Ok, I can’t remember where I heard about this video, although it was probably AZ Billiards since that seems to be where I hear about everything lately, but this is extremely cool and totally worth a watch.  Speaking of AZ, have you checked out their new site.  Damn does it look nice!

Anyway, back to the original topic of this post.  Ever wonder how a pool cue is made or for that matter, why pool cues are so expensive.  Check out this video from the Discovery Channel that shows the construction process of a Falcon cue.

Lafayette, CO (PRWEB) July 7, 2008 — PoolDawg, an online leader in retail billiards and game room equipment, today announced their sponsorship of WPBA touring pro pool player Debbie Schjodt. Schjodt, currently ranked 19th by the Women’s Pro Billiards Association, will represent PoolDawg at upcoming pro billiards events including the 2008 US Open later this month.

“We are delighted to have Debbie as part of our team,” said Mike Feiman, PoolDawg’s Director of Marketing. “Debbie is not only a great pool player, but she fits perfectly with PoolDawg’s brand identity. In searching for a player rep, we were looking for someone who not only was a good pool player, but also someone who was approachable for pool enthusiasts and fans. Debbie was exactly what we were looking for.”

Born in Seoul, South Korea and currently residing in Orlando, Florida Debbie turned pro in November 2007. In addition to her Top 20 ranking in the WPBA, Ms. Schjodt finished 2007 as the #1 ranked player on the Ladies Spirit Tour and is currently ranked #1 for the 2008 season.

About PoolDawg

PoolDawg.com, Inc. is the recognized online leader in retail billiards and game room equipment, offering over 2,000 products ranging from pool cues and cases to dart supplies and game room furniture. As one of the web’s largest billiards retailers, PoolDawg offers cues from over thirty manufacturers including Scorpion, Action, Meucci, Lucasi, McDermott, Schon and Viking.

Contact:
720-214-3668
http://www.PoolDawg.com

Its too late in the day to issue the press release, so it will have to wait until Monday, but PoolDawg has some big news to share.  If you’ve checked out Frank’s Myspace page, you’ll probably be able to figure it out since Frank has such a big mouth and can’t keep a secret to save his life.  Otherwise, check back on Monday for the official announcement and press release.

Congrats to The Duchess of Doom Allison Fisher on her win at the 2008 Great Lakes Classic!  This year’s event saw a number of fresh faces reach the round of 16, with names like Tiffany Nelson, Megan Minerich, Yu Ram Cha, Sarah Rousey and Sarah Ellerby joining TV round regulars Kelly Fisher, Karen Corr and Ga Young Kim.  Ultimately though, the TV rounds broke out to a classic Allison Fisher vs. Karen Corr matchup and Kelly Fisher vs. Sarah Ellerby.

After the dust settled on the semifinals, it was Kelly Fisher vs. Allison Fisher in the finals with Allison ultimately taking control of the match and winning 7-4.  For those interested in watching the semis and the finals, currently the Great Lakes Classic is scheduled to air on ESPN August 4th from 8PM to 11PM EST.

For all you night owls who missed this weekend’s airings of the San Diego Classic, you can catch reruns on ESPN2 on July 9th at 3AM EST and on July 13th from 2AM to 4AM EST.

I don’t want it to sound like we don’t like the WPBA mainstays because we really do, but there’s something really exciting about seeing a bunch of new faces rolling.  The Great Lakes Classic has been a bit of a coming out party for a number of players that we haven’t seen much of.  Names like Sarah Rousey and my personal hero Tequila Schjodt are still on the winner’s side and one win away from sliding into the Round of 16. When you look at this with the past two events that saw Gerda Hofstatter and Anna Kostanian making it to the TV round, all the sudden you have a very different WPBA.

I mean how cool was it to see Anna Kostanian up against Xiaoting Pan and Jasmin Ouschan against Ga Young Kim in the semifinals of the Generation Pool tournament?  Unless something catastrophic happens, Anna should coast into the Round of 16 at which point it will be the luck of the redraw.

We’ll see what happens tonight, but the future is definitely looking bright for the WPBA.

To keep up to date on results, just head over to the WPBA’s website at http://www.wpba.com.

Ewa Mataya Laurance was invited to the ABC 7 Chicago studios to do the meet and greet with newscasters and talk about pool.  You can check out the article here, which includes a video of Ewa doing some trick shots.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=resources&id=6226992

Today marks the start of the next leg of the 2008 WPBA Tour, The Great Lakes Classic.  Coming off of the Generation Pool 9 Ball Championships, young guns Ga Young Kim, Xiaoting Pan, Anna Kostanian and Jasmin Ouschan look to continue their dominance over the veterans like Allison Fisher, Karen Corr and Kelly Fisher.

