Mike Lambros Cues

Mr, Lambros has been part of the billiards industry for sometime now and had produced cues that are on par or surpassed that of South West and other cues being produced to date.
I am from the Philippines and had the opportunity to play with some of the greats like Efren Reyes, Dennis Orcollo, and Jeffery Du Lunna.
I contacted Mike to get a cue made for those purposes, sometimes in this business when you have someone that has the skills Mike does when building cues, your going to run late, and things aren’t always going to be done right on time. South West takes 10 years to get a cue.
One thing I wouldn’t do is bash someone brag about it and then continue to use their cues. This makes me think about ignorance.
However, this probably makes the difference a pro billiards player and a bar room box player.

In my dealings with Mike he has been nothing but a class act. Not sure how much of a thorn in the side Alvin was but I am guessing his attitude had a lot to do with his treatment. There is one thing that simply can not be denied: a Lambros cue plays very well. They are expensive but for the most part they will hold their value. If you are paranoid about getting ripped off by Mike (you shouldn’t be!) then you can always pick up one of his cues on the secondary market.

SHORT VERSION:
If anyone out there still has any doubts about this man’s true character, I strongly encourage you to listen to the transcript of the retrial and judge for yourself. I’ll be more than happy to send you a copy as soon as I receive it. The transcript speaks for itself. It’s a bit long, but within you’ll find a man who simply cannot tell the truth and who thinks he’s smart enough to get a away with anything. I’m amazed he wasn’t held in contempt because not only did he get caught lying throughout the case, but all of the evidence he tried to submit was doctored in some way. Do yourself a favor and just listen.
If you ordered a cue from Mr. Lambros and he still hasn’t delivered it, sue him. Even if (like I was) you were foolish enough to say «ok» when he asked for more time, the judge can still knock a substantial amount from the cost of the cue. I’m not a lawyer, but the gist is you paid him for performance, and an aspect of that performance is how long the work took to complete. If the work took longer than it should have, then regardless of the end product the performance was less than what you agreed to, and you should not be required to pay for performance you didn’t receive.
LONG VERSION:
I was granted a retrial which took place on the 17^th, and justice was much better served this time. Mr. Lambros even brought a lawyer who rattled off legal precedents on why he wasn’t obligated to complete the cue, even though I paid a deposit and a due date was in the contract, but in the end it backfired on him. The judge ordered him to hand the cue over to me at a substantially reduced price (about half off), and also ordered him to pay half the court costs. While I wasn’t too keen on paying even a dime to someone who tried to rip me off, in retrospect the ruling was fair; it compensates me for the cue being over a year late, and better yet Mr. Lambros will actually lose money once you factor in legal fees and court costs. Hopefully this lesson will teach Mr. Lambros that you can’t always get away with ripping people off and it’s not worth it to try, but knowing him it probably won’t.
I repeat: Mr. Lambros is not a good person. It’s not just that he took money, broke his promise to finish the cue, and refused to give the money back. It’s not just that both in and out of court he made up lies to try to cover up his unethical actions. What bothers me the most is how he can screw someone but not stop there. He’ll not only flat out and unequivocally accuse the person he screwed of being the liar, but he’ll try to make up stuff to discredit that person if he speaks up. How can you do that? Not only should you never do business with this man, you should not even associate with him, because in his twisted mind there may come a time when he thinks it’s in his best interest to discredit *you*.
Another thing that came up in court: if anyone has bought a cue from Mr. Lambros where the stock was supposed to have been made from some fancy, exotic wood, it (mostly) isn’t! He makes those cues out of maple as well and simply puts a sleeve made of the more exotic wood above and below the grip. The core and functional part of the stock is maple, and essentially only the visible area is the other wood. He never mentioned that to me, and strongly implied the stock would be all koa since the whole purpose for using koa was to reduce weight. I’m guessing he never mentioned this to others as well.
The ironic part of all of this is that the cue isn’t bad for what it is. One of the shafts is warped, and the engraving is still the wrong font (although at least Mr. Lambros redid the engraving properly at some point), but otherwise it’s a solid hitting cue. If he had simply done the work he was supposed to do I would have accepted the cue without much complaint. Instead Mr. Lambros didn’t feel like doing the work and rather than of simply refunding my deposit he tried to rip me off.
As for the cue, I’ve used it extensively for the last few days. Its hit is unique but comparable to a midrange to higher end McDermott with a 3/8″-10 phenolic joint, except not as smooth feeling (bad) and with considerably less flex during the hit (very good). The hit can be approximated using a Predator 314 shaft with the McDermott, although I prefer OB shafts. I imagine the newer McDermott cues with the G-​Core or i-​Shaft shafts also provide a similar hit, but I haven’t tried them.
Does Mr. Lambros make a pretty good cue? Yes. But he’s simply not reliable, and there are other custom cue manufacturers out there who make equally good cues and are not morally bankrupt. If you still don’t believe this about him, a simple web search shows other people saying exactly what I’ve been saying, and worse. This behavior isn’t a one time thing or whatever story he would have you believe – he’s been doing it for years. If I had done that web search beforehand I would never have bought a cue from him. I highly recommend that you choose another manufacturer.

Best cue I have ever owned. Hits like a dream. I would highly recommend him to anyone who could afford his work.