What Pool Cue Does Efren Reyes Use? His Gear Explained

Efren's Current Cue: Mezz Signature

Efren 'Bata' Reyes, the greatest all-around pool player in history, currently plays with a Mezz signature cue. Mezz Cue Industries is a Japanese cue manufacturer that partnered with Efren years ago and has produced several signature models bearing his name, the EC-series and related variants.

Efren's signature Mezz cues typically feature the Mezz WX-series shaft, which is a low-deflection maple shaft with proprietary construction. The butt designs vary by model but feature Efren's signature, distinctive point work, and his preferred specs. Mezz sells Efren-branded cues commercially, so you can actually buy a cue that's built to Efren's preferences (though Efren's personal playing cues are usually slightly customized beyond what's in the stock signature line).

The thing worth knowing about the Mezz EC-series is that they're beautifully made. The balance is excellent, the shaft is responsive, and the overall build quality is on par with any Western maker in the same price range.

The Evolution of Efren's Cues Over 40 Years

Efren's cue history reads like a compressed history of pool equipment itself. He started playing seriously as a teenager in the Philippines in the late 1960s, and the cues he used in those early years were almost entirely Filipino-made customs, cheap, locally-turned maple with basic Irish linen wraps, often unbranded or marked with a local maker's stamp. Filipino cue making in that era had no formal commercial industry behind it. A good cue meant a local craftsman who turned shafts in his garage and knew how to balance a butt. Efren's earliest tournament wins on the Manila pool-hall circuit were made with exactly that kind of cue.

His first major international tournament run in the early 1980s, including his dominant appearances at the 1984 Professional Pool Players Association events, was done with a low-end American production cue that he'd acquired through friends. Details on the specific model are unclear in the historical record, but photographs from that period show a plain maple stick with minimal inlay work.

The Meucci era began in the late 1980s and ran through the mid-2000s. This was Efren's absolute prime. His 1995 $100,000 winner-take-all match against Earl Strickland at the Sands Casino in Atlantic City, still one of the most-watched pool matches of all time, was played with a Meucci Original in his trademark 18-18.5oz weight. The 2001 World 9-Ball Championship, which Efren won at age 47, was also a Meucci performance. For roughly 15 years of peak dominance, Meucci was the cue.

The Mezz transition happened around 2005-2007. Mezz Cue Industries had been courting Efren with a signature-model proposal, and the move to Mezz corresponded with his later-career run as a team-event dominant force, including multiple World Cup of Pool wins alongside Francisco Bustamante. His 2014 International Challenge of Champions win was a Mezz signature performance. The switch wasn't a quality upgrade so much as a partnership, Mezz offered the financial and design collaboration Meucci couldn't match at that stage of his career, and Efren has been loyal to Mezz ever since.

Across all of it, his weight preference (18-18.5oz) and tip style (medium maple) have stayed remarkably consistent. The cue maker changed four or five times across 50 years; the specs haven't.

The Meucci Era (1980s-2000s)

For much of his prime, Efren played with Meucci cues. Meucci Originals, founded by Bob Meucci, became synonymous with Efren during his dominant years in the 1990s and early 2000s. Meucci cues were the cue of choice for many top Filipino players of that era, including Francisco Bustamante and Django Bustamante.

Efren's Meucci setup was typically in the 18-18.5 ounce range with the standard Meucci shaft. Meucci shafts were known for their whippy, forgiving feel, which complemented Efren's touch-based game perfectly. If you watch old videos of Efren from the 1990s, the famous Color of Money tournament against Earl Strickland, for example, he's almost certainly playing with a Meucci.

Meucci remained his main maker until the early-to-mid 2000s when he transitioned to Mezz. There are reports that he still occasionally plays with Meuccis in casual or exhibition settings, but his tournament cue has been Mezz for over a decade.

Why Efren Plays Light Cues (18-18.5oz)

Efren's game is built on feel, creativity, and cue ball control that nobody else has matched. He sees angles others don't and executes shots that look impossible, jumping the cue ball, swerving it around blockers, coming off multiple rails for perfect position. All of that requires a cue that lets you feel the ball at a level the average player never even attempts.

A lighter cue (18-18.5oz, versus the 19-20oz most pros use) gives you more feedback on soft shots and better control on finesse plays. You can feel the cue ball more, which means you can dial in speed and spin more precisely. The tradeoff is less power on breaks and long shots, but Efren's stroke technique generates so much action from his elbow and wrist that he doesn't need the extra ounce for power.

