Strickland, love him or hate him...

poolplayer2093 said:
that guy's rich with character all right. hay is he still using the mike g cue with the ob1 shaft?
Click to expand...

Gulyassy cue = yes
OB1 = a resounding no

I think it was the IPT match he played with Archer where he said the OB1 was not the cue (shaft) for him.

Also, at the Pool School that I attended at Shoreline, another player was using an OB1. As Earl was helping said player with his bridge, he noticed the OB1 shaft and said, "Ooohhh...shooting with an OB1 <making a face almost like sucking on a lemon>...<chuckle> that's a hard cue to get used to..."

True story. :)

But I guarantee you if you talk to him about cues, he'll be more than happy to let you know how superior his cue is. He'll tell you all you want to know. I can't remember all the specifics, but I know he said he had a 12.8 mm shaft with the taper pulled back to something like 20 inches. Elkmaster tip. Can't remember the weight. Tennis wrap around bottom, oh, 1/3 of the cue...could see exposed wrap section where it was clear he had taken off whatever original wrap there was. He encouraged us to try out his cue, but to make certain to chalk before every shot. BTW, I should note, according to the picture that KoolKat posted above, the cue I saw must've been retired, as the cue pictured is not the cue he had at our Pool School.

Not surprisingly, nearly all of the guys who tried it proclaimed it a really nice hitting cue and interesting and such. IMO that was more a product of whose cue it was rather than the actual cue itself. But Earl himself told him the reason we couldn't do the massive spin/stroke shot that he does for kicks is because we're not playing with a cue like his. I found this to be really entertaining.
 
Last edited:
another Pool School story...

Since we're talking about Earl, I have another story from our Pool School that I think is quite funny.

So while our Pool School was happening, a local player who plays pretty sporty happens to be there practicing on the tightest table in the room; very tough 4.25 pockets. During a break in our school, Earl's walking to the front of the room, right by said player and table. Earl says to local player "hey, have you tried my shot yet?" Player says "no, set it up for me".

CueTable Help



So Earl sets it up (as shown), and local player tries it a few times with no luck. Sorry, couldn't figure out the cue ball showing where to hit, so if it's not evident from the layout, this is an EXTREME spin shot to go around the balls (I can't remember the exact placement of the obstacle balls, but you get the picture). Either he can't get the spin, make the ball, or both.

At this point, Earl says "Let me try with your cue." Player hands over his cue, a South West. Earl gives it a whirl a few times, and has the same problem; either he can't get the spin, make the ball, or both. Earl inspects the tip as a modest crowd of maybe 8 are looking on. Earl says "Who put this tip on for you? I don't think they did it right, it doesn't seem like it's glued on properly." Player points to local room tip replacement guy, who is standing in close proximity. Earl chuckles, then says "well, I guess I'm not doing him any favors, am I?"

Earl chalks up vigorously, then proceeds to give it the old college try a few more times. After approximately 3-4 more tries, he finally nails it and gets the spin to go around all the balls. So on a tough table, with an unfamiliar cue, he nailed it after not more than 10 tries at most. Clapping ensues.

Earl, clearly proud of himself, turns the cue around offering the butt end out toward local player. As he does this, he says "that's not a bad cue and I just proved it!"
 
Does anyone else see the irony of Earl complaining about gimmicks while wearing an elbow brace, headphones, ankle weights, pool glasses, or forearm pads?
 
KoolKat9Lives said:
Ya gotta watch him. I watched him play Wednes and Thurs. The match yesterday vs Franklin Hernandez was something f'g else. Here's my highlights as I saw them railside.

He enters the Convention Center and stops among us common folk and starts his schpeal on current affairs, mostly about the jump stick. "No player here has any integrity! They support the jump stick. It's a gimmick!" I say to him "It certainly has changed the game but ya gotta believe there's too much money being made on the jump sticks to ever outlaw it." Earl: "It's not a different game! It's a gimmick game with too much luck! Whatever happened to kicking?! And whadaya mean it's about money!? Pool is DYING! I'm the only player with any integrity! I wear my passion on my sleeve!" .......

Off to the table... Franklin wins the lag. Earl is talking away and Franklin backs off his break stance, shoots a "you're starting real F'g early" look at Earl. Franklin breaks, and starts off strong with the first rack. Then Earl gets the next and then rack #3. As he walks around the table to move his second "ball-bead" over he's chatting away to anyone and everyone. I see him mistakenly move Franklin's second ball! The crowd is thick for this match, thicker than ANY so far, by multitides. Every seat taken within view, and 4 deep standing behind the rail.

