Why don't the pro's use 2-piece centre joint cues? Are they seen as worse than 3/4 ?

[Gary Mac 147]

Players now have mostly reverted back to one piece I think the main reason is that there is more feel in a one piece.

[vmax]

Feel is about familiarity, how the cue rests in your grip and on your bridge hand (balance), how it flexes, how it deflects the cue ball with off centre striking, how it gells with certain tips, how it sounds on the strike.
You can get that with any cue no matter whether it's jointed or not, even that britannia machine spliced thing I just bought would suit someone who's used to a monstrosity like that, but I will make it better.

[Frankthered]

Some Canadian players used them back in the day. But in North America, pool is the main game. The tips are larger, meaning that the shafts also tend to be thicker. So you can put a sturdy joint half way up the cue more easily than you can with a thin-shafted snooker cue. When snooker cue makers started making high quality jointed cues (from memory, back in the late 70's?) they favoured 3/4 jointed cues for this reason. In practice a 3/4 jointed cue is just as convenient as a two-piece (unless you are travelling by bike).

I had bad experiences with centre-jointed cues. I found that either the joint was not strong enough and the shaft felt 'whippy' or, I tended to over-tighten and break the joint. In an over-reaction to that, poor experience, I got a one piece made for me. Big mistake. Absolute pain in the backside to carry around. Eventually got it converted to a 3/4. In theory, alters the weight and poss balance, but in practice absolutely zero difference to the way it plays.

Not sure about the late 70s.
First time I remember seeing a 3/4 cue was roughly the mid 80s when the objective was to have an extension so you could avoid having to use the half-butt; and the pros would be able to use their tip to hit the shot! The first one I saw actually had the middle portion of the extension turned down to a smaller diameter so that the long extension would weigh the same as the 1/4 butt that you had unscrewed.

That really didn't catch on!

And neither did the 3/4 cues for quite a while - I think mainly because the pros started using the old push-on extensions. Even when I bought my (cheapy) BCE 3/4 cue with solid extension in about 1997, I would get funny looks walking into clubs with my odd, in-betweeny length case! I bought it because I liked the feel of the cue in the shop (not really since) and I liked the idea of the extension.

Before that, I had a cheap Riley 2-piece with the joint in the middle and I never knowingly had an issue with the joint in terms of being distracted or running my chin along it. But, however you look at it, cutting a cue in two, especially halfway down the shaft, isn't going to make it play better. It might not make it (much?) worse, but it won't make it better. And as Siz says, although a 3/4 cue case is longer than a 2-piece, they are generally pretty easy to lug around and not really inconvenient in the way that (I imagine) a 1-piece case might be. It did take me a minute to transition to the longer case, but it wasn't too long at all.

I also think that the location of the joint on the 3/4 is significant - as Siz says, the cue is thicker where the joint is located, so the joint can be sturdier; but also, the joint is well into the butt of the cue, so it will have much less of an impact on the shaft, probably meaning that the way the cue plays will be affected less than it would if it were a 2-piece.

So I reckon that's why you will see pros use a 3/4, but nobody uses a 2-piece any more.

[WilliamKent]

It is evolution... a one piece is too long to transport and while a 2 piece was the answer, 3/4 is a compromise that evolved from that.

[ken147]

I've found that a 3/4 or 1 piece cue in general has more power in the shots. 2 piece centre joints cues also have the problem of rubbing on my stubble.