just in case, and other random thoughts

Posted: February 23, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: pool & billiards, pool & billiards techniques, random thoughts, sheer madness | Tags: , , , | 10 Comments »

i was going through the pool matches on my dvr.  (i have a small collection of it.  and i wish my dvr has a bigger hard drive.)  i had no idea i recorded the 2009 wpba pacific coast classic & never watched any of the matches; this was the tournament where they televised four quarterfinals, two semifinals, and the finals match for a whopping total of seven hours of pool.  that’s quite a coverage for a single tournament.

anyway, i began to go through the matches starting with the first quarterfinals match.  the third quarterfinals match had jennifer chen battling karen corr; rather, the match had karen corr unleashing total annihilation upon jennifer chen.  yeah, it’s that match—the one where corr obliterated chen 7-0.  i haven’t watched too many jennifer chen matches; if i did, it was a long time ago and i don’t remember them.  watching this match now though, the one thing that really struck me was the weirdness of chen’s form (at least in this match).  first off, she had this wavy, loopy warm-up stroke.  her wrist turned outward, but she didn’t really lock it.  there was a slight sidearm stroke going on.  she also incorporated a wrist snap, & she tried to punch her shots with the wrist snap . . . it looked like a mess.  there just seemed to be so many factors in chen’s form that could work against her.  i’m not saying that chen’s a bad player; she has the hardwares to quiet the doubters and critics.  but man, she has a weird form.

all this led me to think about fundamentals.  i think good fundamentals are there to get you through the bad times; a contingency plan for the times when you shoot like crap.  when you play well, it pretty much doesn’t matter what you do; you’ll run out and make great shots when you’re on.  but when you’re playing bad, the values of solid fundamentals really shine through.  i think of it as a back-up plan: when i play bad (and i will, because i’m human), i can go back to my fundamentals to get me out of that slump.  this is the paradoxical nature of pool though: us players are forever trying to get in the zone, where you’ll stop thinking about fundamentals and just shoot.  but you must have solid fundamentals to get to the zone.  weird, huh?

anyway, i was glad to see chen on tv; she went through a really rough spot, but now she’s competing again, and i believe she either opened up a new pool hall in china or trying to open one.  hope she does well.

i found lil’ al romero’s number in case you want to order a cue.  (562)867-3580.  get a sneaky or a break & jump sneaky; they play solid.

btw, this whole cycak business just further reinforced my beliefs about forums.  if you read the omg vs. cycak thread on azb forum, it went from straight discussions about the match to forum members hurling insults at each other in practically no time at all.  i’m just glad i’m not part of any of that.  also, ms. cycak went on a posting rampage & wrote of bunch of stuff about people making fun of her hair, her attire, or the way she supposedly treated the workers at the pool hall.  unfortunately ms. cycak completely missed the bus.  people didn’t become outraged at the way she looked or how she treated others; it was about what she did, which was welshing a bet.  after practically hundreds of comments and several blog posts, she is still not getting that.  f~*ing amazing.

oh, i practiced with weasel again.  during our practice session, i noticed that he would try to subtly shark me, which led me to think about the way we approach the game.  when a person sharks, the person’s attention is on the opponent, not on his/her own game.  instead of being able to learn from the practice or the match, that person is wasting valuable energy on the other guy.  i think that in pool, worry about your own s~* first and concentrate on improving your game.  when you pay too much attention on how to shark your opponent, you’re losing the chance to improve yourself.

hey, i learned something.  cool.

some thoughts on the cycak incident

Posted: February 18, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: pool & billiards, random thoughts, sheer madness | Tags: , , | Comments Off

with all the stuff that happened during the match between omg and cycak, i have some thoughts i’ll just jot down here.  i went the the swannee tournament only to watch the matches; i had no idea omg was playing cycak.  typically omg would help out the live stream crew and maybe do some commentaries, as well as whatever else that needed a hand like interacting with online spectators.  when i saw her went to the back of the tournament room & put her cue together, i had a hunch that omg was in action & decided to run back and forth between the swannee matches and the omg match.  i didn’t know the person who played omg, and the people i asked had no clue.  anyway, i ended up taking a few pics of the omg match.  honestly, i thought this would be a one-paragraph writeup: omg vs. so and so, and (insert winner’s name) won.  i hadn’t started on a swannee post yet, but i figured the omg match would be a cool item to end the article.  little did i know the paradigm would be turned upside down, and the omg match would end up as the main feature.  i happened to catch the story, and decided to rush out a post right after the tournament.  thanks to omg’s link, quite a few people read my post to find out what happened; for those that read my article, my sincere gratitude.  i appreciate your readership.  and thanks again to omg for the link.

i found the idea that ms. cycak thought she could waltz in and rob omg to be quite funny.  first of all, you’ll never know if your opponent would catch fire, even the weakest opponents, let along someone who’s seen plenty of action and tournaments.  second, the tables at hard times are killer.  you all know about the pockets on table six now; however, you may not know that the pockets on the rest of the tables are only 0.25″ wider.  the pockets on table ten were roughly 4.25″ wide, plus they spit out a million balls.  i watch people miss shots at hard times that’d drop practically anywhere else on a daily basis; on the tournament side, there are no easy tables.  unless you’re a top pro, those tables can take you down a playing level; if you’re a b+ player, you may go down to a b or a b- at hard times just for the equipment.  omg, having played on those tables before, knew what to expect, but i don’t think ms. cycak had any idea how the hard times tables worked.  hey, that’s what happens when your head gets too big: you stop doing your homework.  if ms. cycak had bothered to ask around or did some serious practice on the table a few days before the match, she would have noticed how those pockets played and adjusted accordingly.  (this is besides the point, but watch the oscar vs. morra match and you’ll notice that oscar played safeties on seemingly makable shots because of the pockets.  oscar should know; his dad ernesto maintains the tables at hard times.  the pockets on table six are always that tight; that’s how ernesto had them set up, and he never changed it.)

