How to Buy a Pool Cue for Yourself

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name's Joe, and we're going to talk about how to buy a pool cue. You can spend most any amount of money that you want to on a pool cue. If you're a beginner it doesn't make much sense to spend a lot of money. You can buy a quality pool cue for probably somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars. What makes a good pool cue is that you want it to be straight; you want to have a good tip on it. Some people like linen wrap. Some people don't want a wrap at all. Some people like leather. If you're a beginner the odds are that you'll just have a thread wrap on the back of the butt. Now, the weight of a pool cue; again, it varies. Most pool players play with a nineteen to a twenty-ounce pool cue. The reason for that is that you don't have to work so hard to get the balls to roll around the table, because the weight of the stick will do some of the work. If you're playing snooker they use a slightly lighter stick. They may use seventeen or even eighteen ounce. When you have found the pool cue that you want you want to make sure that it has a good tip. You have soft tips, medium tips, and hard tips. The softer the tip the easier it is for your englishes to grab, because you have more friction when it contacts the cue ball. The problem with the softer tip is that you, it has more maintenance; you have to shape it more because it will flatten as you play. A hard tip has less maintenance. You won't have to flat, work on it quite so much to keep the shape, but it's also takes a little bit better of a stroke to get your englishes to take. The way that you would want your tip to be is approximately the radius of a dime or a nickel. It's pretty much your preference. You have many joint materials. This one here is stainless steel. You have phenolic and you have ivory. Again, it's just as what you would like to have. On the butt end of the stick we have; this stick has points. Some sticks are plain. The more, the more fancy the stick is the more you're going to pay for it. Some sticks have rings at this point here and this point here, and as this one does not. So to sum it up, when you're buying a pool cue you just want to make sure that it has a good weight, the balance is good, and that you're happy with the way that it looks, because that has a lot to do with how you're going to shoot. If you feel comfortable with your stick you'll have a tendency to shoot a little better. And as far as what you spend on it; that's entirely up to you. You can spend a little or you can spend a lot. And, so basically that's all there is to buyin' a pool cue."