1pocketguru
Registered
For years (25 years to be exact) I've searched out the "best" tip for me. Thinking it was a mix of "quality of tip" and "personal preference" to finding the "right tip for me". The tip is so important to how a cue feels and plays. It's often argued that the tip is the biggest factor in the feel of the cue (then the ferrule material and next the joint type.... and now carbon shaft vs non carbon plays a big role in feel too obviously).
So, every so often I'd get excited, thinking I've found the perfect balance of grippy and soft and hard and accurate with power.
I've come to the realization that just like most things in life, there isn't a "best" car, or watch, or best type of shoes ect. It's fallacious to frame such a question of "the best" or "the perfect" whatever.
For example, we can have a sports car that is fast and handels well. Or we can have an off-road truck that is rugged and able to handle tough terrain. And I suppose we can even entertain a combination of the two in a rally car or baja truck or something. But there is always a compromise to be had.
This brings me to my point. I watched an interview with Alex Pagalayan. They asked him about his cue and he had a shaft with a soft tip and a shaft with a harder tip. (Now this may be obvious to you and old news to carry around both soft and hard tips but it was new to me. I always had the same tip on my "playing shaft" and "back up shaft") but, he explained the softer tip was for games like one pocket where you use more spin often and are moving the cueball around accurately in tight places and often are shooting soft lags and rolling shots and where you need more control on short tight shots.
And on his shaft with a harder tip he used for games like 9 Ball and 10 ball where you are sending the cue ball long distance around the table and playing position 2 or 3 rails up and down the table to a 5 inch or 10 inch positin zone. The idea being that more energy is transmitted with the harder tip and you are using longer more powerful strokes most of the time and the harder tip excels in this scenrio.
I never heard this reasoning of different tips for different games explained before. I think it makes a lot of sense. Instead of looking for one tip to do it all, different tips for the diffeent styles of game. I guess I always thought I needed consistency in my playing shafts (the playing shaft and the rarely used back up shaft only used when I needed a tip replaced). I thought I needed consistency in my tip I used to every time I played, just like I need that consistency in my stance and head and my stroke, but I found that it makes alot of sense to shoot with both hard tips and soft tips and I don't have any trouble adjusting to and shooting with both. Is there an adjustment between the two? Sure. Just like we adjust to faster cloth, slower cloth, tougher pockets, or whatever. But the more I play with each, it's a lot faster and easier to adjust back and forth. I admit learning to shoot with a softer tip was a big adjustment at first, I've been shooting with a hard tip for so long. The table length lag shot is a good indicator for me. The softer tip requires about a full diamond more power to lag down and back on a 9 foot table.
Also, I am finding that some days for some reason I prefer playing with one over the other. Maybe the cloth is slow or fast or my stroke is good or not so good... maybe my mood or something. Or I'll start out with a soft tip and after a few games I'll warm up and decide I want a harder tip. Anyway options, options, options.
I hope this was interesting to someone out there.
Gute schtoss! And I wish you all the good rolls!
So, every so often I'd get excited, thinking I've found the perfect balance of grippy and soft and hard and accurate with power.
I've come to the realization that just like most things in life, there isn't a "best" car, or watch, or best type of shoes ect. It's fallacious to frame such a question of "the best" or "the perfect" whatever.
For example, we can have a sports car that is fast and handels well. Or we can have an off-road truck that is rugged and able to handle tough terrain. And I suppose we can even entertain a combination of the two in a rally car or baja truck or something. But there is always a compromise to be had.
This brings me to my point. I watched an interview with Alex Pagalayan. They asked him about his cue and he had a shaft with a soft tip and a shaft with a harder tip. (Now this may be obvious to you and old news to carry around both soft and hard tips but it was new to me. I always had the same tip on my "playing shaft" and "back up shaft") but, he explained the softer tip was for games like one pocket where you use more spin often and are moving the cueball around accurately in tight places and often are shooting soft lags and rolling shots and where you need more control on short tight shots.
And on his shaft with a harder tip he used for games like 9 Ball and 10 ball where you are sending the cue ball long distance around the table and playing position 2 or 3 rails up and down the table to a 5 inch or 10 inch positin zone. The idea being that more energy is transmitted with the harder tip and you are using longer more powerful strokes most of the time and the harder tip excels in this scenrio.
I never heard this reasoning of different tips for different games explained before. I think it makes a lot of sense. Instead of looking for one tip to do it all, different tips for the diffeent styles of game. I guess I always thought I needed consistency in my playing shafts (the playing shaft and the rarely used back up shaft only used when I needed a tip replaced). I thought I needed consistency in my tip I used to every time I played, just like I need that consistency in my stance and head and my stroke, but I found that it makes alot of sense to shoot with both hard tips and soft tips and I don't have any trouble adjusting to and shooting with both. Is there an adjustment between the two? Sure. Just like we adjust to faster cloth, slower cloth, tougher pockets, or whatever. But the more I play with each, it's a lot faster and easier to adjust back and forth. I admit learning to shoot with a softer tip was a big adjustment at first, I've been shooting with a hard tip for so long. The table length lag shot is a good indicator for me. The softer tip requires about a full diamond more power to lag down and back on a 9 foot table.
Also, I am finding that some days for some reason I prefer playing with one over the other. Maybe the cloth is slow or fast or my stroke is good or not so good... maybe my mood or something. Or I'll start out with a soft tip and after a few games I'll warm up and decide I want a harder tip. Anyway options, options, options.
I hope this was interesting to someone out there.
Gute schtoss! And I wish you all the good rolls!
.
They both talk about specialized equipment for One Pocket.