Anyway, I believe I see Franklin get a quick look at Earls' error, but it was impossible to tell as his glance was so brief. I look around the crowd and maybe a couple others notice. Anyway, the crowd is not apparently supposed to say anything and no one does. Earl is still yapping away. Maybe 45 seconds pass while Frankin is just sitting there, not moving to rack, allowing Earl to hold court. Then Franklin gets up, takes his cue and wipes his ball back and marks up Earl's second. CLASS MOVE. I don't believe Earl ever even knew this occurred as he was busy at the time. :cool:

The play is EXCELLENT. The match progresses. Franklin plays great, and stays quiet and is a total gentleman. He plays way better than many/most that I watched over 2 days.


Then... Around rack 9, Earl lifts his right leg up and "Ripppppp", a velcro strip goes off and what appears to be an ankle weight is taken off and he quickly wraps it around his left elbow. "WTF?" Someone says he wore a waist weight belt recently to "remind him to stay down". :confused: Play goes back and forth, and Earl maintains @ a 2-3 game lead. I step over to the other side of the center to check with a friend on the Robles/Souquet match.

I come back and here's Earl shooting with a set of massive headphones on. Not music, just noise buffeting headphones, similar to those worn by airport ground crew. WTF? He is now a sight to behold with one sleeve rolled up with a weight on, anf the other further down and these huge earmuffs on. He goes a couple racks, missing nothing, saying nothing. The stroke, the movement, the play ... was the best and most electric and WOW that I have EVER witnessed.

Then, after he polishes off a 9, he turns to the crowd and momentarily pulls the headphones away from the ears. "You guys are the loudest crowd I have EVER heard! I can hear you through these things and I can't even hear a 747 through these!!!" He breaks dry and takes a seat and removes them, "man these things are hot to wear!".

It's about 9-6 Earl when a most interesting thing happened. Earl gets hooked. The OB is the 7 and it's about 5 inches from the mouth of the side. The 9 is 18 inches away in direct line of the cue which is @ 12 inches from the 9. A basic jump shot.... Earl walks over to his break stick and looks at it (mind you it has an Elkmaster tip on it). He looks, and pauses a few seconds, and turns around. He mutters something, walks back to the table, and lightly kicks the cue off the opposite long rail and drops the 7 in, in perfect po for the 8. HUGE applause. Game over.

Last note for now... I believe it is Case game now. The 2 is in the corner jaws on the foot. The cue is frozen on the head rail. He jacks up over 45 degrees and hammers the 2 in, and whitey pulls back a foot or so without hitting a rail. Perfect shape.

UnF'g real play, unreal match. Love him or hate him, he is the match to watch. Thanks to both players for great play! :thumbup:

(My friend took a ton of pic's that I hope to nab today, I will try to post some soon!)
Click to expand...
All this and no f'g pics to put in my sig line with a witty caption?
 
suckershot said:
But I guarantee you if you talk to him about cues, he'll be more than happy to let you know how superior his cue is. He'll tell you all you want to know. I can't remember all the specifics, but I know he said he had a 12.8 mm shaft with the taper pulled back to something like 20 inches. Elkmaster tip. Can't remember the weight. Tennis wrap around bottom, oh, 1/3 of the cue...could see exposed wrap section where it was clear he had taken off whatever original wrap there was. He encouraged us to try out his cue, but to make certain to chalk before every shot. BTW, I should note, according to the picture that KoolKat posted above, the cue I saw must've been retired, as the cue pictured is not the cue he had at our Pool School.

Not surprisingly, nearly all of the guys who tried it proclaimed it a really nice hitting cue and interesting and such. IMO that was more a product of whose cue it was rather than the actual cue itself. But Earl himself told him the reason we couldn't do the massive spin/stroke shot that he does for kicks is because we're not playing with a cue like his. I found this to be really entertaining.
Click to expand...


Hmmm...That's the same cue in the photo he's been using for quite some time now. He was using it for the Desert Shootout back in July, and also for the first pool school at Kolby's here in Az.

Earl is an experimenter, as everyone knows quite well. And he LOVES tape, whether it's golf, or pool. He has some in the bag, at all times.

