Playing different with different cues

To Jaetee:

Yes, I've run across many cues that have wowed me for a few test hits (and bought some of them on impulse because of it), but when you put them through the paces of many hours of play and the things you'll notice are that they can do certain shots well, but struggle with other shots. I don't believe too many cues exist that are excellent at all shots. It's the balance that exists after many hours of play of "your style, and shot selections" that you end up with a cue that makes an acceptable compromise to the way you play. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well and I'm sorry if this isn't making any sense lol.
 
Banks said:
For short spurts, I can play as well with just about any other cue. For consistency and the long-haul, I'll stick with whatever's been my player
Click to expand...


That is what I've realized as well.
I own tons of cues, they all seem to play good for short spurts like you said, but when I go back to my "player", it feels so much better.
Recently changed the tip from a Triangle to a Tiger Onyx, and things haven't been the same, miscued a few times, but now that it's getting broken in I'm off & running again.

As far as the OP's comments, I think that Jacoby is a fine company, great people, but my old McDermott D-19 with the original shafts feels better than any Jacoby I've played with.
 
Snooker great Stephen Hendry had his cue damaged beyond suitable repair by an airline. It affected his performance drastically.

Alain Robidoux had his cue smashed. He fell out of the top 16 in snooker afterwards.

Not sure if its the same for pool. But in snooker the arrow matter.
 
It seems to me that as soon as your technics and skills are mainly free of big mistakes and you have a very good repeatability in your shots, that then it is in the first moment a step back in your performance when you are playing with a cuestick that's not your playing cue. The closer another cue gets to your used playing cue the better you adapt over the time.

Due to my interests in cuesticks and their construction I made similar experience already more than once! And damn, these times were always hard and frustrating!! I experienced also what someone before wrote, that if you start playing with another cuestick many things work different - better or worse, and the repeatability always fell down. It got then very critical when i mixed different cuesticks from day to day or even within the same day. Their comes a point where nothing seems to work anymore. In my understanding this point of "worse play" happens because of two reasons: First reason is because of the different behavior of the cuesticks, the tips, the feeling and everything that makes a cuestick as a part of your body. Second reason is because the concentration and your consciouness is more at the new cuestick, its feeling and action than usually. Playing great pool is only possible with a maximum on concentration to the game, the cuestick must work as a perfectly adapted tool.

If you are very well used to a certain playing cue and you are in an up-period where you act with high repeatability, good strategy, success and satisfaction at the of the game, your concentration is to 95 or 100 % in the game and not at the cuestick.

What I also experienced is that there are some major factors of cuesticks specifications + some minor factors which are responsible for feeling good with a cuestick or not / performing well or not with a cuestick that's not your used player. As closer another cuestick comes to your used player as better and as faster you adapt to the differences. (Keep the time long enough and you can adapt to every cuestick, but this is more and more a question of like or not like, and if you want to adapt or not.)

The major factors are from my experience: tip diameter, taper, balance point, weight distribution, grip diameter, kind of tip

A further major factor I call the efficiency of a cuestick - the relation between action and reaction.

Minor factors are: weight, LD or not, kind of joint, kind of ferrule, hit, feedback
 
Last edited:
Some great replies here! An older fellow told me that it was very possible that my problem was in the balance point of the cue. But, he also said that a lot of it could be in the shaft. Even though they are similar diameter and tip, the older mcdermott shaft is much more "whippy" than the stiffer Jacoby. This makes me wonder how difficult it would be to play with a LD shaft.

It seems like a ton of tiny things add up to build your comfort and confidence can only come if you are comfortable . Of course, that would be more mental, but either way, most people feel like the arrow has feel right to complete the Indian

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
 
Like others have said, I have little problem picking up a new stick and playing alright with it, but if I want to play my best, I need to use my player.

The small differences in cue balance, tip hardness, shaft deflection, etc. will cause errors in pocketing and position. It's not hard to make adjustments with deliberate thought and actions, but that keeps me from falling into dead stroke.
 
jaetee said:
This begs the question... have you ever had a new stick find it's way into your hands that immediately supplanted the incumbent "thousands of hours" cue?
Click to expand...

Yes. When I went from a Jacoby to a Josey. But I sure wouldn't suggest that those who love their Jacoby make the switch. I think it really is an individual thing...others may prefer a Jacoby over a Josey, or.... Well, I hope you all get my drift.
 