If you're a touch-based player who struggles with soft position shots, consider trying a lighter cue. It's part of how Efren plays the game he plays.

Efren's Impact on Cue Design

Here's a part of Efren's legacy that doesn't show up in his trophy cabinet: he changed how pool cues are built. The specific shot types that Efren pioneered, extreme swerve, heavy-english cut shots, massé at table-length, cue ball contortions that most players considered physically impossible, put stresses on equipment that Western cue makers of the 1980s and 1990s had never really designed for. The shafts that worked for American rotation players of the 1970s didn't do what Efren needed them to do.

The most significant design ripple was the acceleration of low-deflection (LD) shaft technology. When Efren applied extreme side english, traditional maple shafts transferred enough cue deflection that his aim line had to compensate significantly. Meucci's whippy shaft construction was partly a response to what Filipino-style touch players like Efren were demanding. Predator's 314 shaft, launched in 1994 and widely considered the first mass-market LD shaft, was developed in direct response to this pattern of play, Filipino rotation-pool technique was reshaping American-style equipment demands. Meucci, Predator, Mezz, and eventually every major cue maker began offering low-deflection shafts as a standard product by the mid-2000s. That industry-wide shift traces back, in significant part, to how Efren was playing.

The massé-friendly tip and ferrule designs of the 2000s also owe Efren a debt. His elevated-cue shots demanded tips that could take hard downward contact without mushrooming, and ferrules strong enough to absorb force vectors that traditional phenolic ferrules often cracked under. Mezz's tip and ferrule specifications on Efren signature cues reflected these demands and pushed competitor makers to match.

Finally, the lighter playing-cue spec (18-18.5oz) that Efren favors influenced the resurgence of lighter cues across the pro game. For most of the 20th century American pool wisdom said 19.5-21oz was the right range. Efren's decades of dominance at 18oz quietly shifted that conventional wisdom, and you now see pros across multiple disciplines experimenting with lighter cues, in part because the guy who ran the table at every event used one. His influence on design isn't theoretical. It's baked into the equipment most serious pool players are using today.

Tips, Shafts, and Other Details

Efren uses a medium tip on his playing cue, nothing exotic. I've never heard him publicly rave about a specific tip brand, though Mezz cues typically come with Mezz's own house-brand tips or Elk Master / Triangle / Moori replacements depending on the model and year.

His shaft is standard 12.9-13mm maple with Mezz's low-deflection construction. He's not a carbon fiber player, he's used traditional maple his entire career, even as most top pros have shifted. This is consistent with his generation of Filipino players, who all built their games on maple and see no reason to switch.

For breaking, Efren has used various break cues over the years, but his playing cue is usually the showpiece in his case. He's known for maintaining his gear carefully and keeping the same setup for years once he finds something that works.

Can You Buy Efren's Cue?

Yes, Mezz actively markets Efren Reyes signature cues, and you can order them from Mezz dealers in the US, Japan, and the Philippines. Expect to pay $800-2,000 for a Mezz Efren signature cue depending on the specific model and options. They're excellent cues even beyond the signature value.

What you won't get is Efren's exact personal playing cue, that one is custom-spec'd to his individual preferences and isn't commercially available. But a stock Mezz EC or similar signature cue will get you 95% of the way there, and if you like the feel, you can always have a cue maker fine-tune the weight or balance to your liking.

Vintage Meuccis from Efren's prime era (1990s Meucci Originals) are also out there on the used market. Prices vary hugely by condition and model, but a good vintage Meucci in the $300-700 range can be a fun piece to own for Efren fans.

A Note on the Legend

Efren's legacy is bigger than any specific piece of equipment. People have tried for decades to figure out what makes him so good, and the honest answer is that it isn't the cue, it's him. He grew up playing on tables that would be unrecognizable to American players, developed a shotmaking style rooted in Filipino rotation pool, and has an almost supernatural feel for the game.

I've met Efren briefly at a tournament in 2016 and saw him execute shots in practice that I still can't believe he made. His cue in that moment was a Mezz, but it could have been a broomstick and he would have still won.

Buy a Mezz or a Meucci if you love his game and want a piece of his style. But understand that the magic was never really in the stick.