleofnowhere
Registered
Of course but that doesn't change the cheapness and pettiness of just bumping a ball up the table and freezing a guy to a ball praying for balling hand.
Often when they may have actually had an offensive shot whether it's a bank or cutting a ball down the rail or something they opt for the simplest thing trying to get ball in hand.
When you see world class players reduced to this kind of strategy trying to win, it's not a good thing for the game.
That's not to say they shouldn't do it they should certainly play within the rules and take advantage of everything they can. Thus is the reason why these rules need to be adjusted.
HUH???? Players have ALWAYS played safe. Why should one try a hi-risk shot when it could easily lead to a loss of game/match/$$? Even back in 2-shot 9b days we played safeties. How would you go about adjusting the rules? This i gotta hear.
Hey, you saw what you saw, so I'm in no position to disagree, but .....
... I'd say I rarely saw a jump cue used in competition before about 1994, at which point I'd guess about 10% of the pros carried one. I attended plenty of pro events all over the country in the 1980s and 1990s. You did see, starting in l the early 1990s, along with full cue jumps, people jumping using their shaft alone, but in about 1997 or so, a rule was added mandating that a jump cue be 40 inches or longer, so jumping with the shaft was no longer an option.
Sammy Jones and Pat Fleming were the most prominent players developing the jump cue around 1986-87, and it was possible to buy one, but rest assured, jump cues were not seen in PBT events regularly until the late 1990s.
The Super Billiards Expo, which I usually attended, further corroborates the timing of the entry of the jump cue into the mainstream. Seemingly every major cuemaker had a booth at the Expo, but one could not buy a jump cue at the Expo until about 1996 or so. The first jump cue you could buy at the Expo was called "The Frog" and Robin Bell Dodson was the marketing rep for the product. I never bought a jump cue, but I did try a few of them over the years at the Expo.
I'm sticking with my guess of 1998 for when pro pool reached the point where jump cues were carried by most pros in the biggest PBT events.
Thanks for sharing. Sounds like the Midwest was, indeed, ahead of the curve.
Because another player approaches the game from a different strategic perspective, the rules should be changed?! I don’t think so...
Sometimes the best offensive shot, is a defensive one.
The hardest thing to teach a new, or less skilled 8-ball players is that you don’t always have to be trying to pocket a ball. It’s not to your advantage to clear away most of your balls before you opponent gets to the table, and unless you’re going to run out, or are playing a relatively poor player, you can be putting yourself at an enormous disadvantage in doing so...
There is some irony in that today you have some 9ball players complaining about how jump cues/jump shots don't require skill and make the game too easy when 9 ball was invented so that low skilled bangers would have a chance to win because they couldn't compete at 14.1.
People were using jc's well before the PBT or DCC ever existed. I did a search and found a Szamboti jc that was made around '82. Southwest made them in mid 80's. There was lot more 9b action in the midwest and southeast than probably anywhere in the country at that time. JC's were a common sight once one-foul reared its ugly head.
9b was invented as a fast action GAMBLING game. 14.1 took/takes forever. IMO there's way more pressure playing 9b for your $$ than straight-pool. I don't think i've seen a total of five 14.1 matches for $$ in 40yrs of playing. Tough to eat/pay bills with those pretty trophies they used to play for.
I started playing in 1986 in Omaha. I played at the local hall pretty much every day for 5+ years and I actually don't remember seeing a jump cue during that time, I remember people practicing with their full cue or even just the shaft but never a purpose built jump cue. Around 93 or 94 I started playing more league and less pool hall so it's possible they started showing up around then?
middleofnowhere
Registered
For one, eliminate BIH anywhere on the table. Even in push out the incoming player has an option. I remember playing Richie Ambrose and he would push out to really tough cuts.
I would let him shoot and he kept making them. I had to adjust my play to try to deal with his strategy. Candidly, it didn't help, Richie was a fantastic player.
To be honest, I don't think the horribleness one foul BIH is even debatable.
Easily the biggest cop out in tournament play. Either jumps are the bane of pool as we know it, or it's just bs nostalgic hype. The idea that jumping is perfectly fine if you do so with full cue and running start is ridiculous.
Said it earlier but this I can respect. At least there's a definitive stance on the matter.
Obviously so, but the debate is over when jump cues entered the mainstream, and there's no way that was before 1995. Few players carried them until then, and even then, most didn't.
Full cue jumps go back to the nineteenth century. Former AZB poster extraordinaire Hemicudas shared that the first jump shot with a short cue was in about 1970, and was performed by Marcus Collier, arguably the greatest ever bumper pool player, who was, at the time, playing in a pool event. He used his bumper pool cue, which looked awfully similar to the modern jump cue, to execute a jump shot at the pool table, and it was said that this caused pool players to take notice of the fact that a jump is more easily executed with a short cue. Some suggest that this was the day the jump cue was invented.
If you think there were many jump cues around in the 1980s, you are mistaken.