You're right about the specs....I got one of his sticks (he had 2) when he was out here. Same exact set-up, only mine's black. Even has his name engraved in the butt.

That stroke shot is something else.....He still packs in the people! If you want to watch one of his matches, you best be there early to have any chance of sitting close enough to see anything.

He's simply amazing to watch....even after all these years.
 
TX Poolnut said:
Does anyone else see the irony of Earl complaining about gimmicks while wearing an elbow brace, headphones, ankle weights, pool glasses, or forearm pads?
Click to expand...

Elbow brace? Nah, never wore one.

Headphones are worn to drown out distactions form the audience. (Which he has many to deal with)


Ankle weights....he wears alot. Even while jogging 5 miles in the mornings. Sometimes he'll take one off his ankle, and put it on his bridge arm, to help keep it rock solid while shooting.

pool glasses...you can see the edge of the ball better. At 47 his eyes aren't what they used to be. Not to mention, he got paid to wear them.

gimmicks OFF the table are a little different than those used ON the table. (Jumpsticks)
 
Here is the link to where you will be able to see Earl in November or attend one of the pool schools.
Earl does a great exhibition and although while on the road he does around 10 exhibitions along with Johnny Archer, Earl's show is never the same thing twice.
Earl gets up first and does around an hour of trick shots, stroke shots and stories from the road. Even though Johnny and I are fortunate enough to see Earl's Exhibitions all the time we still never know what he is going to do or say next and always end up sat off to the side somewhere watching the show carefully so as not to miss anything. I think that tells you alot about the talent Earl brings to each and every show. Anyway here is the link. http://www.azbilliards.com/2000storya.php?storynum=5870
 
Rick S. said:
Hmmm...That's the same cue in the photo he's been using for quite some time now. He was using it for the Desert Shootout back in July, and also for the first pool school at Kolby's here in Az.
Click to expand...

Maybe he's had a few cues he's been switching between. The one he was using at our school was a slightly darker color wood, had a white tennis wrap, and no wrap underneath the tennis wrap. On the cue in the picture, you can see there is linen or something underneath the tennis wrap...on the cue I saw at our school, that small section between the tennis wrap and forearm was maple that had been exposed by removal of the original wrap.
 
Rick S. said:
And he LOVES tape, whether it's golf, or pool. He has some in the bag, at all times.
Click to expand...

LOL...I forgot about this until now. Goodness, does he ever love surgical tape? I have never seen such huge masses of surgical tape until I saw Earl's fingers at the pool school. He must've wrapped the tape around his fingers 10 times at least, there was SO much tape on his fingers.

Tape notwithstanding, Earl was great and the primary reason I went to the pool school.
 
poolcuemaster said:
Yea but Earl just did it with his full length shooter.--Leonard
Click to expand...

That's not entirely true. Earl had a "jump cue" that was much shorter than his playing cue. We all know that a shorter cue makes jumping easier.

Everyone is fond of pointing out that he jumps with a full cue and he does some shots. But on other shots, at least through the Cuetec years, he had a shorter cue to jump with. I have seen him use it many times.

I don't know if he still has a cue like this, I'd presume so since he employed so much.

So please don't spread the falsehood that Earl Strickland doesn't use jump cues because he certainly did and probably still does.
 
JB Cases said:
That's not entirely true. Earl had a "jump cue" that was much shorter than his playing cue. We all know that a shorter cue makes jumping easier.

Everyone is fond of pointing out that he jumps with a full cue and he does some shots. But on other shots, at least through the Cuetec years, he had a shorter cue to jump with. I have seen him use it many times.

I don't know if he still has a cue like this, I'd presume so since he employed so much.

So please don't spread the falsehood that Earl Strickland doesn't use jump cues because he certainly did and probably still does.
Click to expand...

John...

Pretty sure that's not true...

I have never see Earl carry a short shaft.

I was his neighbor for 6 years, (thru Cuetec years) saw him play a LOT of pool. Tourny's and practicing, and I never saw one.

I just called him to ask, and got his voicemail. I will find out for sure, and let you know.
 
JB Cases said:
So apparently the no earplugs rule was tossed out?
Click to expand...

