J Dub wrote..
> Geez, not even a decent flame war. C'mon guys, if you're going to get your
> testosterone boiling, take off the gloves and do it right. Don't expect us
> to vote for the winner.
If you want a flame war you'll have to start one yourself. Some good topics might be "Only chumps play one-pocket," and "Efren sucks because he isn't an American," and "Three-ball, the only true test of pool skill."

Since the recent troll invasion of ASP I've lost all inhibitions about plonking people, so I'd be more likely to just ignore someone than to get into a pissing contest with them. If I can't keep a disagreement up to at least a marginally adult level I just don't feel like wasting my time with it.

Ed Mercier wrote...
> Because we generally do not worry about grown men making other grown men cry under
> nearly any circumstance. So making the statement when referring to Allison is an
> off-hand reference to her sex, and the widely held opinion that women are more
> likely to cry than men are. That makes it sexist.

Okay. I see your point. I feel my fault was not, however in making a sexist remark, but rather in failing to anticipate that others may understandably interpret it as such. I'm not going to let myself become overy concerned about this type of thing or I'd become afraid to post anything besides "shoot, shoot, shoot."

If the match being discussed had indeed been between Earl and Cory Deuel, I might very well have made the same statement. In that context it would certainly have been an off-hand reference to Cory's relative youth, relative inexperience, and relative immaturity. Hmmm, so there would have been some veiled meaning in one case, and no (intended) veiled meaning in the other. Makes me wish I had a therapist to sort this out.

BTW: That last paragraph was in no way intended to defame Cory Deuel. The mentions of relative youth and relative inexperience are, I feel, fairly harmless and obvious, especially when comparing him to Earl Strickland. Immaturity is one of those unfortunate words with several meanings. In this context I was referring to a (possible) immaturity in handling the type of sharking stunts that Earl may pull in a match. The same type of immaturity that makes some young men cry because a drill sargeant yells at them. Another type of immaturity is evidenced by poor-sportsmanship, and in that area I'm pretty sure that Cory is way (better than) Earl. As is a large percentage of the population.

Ed Mercier wrote...
> So you're saying you would be just as likely to make this remark about a male player
> (maybe Buddy Hall?) as a female player (Allison)? If no, it's a sexist remark. If
> yes, you're a dope. Your choice I guess.

The conversation was about Earl vs. Allison. If those two were to match up, which one would be more likely to make an ass of themselves, use sharking tactics, argue calls, etc.?

Now wouldn't that leave the other player in the position of possibly being upset by such antics?

Wouldn't that be a horrible thing for CueTec?

If I'd said Allison might make Earl cry that would make no sense, not because Earl is a man, but because Allison would never behave that badly. Earl does behave that badly, so anyone he plays has to be extra careful to not let him get under their skin.

You can read sexist into my statement if you want, but I think I deserve more consideration than this knee-jerk reaction. It seems to me that your implication that only a "dope" would make this remark about Earl vs. another male player could also be inferred as a sexist stand.

I won't make that inference about you because I've read enough from you to feel that, while you are at times wrong, you at least seem to feel that you have a legitimate reason for your opinions. I doubt you could justify these kinds of sexist feelings to yourself, therefore I doubt that you're a sexist. It would be nice if you could give me the same consideration.

> > >NO......the best match would be Strickland and Fisher!
> >
> > Sponsored by CueTec, of course!

I guess I'm probably in the minority here, but I hate this idea, and I can't imagine why either player would want to do it.

I think it's agreed that Allison would need some type of spot, whether it was a designated breaker or whatever. Any match that included that type of adjustment is, IMO, making a pretty clear statement that Allison can't keep up with Earl playing straight up. For most people this would only be stating the obvious and the match would end up being more of a publicity stunt than an actual match.

But say Allison wins. Nothing would be proved as "everyone" would know that the win wouldn't have been possible without the adjustment. Earl would be taking a very public loss that he didn't deserve, but a very public loss nonetheless. Any comments Earl would inevitably make about losing because of the adjustment would only create more fuel for the anti-Earl people.

Now say Earl wins. So what? He's got to be expected to win, even with a break adjustment, so a win gets him nothing except the opportunity to be seen beating a very popular "girl." Allison gets nothing from a Strickland win for the same reason she gets nothing if she wins.

Also, does Cuetec really want their two name players pitted against each other? Maybe they do, but I'd be awful leery about putting Earl in the spotlight, playing against Allison, where just about every word out of Earl's mouth could alienate more and more fans. Heck, can you imagine the outrage if he made Allison cry with his antics?

If Allison could match Earl straight-up, and if Earl wasn't so Earl, I'd like this idea. But a straight-up match would be a joke, and Earl is extremely Earl, so I'd be very surprised to see this match happen.

For nearly a week now I've been nearly completely incapacitated by Plantar Fasciitis. The common name for this is "Heel Spurs," but in reality the formation of heel spurs can be a result of plantar fasciitis.

From About.com:
"The condition is diagnosed with the classic symptoms of pain well localized
over an area of the bottom of the foot near the heel. Often the pain is most
severe when you first stand on the foot in the morning. The condition is
sometimes, but not always, associated with a sudden gain of weight.

In many cases the pain will gradually subside throughout the day as normal
activities stretch the plantar fascia, the ligament that, when there is
inflammation present, causes the condition of plantar fasciitis."

In my case, the pain has remained pretty much constant each day, and my normal activities have been reduced to mincing around on the balls of my feet to keep pressure off my heels. This also helps to stretch the ligament and that eases the pain somewhat. An added bonus is that I constantly look like I've just shit my pants.

