Cheaters That I Don't Know

I told a friend of mine the other day that I was going to write a piece for my blog about a very interesting cheating event that occurred and was exposed online, that I don't think many people know about.  If you don't peruse the 14.1 section of AZB forums, you would never know about this guy who actually MOVED his break ball during his game of straight pool.  How do we know this?  Because he was videotaping his runs and people could SEE on video that the breakout balls were in different locations after he racked in front of the camera.  Yes, really.

The 14.1 guys are a very close knit group of folks.  They called each other and shared their suspicions.  Finally, one guy was able to document via video editing and graphics the true nature of the "cheating."

(Read and view the graphics of the entire "outing" here:  http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=194192)

I started to receive emails and messages and phone calls, "Have you seen the thread about the guy cheating in straight pool caught on video?"  Yes, it was that rampant among the knit folks.

Why would the guy do this?
Why did he cheat to get high runs? 
What forces someone to cheat on camera?
What was the purpose of increasing his run stats? 
Why cheat at all?  It defeats the pure joy (and frustration) of straight pool.
As Jay Leno asked Hugh Grant, "What were you thinking?"

When I mentioned to my friend that I was going to write this blog, I added, "of course if I knew the guy, I wouldn't write it."

He replied, "well, that's what you should really write about."

Hmmm... interesting.

Why would I NOT blog about a friend if they had done this?  Why am I okay with doing this to this guy I don't know?  He has feelings.  He's already embarrassed.  I'm going to embarrass him more (I can feel the guilt creeping in me as I type this, almost wanting to delete this post to help save face for him).

I think I wouldn't do this to a friend because I have a close connection to my friends and although I wouldn't understand why they moved their break ball on camera, I would still kinda protect them by NOT blogging about it.  I tend to be very careful choosing my words when I have to tell someone something that could hurt them.  I think my friends like me for that. And blogging about this about a friend would strain my relationship with them.

Even the people that "outed" this guy were friends with him.  They genuinely didn't understand why he did all the moving of balls on video for higher run stats.  I don't understand it either.  But, his friends kinda wanted to expose him because they sincerely wanted explanations.

In my job, I happen to be a trained mediator (among other things).  This gives me training in how to show empathy and also communicate in tough situations.  I would be able to express to a friend my disappointment in their cheating ways, but I wouldn't put it in my blog.

A blog is an interesting thing.  I have learned that if what you say about a person you can't say to their face, you wont write about it.  I fully admit because I don't know this person, I can share with you all what I think was an unfortunate thing he did.  If it was a friend, I would only slyly refer to it and write about it so vaguely, you wouldn't even know what I was talking about, lol.