SPM Writers Area

Gaijin Custom Cues, and they want to make a cue to suit you. Robby, Marshall, and Josh are just typical southern guys with a love of the game of pool and non-traditional design. They have a simple philosophy, each of us has a natural stroke and the closer a cue is taylored to the player, the closer the player can stay to the stroke they were born with.  Armed with this simple idea, Gaijin Customs was formed. Multiple veneers in the points in varying design styles, beautiful w

If you play pool competitively in the Northeast area there is a good chance that you have seen the 14- year-old B player Lukas Fracasso-Verner. The kid is everywhere; The New England 9-Ball Series, The Predator Tour, the Tri-State Tour, the USAPL pool league, the BCA Jack and Jill, and numerous other events. Someone once asked how I felt about competing against him and I replied that I thought it was great. Not only is it nice to see young people taking up the game but Lukas

Q: How many years have you been playing pool? A: I’ve been playing pool for 13 years but only serious about it for three. Q: Who are your sponsors? A: Grinding clothing company, Diveney Custom Cues, Sergeants Sports Bar, Sharky’s Billiards, and Crafton Railroad Company Q: How many tournaments have you competed in? A: I’ve played in 300+ tournaments in 10 years Q: What do you do for fun in your spare time? A: I enjoy fishing, being outside, and hanging out with friends. Q: Wha

This specialty jump cue is made out of cored carbon fiber. The shaft is a conical taper down to a 9mm diameter; the tip is a G10 ferrule that flares out. The cue is six ounces and lifts the cue ball very well. The reason I say that it is a specialty jump cue is that the weight of the cue and overall construction of it is designed for very close jump shots. It takes a little different stroke to get lift off the table, but once you learn that stroke it’s easy to apply it. The c

One of the phrases that you hear in many facets of life is that the children are our future. It’s no different in pool then it would be in any other sport. You need young kids that want to continue the sport and take it into the future, in order to have that, you need people to mentor them and that is exactly what James Goodknight and his crew are doing with the Young Gunz program in the Quad Cities Iowa/Illinois. The Young Gunz program is run out of Sharky’s Billiards in Dav

What an honor it is for a junior pool player, age 14 through 18, to be chosen for the spring training camp, sponsored and put on by the Black Widow Foundation, to prepare for the Billiard Congress of America (BCA) Atlantic Challenge Cup. Ten players are invited to the camp and out of ten, six will be chosen as the official starting team. Emily Herpel is one of those ten participants and here is her story. Emily started playing pool when she was six (she’s now 16). She started

My husband once said that he fell in love with me because being with me made him want to be a better person. I strongly believe that, many years before, he fell in love with cue making for the same reason. It is rare to find someone so passionate about their art that it causes the person to extend beyond who they are. I think it is in design that Brandon is most happy. He will lay in bed sometimes working on drawing up a new design, messing with it until it is just right. It

The ocean of green felt that canvases most pool halls calls to me, and I feel like a musician when I play the game, holding a good piece of wood in my hand — the instrument we pool players use to perform our art with — the cue stick. This is my Zen. This is where I go to find that inner peace and silence those voices inside my head. This is where I go to find my enlightenment. Like dervish dancers we pool players sashay to the tune of a kaleidoscope of multi-colored balls cli

Q-Whiz Cue Shaft Conditioner Surprised I purchased one of these, and am happy I did! Q-Whiz did a brilliant job cleaning my cue shaft. No more sandpaper, steel wool, or hard abrasives to take particles of timber off the shaft. Forget wet and dry, brown paper or a damp cloth… Get one of these from Cue World Australia, you  won’t be disappointed. OB 124 Birdseye Maple, No Wrap Deceiving When I got my OB 124 I honestly wasn’t sure about it (even after having a hit on the table a

Rising junior pool star Xzaviar Aune (aw-knee) has faced down some extreme adversaries in his seventeen years on this planet — and most of them weren’t at the pool table. With years of debilitating heart defects and Mayo Clinic surgeries now behind him, Aune has a  survivor’s determination to succeed that is palpable. Though he is known as a stoic and determined new competitor in the local Winona Pool Club, Aune has left a different mark on the community-at-large, recently co

Hi! Dakotah Schmidtknecht here to do a review of the Viking exact shot shaft. First off, I’m no pro-shooter—I’m a VNEA B-level shooter from Wisconsin with too much time on my hands. I’ve been taught how to test for deflection by Brandon Jacoby of Jacoby Custom Cues. I tested this shaft much like I tested the last one: on seven, eight, and nine-foot tables. The Viking eXact Shot shaft is available to purchase in several pins including 5/16” x 18 quick release, 5/16 x 18 full t

Hello, everyone. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Xzaviar Aune. I am a 17 year old kid from Winona, MN. I want to take some time to share a piece of my story; where I started, how I got where I am a now, and where I hope to be in the future. First I would like to rewind to my beginning for just a moment. I was born on Oct 20th, 1997, to Marshall and Tabetha. They were overjoyed with my arrival, but soon realized they and the doctors would be fighting for my life