It took me several days to figure out what I'd done to piss my heels off so much. I just got a new table, so I'm playing a lot, but no more than I've played almost every day for the past 9 months. Making room for the new table also involved some demolition work, so I suspected for a short time that carrying around rocks and a sledge hammer may have caused the inflammation, but the demolition work was done weeks ago, and I had no symptoms until early this week. I have not experienced any recent weight gains so that wasn't the problem either.

Last night I got some new inserts for my shoes, and since they cushion my heels very well I went down to shoot some pool. That's where I figured out what was causing my problem.

My new table is larger than my old one, and features much tighter pockets. I found that to maintain the same accuracy I was forced to change my head's position relative to my cue. I needed to have my head lower and farther back.

The problem was in the way I was making this adjustment. Instead of stepping into the shot from farther back to begin with, I was assuming my normal stance, then rocking backwards until my head was in the new, more accurate, position. Basically I was shifting my weight from being evenly distributed across my feet to being almost all on my heels.

I normally play pool 6-8 hours every day, and having that weight on my heels for that much time is, I'm convinced, what caused my condition.

I've got a few more days of taking it easy to look forward to, but the pain is lessening, and I'm confident that I'll be back to normal within a week. You can bet I'll be more careful about settling into my stance from now on. I'm too young to have what's commonly a condition for middle-aged men.

I suppose the point to this is that balance when shooting is very important, not only to provide a stable base from which to swing the cue, but also to prevent painful conditions such as plantar faciitis.

Left untreated, plantar fasciitis can lead to the formation of bone spurs, and the treatment for those is normally surgery to remove the spurs. Doesn't sound like fun to me.

I met up with Fred Agnir Monday night at The Bank Shot in Louisville. I'd really been looking forward to playing against Fred since I've been assuming that he and I played about the same speed.

I was right. We ended up playing two sets of 9 ball and one set of 8 ball. In the first (9 ball) set, Fred had me down 7-2 racing to 9 but I finally found my focus and squeaked out a 9-8 victory.

The next set was race to 9 in 8 ball, and again we went hill-hill and I somehow managed to put the final 8 ball into a pocket 2.26" wide to take that set as well.

The last set was a race to 7 in 9 ball. Fred pulled ahead 4-2, then I pulled ahead 5-4, and inevitably we ended up tied on the hill at 6-6. I won that game on an el-cheapo 1-9 combination to take the final set.

Any of the sets could have easily gone the other way. My breaks were working a little better than Fred's. His safeties were a lot better than mine. Fred's shotmaking was very good, my speed control was a little better than his. If a few rolls had gone the other way Fred could have taken all three sets.

Fred may correct me on this, but I think we were both playing at about our average speed. You know how sometimes you just play good enough to win? Well I think Fred and I were both doing just that. When I stepped it up a notch Fred followed suit easily, and vice-versa. It would be interesting to match up against Fred for some serious play, but I think we'd still end up pretty even.

I really enjoyed playing against Fred, though I was a little concerned he'd pop a vein or something because of this magic corner pocket that seemed to deflect all his shots while letting mine go right in no matter how much I cheated the pocket.

One final note: Don't scratch on the break playing Fred in 8 ball. He will apparently run out on you every time.

Greg Miller wrote...
> How about these rules:
> 1. Alternating breaks.
> 2. A legal break would require a specified number of balls
> to hit the head rail rather than the now 4 balls hitting any
> rail(s).
> 3. Break from a very narrow box, say 4" wide, centered on
> the long string from the head string to the head rail.

Of these, I like number 3 the best, but my all-time favorite solution would be the one I suggested a while ago in another thread about the Sardo:

Lag for first break, trailer breaks all subsequent games. If another tie develops, the person that just got tied (not the person who caught up) breaks the next game. Then back to trailer breaks, and so on.

This still allows for multiple-rack runs if someone is making a comeback, and if both players are making a ball consistently it should make for some pretty close matches.

Plus I think this option has the advantage, like alternating breaks would, of not changing the rules of the game or the placement of the rack or the cueball at all.

Frank Brent wrote...
> Barenada disposed of Frank B 7-4 in 9-ball and 7-2 in 8-ball to claim
> KOH's in the Louisville, KY area. Despite an off night Barenada easily
> handled his opponent at the Bank Shot on a Diamond pro-cut 9' table. In
> a post match interview Barenada expressed hope that other RSB/ASP
> players would come forth and challenge him in future Louisville area
> KOH matches.

We also snuck in a game of banks which was a joke, taking nearly a half hour to complete. I officially won it 5-4, but we had both lost count at one point so the game may have really gone to Frank 5-4.

Once I finally found some semblance of a stroke, and Frank managed to bring his tall frame into alignment, we had a pretty decent set of 9 ball where I squeaked out a 7-6 win. I think at that point we both decided to quit while were somewhat less disgusted with ourselves than we'd been the rest of the night.

One of the interesting things (to me anyway) was that after dropping a 3-rail and a 4-rail bank during the first set, I realized I had a chance at the cycle. Alas, it was not meant to be as I made several 1-rail banks but scratched on my only 2-rail attempt. I think the shot went in, though.

A true pool nut, Frank dug into his case and whipped out a bunch of pictures of cues and tables. The pictures of his very old Brunswick table showed it to be absolutely beautiful.

I'd been hoping to get in some one-pocket, and we had earlier discussed making one-pocket the last set of the night, but we were both shooting so poorly that the regular one-pocket shooters that hang out in there would probably have heckled us mercilessly.