[huebler]

Mike Massey was at my local pool hall yesterday doing a show. This was organized by APA. They started with a drawing to play Mike. He won 3 of 5. One of the losses was a true beat, the other was a very attractive woman who could play well (she's a 6), but when Mike had a shot on the 8, he choose to bank the 8 two rails rather than cut it, missed, and gave her a shot. He also had a great defensive option he could have played earlier, but made a difficult shot and kept going. He clearly had several chances to win that game, but gave her a chance to win it.

The trick shot portion started with Mike setting up shots and having audience members shoot them. They all went in, but were very traditional tricks for the most part. Then he moved on to more difficult shots himself. I enjoyed the stroke shots, and he had many that could come up in a game. He did a couple masse shots, a couple of jumps, and a jump masse. He also did a couple of one handed jumps. He ended with his "boot shot", but needed about 6 tries to get the distance right.

His stance was odd in that he stands up pretty tall and looks out over the table rather than being down on the balls.

Nice guy who seemed to enjoy performing, he stayed around to play additional matches, but I had other places to be. I bought a signed 8 ball to add to my ball rack along with my signed FL cue ball. I also won an APA T-shirt in the drawing. A lot of fun for $10, plus $10 for the 8 ball.

[FASTLARRY]

Mike is old school where most were upright players, and he now has a bad back, which makes him unable to get low.

[FASTLARRY]

If you have never seen a trick shot show, do catch the next one that comes by.