PoolDawg Fall Catalog Surprise

I'm sure many of you are familiar with Frank the PoolDawg.  Well, Frank LOVES his pic taken.  He was all over Vegas during the BCAPL having his pic taken! 

Frank watching the Pros

Frank sunning with Samm Diep at the Riviera Casino pool

Turns out one of the many pics Ashley and I took with Frank in Vegas in May made it prime time.  Ashley and I found ourselves on the inside cover of the Fall PoolDawg Catalog! 

Mike from PoolDawg shared with me, "We like to sprinkle the “be seen with Frank” pictures throughout the book and we were doing a bit of a “rock ‘n roll” theme this year so the pictures fit in perfectly.  The picture of you two from the BCAPL event is on the inside front cover."

(Click image to Enlarge) 

Now, go ahead and view the full catalog here and purchase one of the many items you will want to buy for yourself to show your support for the love of the game.  :)

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.

Opponent Applause Help

As many of us well know, when people cheer loudly for our opponents, it can get under our skin.  It can get under our skin to the point where we get angry, disturbed, and can't play pool anymore because our emotions are so upheavaled by the rooting and cheers for our opponent. 

If FEELs like their friends are rooting against us because our opponent gets all the cheers.  It FEELs like the the crowd doesn't want us to do well; they are against us!  Eventually we may even notice that they clap for their friend for mediocre shots but when we make a miraculous shot with perfect shape, no one claps for us.  WTH!?  Our opponent wins a game and the applause is loud for them; we win a game and we only hear crickets.

Our emotions can easily start to roll downhill and every.. little.. thing then bothers us which then begins to affect our game.  And then we aren't playing pool anymore!

And we get more upset.  Our mind gets fuzzy.  We have negative thoughts and emotions.  We stop focusing on our pre-shot routine and fundamentals.  We are so focused on the cheers our opponent is receiving and the obvious lack of support to our own game, that we get negative, angry, tense, and aggravated.  This leads to bad play and missed shots.  We sit down with our shoulders humped, eyes on the floor, and thoughts tormented.  OR we turn around to shoot the audience a bad look (yea, that does a lot).  Sometimes, we may get so upset, uptight, and embarrassed, we actually spew words of anger out of our mouths at the cheerers (our defense mechanism).

A few friends of mine recently went through this type of unfortunate, resentful situation.  I hadn't been subjected to the torture in a while and somehow wanted to experience it again.

I wanted to test what I knew.  Test how I overcome the raw emotion of FEELING like everyone is against you.

I have learned to view the clapping and cheers as the obvious:  their fans/friends are cheering FOR my opponent/ their friend; NOT against me.  Rooting against me is a completely different action.  Cheering and rooting for my opponent is NO reflection of me at all.  IF I can see this, then I can play my game.  Then I redirect my focus to my fundamentals, so I can shoot better - which leads to less claps and cheers for my opponent because I am winning.  :)