Not sure John. I know there was a no Ipod/music rule, but noise defeaters? If there was that rule, I wouldn't wanna be the ref to approach Earl. Nah, you tell him! :eek: :grin-square:

One "breach" that was pointed out to me by Jerry Forsyth while up in the "real-time scoring nosebleeds" :wink: was "someone" racking their own. It was not called. But that's a topic for another thread. The racking was horrendous. The Deschaine match actually stopped because after about 30 minutes NO ONE could get a satisfactory rack (even after the ref pounded the balls down). They waited for another table to open and abandoned table 7. Helfert surely has more insight on this as he was following our "main player" closely. I don't want to speculate as to how with all this new equipment they couldn't rack without such hassle.

Another breech was seen when a funny little guy was cruising around with a mini-dachsund inside the rails. :wink:
 
Love him or hate him, he's still one of the smoothest there is when he's on. If you've seen Earl play well, it's no wonder why he won the US Open five times.
 
Earl is the greatest. He's crazy, but alot of the things he says are actually correct... he's just the only guy saying them.

No one is more talented in the history of the game, and after watching him play in person, meeting him, etc... I'm convinced of this.

If you had Johnny Archer or Efren Reyes' mentality combined with Earl's talent, he'd never ever be beaten. I really believe if you had that combo that the only way anyone would have a chance of beating him would be to flip for the break, winner breaks, and run literally every rack.
 
Rick S. said:
John...

Pretty sure that's not true...

I have never see Earl carry a short shaft.

I was his neighbor for 6 years, (thru Cuetec years) saw him play a LOT of pool. Tourny's and practicing, and I never saw one.

I just called him to ask, and got his voicemail. I will find out for sure, and let you know.
Click to expand...

Well, I did a double take the first time I ever saw him go back to his bag and get a shorter cue to jump with. As most of you know I am pro-jump cue since I was instrumental in introducing the Bunjee Jumper to the USA. I have heard the "Earl doesn't use jump cues" argument by anti-jump cue people for the last ten years.

He definitely had a shorter cue that he uses on some jump shots. It's not a 41" jump cue with a phenolic tip like most of today's jump cues are but it's much shorter than a regular cue. I don't know any of the other characteristics of it as I didn't go up and try to inspect it.

I think I have a video where Earl is playing Bustamante and he goes to the chair and gets this cue to make a jump shot, even as Billy Incardona is commenting on Earl's disdain for jump cues and watching earl grab another cue to perform a jump shot. I want to say I remember this because since seeing Earl use the shorter cue to jump with I have been looking for video proof and that video has it. I think it's one of the BCTV US Open videos posted on YouTube. I will look and see and if I find it I will post the link.

Even at that though the guy is one of, if not the, best in the world at jumping with a full cue. The thread is Earl, Love him or Hate him, and I admit to both. The guy is so insanely talented with a pool cue that it's magical. I guess sometimes with great talent something is not in balance the other direction, I don't know. I doubt his feats will ever be repeated.
 
Well since I now 'have' to watch the Strickland - Bustamante match for research purposes I might as well share it with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTGMZVben94

Ok well, here it is, at 08:34 in the video you can clearly see Earl reposition his cues at his chair to be side by side standing at the same angle. The break (break/jump) cue is much shorter than his playing cue. At 08:50 the camera cuts to Earl sitting in the chair and the break-jump cue is about three inches shorter than the playing cue. Earlier in the match at 6:34 he used that cue to jump with and it was commented that he switched cues to shoot the jump shot. Incardona says he will jump with the "regulation cue" (meaning full sized) but he is incorrect that the cue is 59". It is indeed regulation as it is within the BCA/WPA rules but it is much shorter than 59" making it much easier to jump with.

At just before 34:36 he is using a cue that appears to be about five inches shorter than his playing cue to jump with. It may just be an illusion and be the same cue he used earlier in the match.

I am pretty sure that somewhere in the match it's easier to see this.

So there you have it. Earl doesn't use a phenolic tipped jump cue, these being the ones he rails against. But he does in fact use a shorter cue to jump with and break with. So I think that this should lay to rest all the Earl jumps with a full cue comments. Now you can say he jumps with a shorter cue that makes it easier to jump with. That coupled with his already insane talent is a deadly combination.
 
Last edited:
I'm not totally convinced that Earl's argument for aging and needing all the extra's to help him are true...


But I do believe there are not many people who could play as well as he does with all that stuff attached to them. I don't even like to wear my watch when playing let alone a weight on my arm weighing a couple of pounds or more.

There is NO other comparison for Earl's ability or entertainment. Pool is better with him than without him. At least I always watch when he is playing.

Gary
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top