The short answer, which you won't like:

The cue had nothing to do with your misses or inconsistencies,
unless we're talking two cues with wildly different amounts of deflection.

If you're obsessing over balance point, weight to within a half ounce, diameter to within half a millimeter,
and so on, you are 100% overthinking the equipment... and probably underthinking
your stroke, stance, and pre-shot routine.

Getting overly focused on the cue is really just another form of excuse-making
that holds people's games back. I'm not saying there's no difference between a house cue and an ikon5,
but the difference between, say, predator and OB cues is next to nothing.
That kind of difference will not cause you to miss a shot.

The sooner you realize & accept this, the sooner you can move on
and focus on the ACTUAL cause of your misses.

If you refuse to believe it then, good luck to you.
 
CreeDo said:
The short answer, which you won't like:



The cue had nothing to do with your misses or inconsistencies,

unless we're talking two cues with wildly different amounts of deflection.



If you're obsessing over balance point, weight to within a half ounce, diameter to within half a millimeter,

and so on, you are 100% overthinking the equipment... and probably underthinking

your stroke, stance, and pre-shot routine.



Getting overly focused on the cue is really just another form of excuse-making

that holds people's games back. I'm not saying there's no difference between a house cue and an ikon5,

but the difference between, say, predator and OB cues is next to nothing.

That kind of difference will not cause you to miss a shot.



The sooner you realize & accept this, the sooner you can move on

and focus on the ACTUAL cause of your misses.



If you refuse to believe it then, good luck to you.
Click to expand...


I don't want to be unpolite and partly you are right when it goes about the importance of a good stroke, stance and so on. But nevertheless your thesis is in my eyes far too superficial, or let's say: much too rough. Depending on which level you play it are indeed also small differences between cuesticks that can worsen your performances pretty much. Many good players you talk to share this experience, and also many top players.
 
lfigueroa said:
I think different cues change things you may not even be aware of.

In the case of the Meucci, I'd guess the nylon wrap slid more easily through my grip hand fingers and perhaps lengthen my grip and that prosibly ended up changing my stance and set me up lower. Of course back then I was playing with 13mm shafts, so maybe the 12.75 shaft -- that was the Meuccci default diameter -- changed my bridge. But I was also used to playing with steel jointed cues then too, so maybe it was the weight/balance of the cue that changed my set up. Then again, I'm used to ivory ferrules, so maybe the plastic Meucci ferrule changed the deflection. I suppose it could have been the type of tip...

Well, you get it. It might have been one, or several, or all of those factors. In any case, sometimes it is the arrow :-)

Lou Figueroa
Click to expand...
Great story Lou in your opening post. I'm a believer that GOOD players can play well with most any cue maybe not their best, of course, but play pretty well because they understand how to compensate for deflection and they adapt quickly to whatever cue they are playing with. On the other hand mid level players don't adapt as quickly and they play their best with the cue they are used to and put a different cue in their hands and a struggle begins trying to play at their normal level.

In my case I own a couple of custom cues and i've been using Predator LD shafts for years and i've become so used to how these shafts play that i'm lost with a regular shaft on my cue. Put my Predator on the cue and I can get out, but put a solid maple shaft on my cue and i'll end up missing a shot I should make in a run out.

I played some of the best pool of my life years ago with a Meucci DH-3 that I used to own before I found out from all the cue experts that Meucci cues weren't any good and I should have a $2K plus custom cue if I wanted to play good pool! I sold my Meucci and i've been through countless cues ever since and I don't think i've found one that I played as well with as I did with that Meucci DH-3. Bob Meucci used plastic, flat faced joints, long straight tapered shafts, thin walled ferrules made of plastic to build his cues and they worked. One of my good friends, who played with a South West Cue, told me one night while we were playing 9 ball on his Gold Crown table that my Meucci shaft was flexing when I hit a ball with English. Of course his shaft was so stiff it didn't flex so he thought there was something wrong with my cue. What he didn't understand is that flex when I hit a shot with English was eliminating some of the deflection and making it easier for me to spin the cue ball to get position. I finally listened to too many players telling me a Meucci was a cheap cue and it wasn't a good cue that I sold my cue and have since regretted letting it go. I think Bob Meucci was on to something with his cue designs before all these different Low Deflection shafts came on the market, but his cues took a hit due to quality issues with the newer cues and they've never recovered. I still think they play well if you get a good one.
 