The 2008 tour is proving to be the most competitive season in years, with fresh faces showing up all over the TV rounds and dozens of up and comers gunning for the top 10.

The WPBA has posted their tournament brackets and it looks like just about every touring player is coming out for the Great Lakes Classic.

As you probably know, PoolDawg is a sponsor of the WPBA.  As a sponsor, we get to see a little bit of a sneak peek of how the San Diego Classic is going to look.  From what I’ve seen, I’m just as giddy as a schoolgirl… err… well maybe not a schoolgirl, but quite happy nonetheless.

It seems that the folks over at the WPBA and ESPN have decided to start experimenting with how they shoot billiards programming to make it more interesting and “user friendly” for the casual viewer.  From what I could see, there are two new features that will be debuted at the Classic.

The coolest new feature they have is the new “cue view” which Ewa and Mitch use to talkabout how the players are going to hit the cue ball in order to get from Point A to Point B.  For my money, this has a huge potential impact for the casual viewer.  If you don’t know much about the game, it can be really hard to understand how the pros control the cue ball.  This new feature should really open the eyes of the casual fan.

The other big change is the rack and ball counter.  Matches will now have a persistant score “bug” at the top of the screen, telling the viewer the score of the match, what ball the shooter is on, how many balls each player has potted for the rack and what rack they’re currently on.

These probably aren’t the “magic bullet” that the peek cam and the odds trackers were for poker, but they are a huge step in the right direction.  The only way to fix pool on TV (and yes, it is in need of an overhaul) is to try different things out and I applaud both the WPBA and ESPN for taking that step and trying some new stuff out.

As I’m sure you’ve seen on the site, we carry a ton of Scorpion cues.  Johnny Archer, the player rep for Scorpion, recently did a “what’s in the case” segment with Inside Pool and revealed some really interesting stuff.  Aside from his collection of old chalk, one of the things he talked about was his choice of pool cue tip.  As we all know, there are just a ton of different tips on the market and the assumption is that the pros only play with the really expensive ones.

As you’re about to learn, that isn’t necessarily the case.  When asked about his pool cue tip by Samm Diep, Johnny mentioned that he plays with not Moori, not Tiger, but a Triangle tip.  This is the standard tip that you’ll find on a number of brands including McDermott, Joss and Lucasi and for less than the cost of 3 Moori Tips, you can buy a box of 50 Triangle tips.

The biggest surprise though… not a single can of Mountain Dew in his case. 

I was talking to a customer the other day who was asking me about the difference between Meucci Cues and Mezz Cues. Through the course of our discussion about the pros and cons of each brand, I mentioned that some people tend to find Meucci shafts to be a little whippy, do which he asked what exactly I was talking about. Sometimes through the course of the day we tend to use descriptors that make sense to us, but might not mean anything to other people, so I thought I’d take a moment to relay how I described whippy to this customer.

When we refer to a shaft as being whippy, we’re talking about the amount of flex in the shaft. Much like a golf club, pool cues come with different degrees of stiffness. Some cues like those made by Schon, tend to be pretty damn stiff while others like the Meucci we were looking at, tend to have quite a bit more flex to them. Personally, I’ve found that Meucci shafts have more flex than any other brand I’ve tried out.

The next question that comes up is whether or not whippy = bad or if stiff = good. This is a much more difficult question to answer, as it really is personal preference. For me, I like playing with a cue that has a nice, stiff feel to it. Not surprisingly, I feel the same way about my golf clubs. I hit with steel shaft irons and got rid of my graphite shaft irons because they were too “whippy” for me. I couldn’t control the ball with graphite as well as I could with stiff steel. It should be noted though that I’m an awful golfer and there are tons of great golfers who swear by graphite shafts.

The same can be said for pool. I play with a stiff shaft because I can’t control my shots with a more flexible shaft. Does that mean that stiff is good and whippy is bad? For me, the answer is yes, but for someone else the answer will be a resounding “hell no!”. The bottom line is that that shaft flex is all about personal preference. What might be “good” for one person is “bad” for another. Ultimately, you need to find the shaft style that works best for your game and go with that. This is why people who like Meucci cues absolutely will not play with anything else and people who don’t will play with anything but.