jbart65 said:

Carlo Biado and Johann Chua are the best players in the world who have young kids. Shaw and Sky have kids, as you noted. Kazakis and Alcaide, too. Szewczyk has a young son.

I am not aware of any other very active top 20 or so player with kids.

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Thanks for the insight. I imagine it just adds another obstacle to reaching that level...especially for a game like pool...

"It doesn't make any sense. It goes in streaks. The balls roll funny for everybody, kiddo."
- Eddie Felson

boogieman said:

I almost never use anything but straight high when kicking

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Good choice. The reason this is a good choice is because all balls will eventually roll with straight top, natural roll. Naturally rolling balls will rebound off of a rail with a smaller angle (come out longer) than incident, so if you can master and memorize this change for all incident angles then you are golden.

As a general rule, when a ball loses angular momentum with a rail collision (as with a rolling ball) the energy has to go somewhere, and it ends up being transferred into the perpendicular linear momentum (PLM) component to the rail. In other-words, the ball comes off of the rail "faster" orthogonally. The opposite is true, when a sliding ball with no spin hits a rail, energy is transferred from the PLM to angular momentum (spin) and comes off "slower" orthogonally. This is dominant, ignoring energy that is actually lost to the rail rubber itself.

This is also why running English helps keep the incident and rebound angles similar, because it minimizes a change in angular momentum during the collision.

jokrswylde said:

I have often wondered, and maybe some of you more knowledgeable folks might know, but how many of the truly elite, top 10 level players have families including children. Obviously you have the power couple, Josh and Pia, but I have not heard of them having any kids.

Just a curiosity. In most sports, after a big win you see the winner bring his kids onto the course/field during celebrations. I can't remember ever seeing that in pool.

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Carlo Biado and Johann Chua are the best players in the world who have young kids. Shaw and Sky have kids, as you noted. Kazakis and Alcaide, too. Szewczyk has a young son.

I am not aware of any other very active top 20 or so player with kids.

King T said:

I just spoke to a friend of his in Vegas, he's still winning plenty of challenge matches, no ones chasing him around looking for Action. He's got some figuring out to do tournament wise, buts NO "flash in the pan".

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Flash in the pan in terms of winning a big WPA or WNT event, or getting to the finals of one.

Raga has also had several quarterfinal and final 16 finishes in big events. Talent is there. Commitment, we'll see.