Should I buy my own cue or just stick with the house ones...

In the old days, meaning the early sixties, one could still play "off the wall," meaning that in most pool rooms you could find playable sticks in the wall rack. That is no longer true.

But even back then, I wanted a two-piece cue because I moved around from room to room in the same city. Two-piece cues weren't that easy to find, but I located one in a bowling and billiard supply store in the downtown of our city and bought it. The older gentleman who was the sales clerk wrapped it up in brown paper and handed it to me. Then, with a facial expression and a tone of voice which implied that he was speaking from a deep well of experience and knowledge told me the greatest untruth I have heard in fifty years of being around poolplayers: "Son, now that you've bought that cue, I have to tell you that owning your own cue won't help your game one little bit."

Buy a cue.
 
I am a newbie player. I have visited five pool rooms in the last 1-1/2 years. House cues in all were sticky, dirty, beat-up, and with mostly unknown, poorly installed/shaped tips. And sitting behind a counter doing nothing was an employee who could have been spending leisure time maintaining cues for customers like me. Didn't take me long to not want to ever touch a filthy cue again and to find a nice, straight, used, two-piece Dufferin for $20. I cleaned it, lightly sanded and waxed the shaft, installed an ElkMaster tip, and it works better than I do. It is like an old friend, and I enjoy the heck out of playing with it.

Other players have let me play with their Joss, McDermott, Viking, Mezz, and other high-end, beautiful cues. Always fun, and I appreciated it, but the old Dufferin still just feels right to me. No need to spend a lot of money for a good cue. It is nice to enjoy the satisfaction of having your own and learning how to play your best with it.

I say go for it. You will not regret it.

Rick
 
Since you made an AZB account, I'd guess you're into pool enough that a cue would be worthwhile. Go for it.

The cue itself won't make you better, but what it does is give a consistent feel to making shots... instead of pulling one off the rack which might mean a hard tip one day, a softer one the next, a heavy stick the next day, then a light one later on.

Consistency is the key to pool. You'd probably drive worse if one day you were driving a heavy SUV, and the next day it's a tiny smart car. So not having the same stick every day will also hurt your game.

You have another decision to make, depending on how much you're into it, and your wallet. It may be too early in your pool career to bring this up, but it's a choice I wish I had back when I first started getting serious about pool.

Pool cues roughly fall into two categories, regular and low-deflection. Actually to be more accurate, the "low deflection" stuff has to do with how the shaft is made. The butt end doesn't matter much. Whether or not one is better than the other gets argued a lot on here, but basically the difference is... on most cues when you hit firmly with sidespin on the cue ball, it still moves forward, but it also gets deflected off to the side, just a little. After going forward 9 feet, it might end up a couple of inches left or right of where you aimed. You have to adjust your aim (even subconsciously) to deal with this.

With a low deflection shaft, it still gets deflected sideways a little, but it's much less. Some players feel this makes it easier to aim (I'm one of them) and is worth spending a little extra.

The bad news is, it might be a little pricey for a new player... typically a low-end cue from the 2 main companies who make these shafts costs 400ish bucks. An alternative to save a bit of money, is to get a cheap $100 cue with a regular shaft (I always like Players brand for a cheap cue)... then later buy just the $200 low deflection shaft, which you can screw on to your existing cue. This ends up being cheaper than buying a low end predator or OB cue.

Just something to think about, nothing wrong with just sticking to a 100 buck cue for a while.
 
Selecting a good house cue is a challenge. Every time you use one you should sniff the cue. Hold it up to your nose and sight along it to see if it is straight. Forget about rolling it on the table. Then examine the tip. If the tip needs touching up take it to the counter . They can do it for you or loan you the tools.
 
JC said:
I bought this cue out of curiosity and the quality is remarkable for the cost.

http://www.mtbilliards.com/b10-p-358.html

Plus you can beat him down and he will probably throw in a decent break jump cue and case for another 30 bucks.

JC
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I'd second this pick, if you want to spend around a $100, this is one of the best deals you can get and maintain some quality in the cue. The Players HXT models are also great, I bought my son one and got the shaft for my cue.
 
Hi pool_rebel,

I suggest you to use a house cue first since you're a beginner and the house cues in the states are one of the best cues in the world to me. Simply because they're in one piece and to me that gives me a feeling of "solid" and that was extremely important to me. Of course I had my own cue when I was playing and I had a habit of screw it tight again after a rack or two because I wanted to make sure it was "solid." For a beginner you really don't know what kind of cues are suitable to you, and don't buy those around 100 because they're craps. It really doesn't matter how long a house cue has been used as long as the conditions fit you. I'll check the tip first and I prefer a short tip. Then I'll hold the butt with my wrist and swing it up and down a few times to make sure the weight is fine, to me I like 18.5. Finally I'll simply roll the cue on the table to see if it's straight. If all the 3 conditions above fits then I'm ready to go. Sometimes it may take you a little time to find one but eventually you'll become faster. The only reason I had my cue was because I didn't want people to think, "what the fcuk is Gary doing with a house cue in a tournament?" Obviously that'll affect my concentration and nobody wants that. But for break and jump just use a house cue because i still don't get what's the meaning of a break cue. A jump cue could be useful for those side rail jumps though, but for long rail jumps, a house cue is perfect to jump and draw and the same time. But remember kicks and curve shots are far more useful than jumps. Also as a beginner at times you may bang the cue on the table not on purpose so it'll be better for you to buy a cue when you play better. When the time comes when you need to buy a cue, make sure it'll be a one you'll love, not like. You know, like choosing a wife. With a cue you truly love you can do better but it's not guaranteed you'll find one. You know, just like wife. However, try to love the house cues in the states because they're really nice cues and even suitable for gambling. Don't buy into those, "you must practice and play with the same cue so you'll get better faster this and that that types of bullshits." I almost never practiced with my own cue but it didn't affect my game at all. Hope this will help.
 
bigshooter said:
Yes buy your own cue. Best you can afford and enjoy.
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Hey bigshooter,

How did you get those two Chinese characters and know the meaning? Are you Chinese yourself? Just curious. Btw, for those who don't know the meaning it says "Jesus" in Chinese. Well, I'm not anti-christians or anything but Jesus was just a man according to the Da Vinci Code. I do believe there's a God, but Jesus ain't no his boy. I'm a Buddhist myself but I don't buy into all the fairy-tales the religion claims are true, see my point? Before I became an international sales I was an English teacher here in Taiwan, and once I was tutoring this kidergarten girl and told her that Harry Potter and Voldemort are real and I'm a wizard myself. I just made up whole tons of bullcraps such as I was hearing Voldemort and fighting against him, without me she'll die things like that. To the point that she got so scared and cried! Then I had to made up another whole tons of bullcraps to cool her down before her parents found out. My point is that, maybe as humans we don't know enough yet thus we tend to believe into something that's not real.

Anyway, let's not get carried away too far since this is not NPR. But for those of you who may be interested in be my business partners you can simply send private message to me or tell me here, I'll let you know my contact ways. Let's hope our new friend pool_rebel plays better and better.
 
There are many very good players I see at the hall that use house cues. I really like house cues when there is such a wide variety. It is a good way, I think, to test out what kind of cue you like before you make a purchase.
 
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