moral of the story?  if you want to set up a legitimate match, do your homework beforehand, don’t get big-headed, and always be ethical and courteous.  if you can’t pay, don’t play.  speaking of which, ms. cycak owes omg money for forfeiting the match.  ma’am, do the right thing.

since omg still has her money, i wonder if she’ll use it to set up that andoni rematch.  time will tell.

strange escapist behavior of the creature from the black lagoon

Posted: February 14, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: pool & billiards, sheer madness | Tags: , | 12 Comments »

i know this is a really late-night post, but i just came back from the 2011 swannee memorial tournament, so i have an excuse.  by the way, congratulations to the lion for winning the whole enchilada by beating mitch ellerman 11-5, or at least i think that’s the score.

alas, while the dramatic action took place center stage on the famed table six of hard times, there was a lesser drama perhaps in scale, but grander in its intensity, that took place four tables down.  let us introduce the dramatis personae:



the first pic requires no introduction.  it’s the famed omg of omgwtf, er, fame.  pics two through four are of a female player from north carolina named asia.  or asya.  or asea.  maybe it’s ayy-seeya.  (more on that in a minute.)  it’s kind of like the whole bruce lee/bruce le/bruce li deal; who knows how the spelling goes.  anyway, that’s the creature from the black lagoon.  i’m putting up three pics because there doesn’t seem to be any good pics of her, and her facebook page is no longer valid when i checked it 10 minutes ago.  (of course, i don’t have a facebook account so maybe i can’t access it.  the name is GoldenchildMVP, i believe.  there is a thread up on azbilliard forum already.)  apologies for my craptastic pics; i couldn’t exactly use flash.  :(

anyway, the story was that omg & ayy-seeya set up a match of race to 21 for $2000.  apparently there were plenty of back & forth with the negotiations, but finally the creature agreed to play.  (omg, of course, needed no such prodding.)  both players showed up on the second day of the swannee tournament to cross swords.  originally omg wanted someone to hold the cash, but the creature said that she was from out of state and didn’t trust anyone with her $$$.  so each player held on to her own pieces of gold and the match commenced.  omg managed to pull out a 13-6 lead; the creature excused herself for a ciggy break.  and then . . .

ayy-seeya pulled a see-ya, and promptly disappeared into the night.  yes, she skedaddled.  and left her cues and case at the pool hall.  behold, the gory evidence:



in case you can’t read what the red stickers say, it’s the word “fragile”.  omg joking said that the sticker reflected the creature’s ego.  :P   contents: two crappy cues in dinged-up condition.  some sundry accessories.  a bunch of used chalk.  total value: $10-$20, assuming you can find a buyer that actually want the pieces of s~*.  a kind gentleman offered to buy it as a memento, and omg agreed to let the gent have the stuff if he paid the table time.  the transaction completed soon after.

the good thing was that omg was holding her own money, so she didn’t really lose anything other than some time.  however, there were some speculations that the creature didn’t have the money to begin with; i don’t believe omg saw the creature’s money before the match started.  well, if the creature did have the cash, it was likely some backer(s) gave her the $2000.  if so, the creature made $2000.  she now just has to make sure her backer, if there was one (or several), doesn’t catch up to her.  if the creature didn’t have the moola, she just avoided a titanic beating of the flesh (and possibly stabbing of the soft tissues).  feel free to speculate, gentle readers.

omg kind of blamed herself for not posting the cash on top of the light.  in truth, the blame lies entirely with the creature, who used deception and pond-scum tactics to weasel out of her obligations.  the only thing omg can blame herself for is matching up with lowlifes.  also, omg mentioned that the creature was talking down to her the whole time, and it was very possible that the creature thought she could run right through omg.  for anyone that’s held a cue for some time, you know there is no such thing as a lock.  you can achieve perhaps 99% chance of winning, but there is no 100% game out there.  i’ve seen no-name amateurs beat touring pros at tournaments, with only one game on the wire as the handicap.  the same amateur, who on any other day would’ve been beaten by the same pro 7-0, somehow caught fire that ONE day to pull off a win.  if you think you can just show up to collect the cash, you are dumber than rock.  you still have to get up there and beat the other player; there are no absolute guarantees in pool.

once again, there are more evidence to prove snarky’s belief that pool is populated by malcontents and lowlifes.  the creature manged to pull another layer of disrepute on the game of pool, another layer that the rest of us are stuck with to slave over to slough off.  ma’am, of all the players of the brotherhood and sisterhood of pool, you have shamed us all.  you must be so proud.  the sad thing is that she will never read this post, will never feel sorry, and will continue in her dishonor, because she thinks she can get away with it.  but ma’am, this is the age of the internet.  you can never be rollo tomasi, especially with those biga~* tats you’re sporting.  we are on to you.

more to follow.

[just a quick note: apparently a bunch of forum members on azbilliards figured out who the creature was.  her name is asia cycak.  if you read the forum thread, some of the members put up a bunch of pictures of ms. cycak before they could be removed.  i think ms. cycak removed both her facebook and azbilliard forum profiles, as well as the pictures.  someone even found a video of ms. cycak playing.  anyhoo, mystery solved.]

[feb 15, 2011: another note.  omg just mentioned that she did see ms. cycak's money,  so i'll go back to my first speculation that she jacked her backer's $$$.  and to borrow a phrase from snarky, thanks for the link love omg.  i'm flattered.  :) ]

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