Singles at 2001 Worlds

I know a lot of people come to you for advice, is there a common question people ask you?
Most people ask me questions about my 5 bar because that’s my strongest rod on the table. The questions I get asked mostly are how do I get the hard passes - like my brush and my stick passes are really hard, and people ask me how I get that kind of force out of the 5 bar. It’s not like hitting an open handed shot, it’s a closed handed thing, when you do a brush it’s a closed hand motion. That’s the question people ask me most about my game, is about the 5 row, and my passing.

What do you tell them about increasing their forward speed on their passes?
The main thing I tell people about the 5 row, is that I have a lot of flashy passes and a lot of bump off the wall passes and stuff, but that’s not the important thing, for new players learning the 5 row the most important thing is your forward motion on your pass.

The most important thing is not the lateral speed when your doing your series or using your lateral motion, it doesn’t matter how slow a pass is traveling underneath your 5 row, what matters is when you fire the pass and that you don’t have "tells", you don’t raise the foot high and then do your pass because that’s a tell. You want to keep your foot really close to the ball, just the way Steve Mohs does his passes. He’ll pull the ball over and it’ll roll at a minimum speed where it looks like it’s going to stop, and then he’ll bump it off the wall and hover over it and the ball is barely moving but when he passes it’s snapping right to his 3 row.

Also another person I think about is Adrian Zamora, for new people playing if you get a chance to watch Adrian Zamora’s 5 row. He really goes slow with his lateral speed, but when it’s time to pass it’s definitely crispy.

Let’s talk about the competition for the table playoffs.
It was definitely hard at the very beginning and hard at the very end. But in between it pretty much went quick, but of course if you don’t know it’s a 16 person bracket, and the 4 people that I had to play to get to the finals were Rick Reese in the first round… I had to play Danny Lueras in the second round, Frank Espinoza in the third round, and then I had to play Adam Horowitz in the finals.

Against Rick Reese it was a really, really tough match, it went to the MEATNUT. We both had a couple of shots, we both had no time outs left and I got it on the 3 row and scored to win it.

My second match was against Danny Lueras that went pretty good because he didn’t really know a lot about my game so I pretty much was able to work the 2-5 on him and worked him on the 5 row. So that went pretty fast.

And then Frank Espinoza, who is also a very tough player, I think I beat him like 5-1, 5-2. It was a pretty quick match, it isnt anything against Frank, it’s just that I played really good that match.

And in the finals against Adam Horowitz, in the very beginning of the finals in the first game I was blowing him out, I had him 4-1 and he came all the way back and won the first game. He showed that he doesn’t give up, showed that he had a strong consistent game. Then in the second game he had me 3-0 so at that point Losing the first game after a 4-1 lead, then second game being down 3-0 I thought I lost the table myself but I showed some consistency and drive, and came back the second game to win it. Then the third game went 4-4 and I won it with a rollover straight.

What do you look for in a partner / goalie, since I know you are primarily a forward?
What I look for in a partner / goalie… I used to be into the razz-a-ma-tazz and flashy shots and all that, but I’ve been finding out since I’ve been practicing all the time that that’s not what’s important, what’s important is discipline. So I look for a person that has discipline in their game, that has the patience to wait for different times before they shoot, that they don’t always shoot on the same count which was something that I suffered on my 3 row for awhile. I’m looking for a goalie that can mix up the timing on their shots and also a goalie that has the ability to switch up their defense if somebody is drilling them. If somebody is hitting a certain hole too much they have the ability to re-group and come with a new defense for them to show. So that gives me time to win games, and win matches.

For some…. I’m going to add this, because it’s something I tell everyone…. In the past when I would hook up with a goalie, it always seems that they were depending on my 5 row or my front game to complete the missions for us. And they would be really relaxed and not be ready for slop balls going in, or not be ready for 5 row shots or whatever, quick shots… Because they were laxed and they were depending on me too much. I just look for a partner that, no matter what’s going on on the table they are always ready, they’re always playing with heart and they don’t give up.