SCCues said:
I think Bob Meucci was on to something with his cue designs before all these different Low Deflection shafts came on the market, but his cues took a hit due to quality issues with the newer cues and they've never recovered. I still think they play well if you get a good one.
Click to expand...

If I remember correctly, Bob wasn't totally in charge when the quality started dropping off. I think it was a son-in-law or sons-in-law? I like the cues like CJ has now but I don't think Sammy Jones has any in the store. for me to try. I'll go in Thursday and see. I didn't get a chance to hit with one when he had a couple in the store.
 
Pushout said:
If I remember correctly, Bob wasn't totally in charge when the quality started dropping off. I think it was a son-in-law or sons-in-law? I like the cues like CJ has now but I don't think Sammy Jones has any in the store. for me to try. I'll go in Thursday and see. I didn't get a chance to hit with one when he had a couple in the store.
Click to expand...
I heard the same thing that Bob Meucci wasn't in charge when the quality issues came up. I've seen some good pool played with a Meucci cue. One case in particular was the "Color of Money" in Hong Kong for $100K winner take all between Efren and Earl. Efren beat Earl to win the $100K playing with a Meucci cue loaned to him by Bob Meucci!
 
As far as me missing had nothing to do with the cues, I can't believe that. If that were true, I wouldn't have shot great with my d12, shot absolutely horrible with my Jacoby, and then back to shooting great with my buddies pechauer. Swapping from the Jacoby to pechauer was in the exact same night. Played 2 hours or so continukus with the Jacoby then I started shooting better within two games of picking up his cue.
That makes no sense which is why I asked everyone.

I don't necessarily think it's all balance, weight, tip size, etc. I grew up shooting a small shaft. 11.8x to be exact. The pechauer is 13ish and I play great with it. Heck, I played with it for a game or two tonight and shot good.
I have swapped back to my mcdermott and my game picked back up to where I was. Back to being consistent, putting the ball where I want it, etc. The more and more I think about it, I think it is in the deflection of the shaft. I can make short shots with the Jacoby, but once I spread out, it goes down the drain. With my mcdermott, I made several perfect, table length, super thin cuts on an 8ft table and I'm use to a bar box. All I can think is I'm so use to the deflection, I automatically compensate without thinking about it.

However, back to the conversation, several people I know shoot with meuccis around here. If say Atleast 85% of them are some of the original meuccis. Everyone I've talked to has told me that their quality went down the drain which is why they like the older cues. I too heard that Bob was not fully in charge when the decline began.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
 
jaetee said:
This begs the question... have you ever had a new stick find it's way into your hands that immediately supplanted the incumbent "thousands of hours" cue?
Click to expand...

Yes! I had been playing with a South West for 6 years (great cue). I had recently moved and was shopping for a table. I made the 'mistake' of hitting a few balls with a used Bill Schick cue. I bought the table and the cue and I still own both. The Schick remains as my favorite cue. I have hit balls with 3 or 4 other cues (Szamboti (bought it), Showman, Searing) that caught my attention.
 
Zkid09 said:
Has my brain stumped.

What is everyone's opinion? And of course, can you swap cues and play the same?
Click to expand...

Pool players have limited ability to predict success, but we can always predict when we will miss a shot. Once the cue is in your head as being difficult, you will continue to lack your usual confidence. When you are 'off', each shot is guess work and the misses just lead to frustration, which is not the attitude of a player who is ready to run out.

My suggestion is to put the cue away for a while, perhaps several months. Play with a cue where you regain your confidence. Then someday when you are playing well and are more open minded, try the cue again. You might the cue feels good to you. I bought a Joss cue in 1985. I had a hard time getting used to it and eventually bought cues to replace it. I kept the Joss and now I play with it just fine.
 
Zkid09 said:
As far as me missing had nothing to do with the cues, I can't believe that. If that were true, I wouldn't have shot great with my d12, shot absolutely horrible with my Jacoby, and then back to shooting great with my buddies pechauer. Swapping from the Jacoby to pechauer was in the exact same night. Played 2 hours or so continuous with the Jacoby then I started shooting better within two games of picking up his cue.
That makes no sense which is why I asked everyone.
Click to expand...

If it's not all in your head, then it's probably deflection.
I'm seeing pechauer is made from 12 spliced pieces, jacoby from 64.
Wouldn't shock me if their different construction results in different deflection.

Not trying to sell you on anything, but something I find very useful is...
because I'm used to an LD shaft, it's dead easy to switch between
OB2/OB classic pro/predator Z²/predator 314².

