How to pick the right cue?

[eaoin11]

PJ's advice is good, as those cuemakers make good playing cues consistently. Many other brands can be a hit and miss affair.

If you get a cheaper cue though, my advice would be to at least ensure that the shaft is oil finished. To me that's the cut off between serious cues and pretenders. You can get an oil finished cue starting at around 80 pounds at Craftsman cues.

[cally]

lol. great analogy airin.

can't speak for any other cues but this immediately sprung to mind:

mw cue = bareback + high on coke with three strippers in a las vegas high roller suite

LMAO... That would explain ya prices then ....

[MikeWooldridge]

LMAO... That would explain ya prices then ....

lol, i wish...

[poolqjunkie]

Mike, may be change "the suite" to "a villa with your own private pool and hot tub?"

Seriously I know so many people who like to spend just a little (like 100 GBP or so) on a cue and then change the cue here and there trying to make it play well...when it does not work out they buy another cheap cue and do the same again and again....

If the maker can sell his cues for more why does he sell it so cheap? Most of these cues are usually very low quality rubbish. Not saying you cannto find a perfect cue but you need to be very lucky and really know what you are looking for. Plus even then this "perfect" cue probably looks like crap.LOL

The thing with these cheap cues is just that when you try to sell them they dont worth anything. When you buy a more expensive cue although you spend more but when you try to sell it you can actually get some of your money back--if you look at the re-sale value you are not actually spending as much as you may think.

Just buy a decent cue and get on with it. It may feel like you are spending a lot but you can then forget about looking for another cue or altering your cue or trying to adjust your stroke to make the cue work for you or annonying things like that and just enjoy the game--to enjoy the game is why you buy a cue to begin with, right?

[Cullen]

Just wanted to let you guys know, I just had the worst game of my life - and when I say worst I mean it was an utter complete failure. Every shot was downright awful.

I shall make haste getting a new cue, although before I go any further with my amazing journey, I was wondering on basically how you can get better because I know bloody well that I'm making stupid foolish mistakes and bad shots simply because I don't know any better.

It like if I was a race car driver, I just upgraded from my terrible car to the best one there is, yet I don't know how to shift the gears, thus I can't get any better since I'm not using the cars full potential. - Stupid example, but you get the big picture.

I'm not asking for a private lessons through the web, but perhaps someone has made a guide about what to do and what not, that covers the basics. Eg. the other day I was told to keep the cue as flat (horizontal) as possible and I instantly start making better shots.

I know someone is reading this and thinking "man this guy is so stupid" and so be it, if I didn't mention it earlier I just start playing snooker and I wan't to become better, not the best - but that will be quite hard if I keep making the same mistake over and over again without knowing it.

Again thanks for all your posts, been really helpful and I appreciate the assistance.

[poolqjunkie]

May be try to find a local coach to help you?
You can do some on line video coaching with Terry Davidson as well. He is a well respected member here. Perhaps try to send him a PM to ask him about it in greater details? His handle is Terry Davidson.
Hope you have all this sorted out soon.

[cazmac1]

I have some experience in this field LOL. For me personally It was all about getting the right kind of shaft, I found that most shafts on cues I purchased were to whippy or had an almost a rubber feel to them. Once I knew the type of shaft I wanted, I've been able purchase two very good cues recently. I went up to JP one day knowing exactly what type of shaft I was looking for but still couldn't find a cue with the correct weight so this is another factor.
Nearly all the cues with the right shafts were coming up to heavy at around 19 OZ. In the end Mastercraft has made my last two cue's and they have been spot on. I have owned cue's from all the top cue makers going back over a period of 30 years and my first handmade cue was by hunt and O'Byrne. I would put mastercraft or at least the last cue he made for me right up there with the best. I'm only just now starting to get to grips with the cue but the cue has felt right since day one and although I was toying with the idea of having it shorten I have now put this aside and am working on improving my stance farther than changing the cue.
Good luck with your cue search

[ADR147]

lol. great analogy airin.

can't speak for any other cues but this immediately sprung to mind:

mw cue = bareback + high on coke with three strippers in a las vegas high roller suite

i would prefer the george v