What are syntactic and semantic cues?

What are the best brands for pool cues?

• The pool cues I have are getting old, and the tip fell of of a couple of them.

• Answer:

  There is no best brand. In general, custom cues are of the highest quality. If you find a knowledgeable and experienced cuemaker, they are all of pretty similar quality. If this is something you're interested in, first look for a local cuemaker that you can speak with personally and test their cues. If that's not an option, do a thorough internet search, and decide what attributes you're looking for in a cue, and go from there. Custom cues start in the $300-$400 range, and can go up to thousands of dollars. Off the rack cues have a wide range of prices, and a wide range in quality. In general, if you want a high quality cue, you have to pay a high quality price. Top quality cues generally start in the $200 range and can go up steeply from there. There are some decent values in the $100-$200 range though. There's not a lot of good quality cues under $100, but there are some. If I only had $100 to spend on a cue today, I'd buy a Shmelke. My personal playing cue right now is a Predator P3. It is the most technologically advanced, and most accurate cue on the market. I feel there is nothing better as far as off-the-rack cues go. I also own a custom cue by a man named Jack Madden that is outstanding. Both of these cues were quite pricy though (the Predator was over $700, the Madden, well, more). Set your own budget, do your research, and decide for yourself. There are a lot of good (and bad) cues out there.