There aren't that many popular LD shaft makers, they're all trying to do the same thing,
and they all probably have similar construction.

Compare that to cues that fall into the "non-LD-shaft" category.
That's a biiiig group that includes everything from a bar cue to a Black Boar.
Some are made from several pieces and some are a single solid piece.

Deflections' already a very touchy thing to deal with
(like hitting 5 mph vs. 8 mph will affect where the cue ball goes).
Mix that with 1,000 different types of higher deflection cue and you'll find it's very hard
to be consistent unless you use the same stick for life.

Which I recommend BTW.
 
Zkid09 said:
Had a question for you guys that really has me baffled.
How many of you can pick up any cue and play as good with it as you can with your own cue that you always use?

Here is why this has me baffled. I normally shoot with a d series mcdermott. Shaft has been broken so it is a hair over 57" long, not positive on weight but it is supposed to be in the 18s and it's balance point is 16 3/8" from the butt, 11.82 mm tip, and has a Moori medium tip that's probably 5 years old.
I have been lights out with it the past few weeks as far as making shots. Cuts went where I wanted them, I hit where I was aiming, it just all fell into place.

Well a year ago, I bought a Jacoby. It's 18 oz, a little over 58" long, balance point is 18 3/8" from butt. When I got the cue, I didn't shoot well with it. Couldn't get use to it. It had a 13mm tip on it so I figured it was throwing me off since I grew up using smaller tips.
Last week I got the shaft shaved down to a hair under 12mm and put a kamui clear medium on it.
I left from picking the shaft up and went straight to a small bar tournament with some friends I shoot at every week. Played a couple games before the tournament with it, played awful. Shot with my mcdermott in the tournament, did awful. Afterwards, I went and played some with the Jacoby to get use to it, couldn't make a dang ball it seemed. I've played with it nearly every night for a week and I'm so inconsistent it's pitiful with it.

I have never had this issue before. I'm normally a super consistent player but since I swapped cues, I just can't hit where I am aiming.
I completely missed two balls that were fairly thin cut shots in one game last night. I see where I need to hit the OB, aim the same, no english, and it just misses.

I've stroked through a bottle and can do it pretty dang well so I don't feel it's my stroke. I thought I may just be in a slump but missing balls as badly as I've been doing doesn't make sense to me. I'll shoot 2 or 3 good, then miss the next by 4 inches.

So, back to the main topic, I picked up a friend pechauer (spelling?) that has a 13mm tip and shot pretty darn well with It. Swapped back to my cue, played okay for a few games and it started getting worse again.

Has my brain stumped. Shouldve been in the money 3 times last week and couldn't pull it off because of my inconsistencies.

What is everyone's opinion? And of course, can you swap cues and play the same?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

my advice is to try the same tip you had on your old cue.. if that don't work try other brands of tips. believe it or not some cues just play better with one type of tip over another.

i bought my 1st fancy custom a couple of years ago and found i could not make a ball with it much like you. i tried practicing with it , bound and determined ot learn to shoot with it being i paid a chit load of money for it.

after a few months i decided to try a different tip. it was better but not good enough. i went through 4 tips before i found one that i was comfortable with.
 
That each cuestick may play at its optimum with a certain tip is absolutely also my experience. Tips like triangel or elkmaster behave pretty universal at many different cuesticks, tips like f. e. Kamui brown but in general most laminated tips are far not so universal. This is an absolute important fact to know.
 
I did not think much about the tip. It's a new kamui clear. I might should try a few different tips.

My d12 has an older Moori M and my d8 has a kamui black S. Picked up my d8 the other night because I haven't had it out of the case in ages. Played great with it as well.

Starting to think it could possibly be deflection. My d12 is a 11.8x mm and d8 is 11.5x mm. They are pretty weak. Even with the Jacoby, after being shaved down, is still pretty stiff

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
 
my old main cue was a Patrick custom... I had tried various cues, and ended up with a Joss butt/Tibbetts shaft that has been my 'lights out' cue for a while now..... Ok- a few weeks ago i was lining up a fairly easy cut shot- this babe wearing hotpants and fishnets walked by the end of the table- Ok, that got my attention, lol.... I knew I had been distracted, so I stood back up, cleared my head, then lined the shot up again, the whole time I was telling myself NOT to think about that..... I missed the shot... in fact, I wouldn't have made that shot with ANY cue :D ......(what's in your head will override any great cue!) :thumbup:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top