Who started AZB?

AZ Billiards is clearly the #1 site in pool. It's not just the biggest, but the best. It has more high value contributors than any other site I've ever visited. There's a lot of crap, but the signal to noise ratio is high. A wonderful site, thanks Mike for all your hard work.

And thanks too to all the others who contribute so much great information on so many different aspects of pool. The moderators get my kudos for keeping the place clean and friendly, and the contributors get my thanks for teaching me so much.
 
atthecat said:
Just curious.
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You got your answer. Mike Howerton started this Arizona pool and billiard site. He was one of the early independents that was taking advantage of the bulletin board web software. Others around the same time as his beginnings included Playpool.com, started by Ed Mercier (Wisconsin BCA) and the Billiards Digest online website.

Ed's site was easily the most popular web-based billiard forum, but it started getting over-run by web warriors while at the same time Ed started backing off from the site.

THe Billiards Digest forum known as the CCBoard (The Cue Chalk Board, originally) has became popular due to known industry names frequenting the site including Fran Crimi, George Fels, and Bob Jewett. Much of the core membership group that still exist at the CCBoard are the staple group that go to the US Open, have a forum gathering and tournament, and get recognized by Barry Behrman every year for their on going support. Our good friend the late Chris "Cass" Aiardo Jr. was more a CCBoard member than a AZBilliard member, although he frequented both.

Somewhere along the line, some of us started focusing on one online forum rather than attempting to contributing being members at all of them. Fast Larry had already single-handedly broken the CCBoard which amazingly survived his onslaught. He also single-handedly destroyed the non web-based forum rec.sport.billiard on Usenet (which of late has shown some signs of survival, but may never regain its footing as the premier billiards forum). Migrating to AZBilliards made sense to many of us. Plus, AZBilliards had Jay Helfert as a high contributing member, which really gave it a bit more viewing than the others, in my opinion. There were others (SJM and Jude R. to name two), but personally, I think Jay was one of the biggest reasons to stay here.

Fred <~~~ early member
 
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Thanks Fred

It's nice that people haven't completely forgotten about our site and the contribution we made at one time. Great congratulations go to Mike Howerton, he has turned this site into a real gem that is a great asset to pool around the world. While we have been very quiet over the past 5 years or so, that doesn't mean that nothing is going on. We expect to launch a Table Tennis website soon that does much of what Playpool.com did for pool.

Just as a note, we are updating our database of pool halls when people let us know that we are missing rooms, or that rooms are closed. Please let us know of any updates and we will make corrections.

Ed Mercier
 
All I know...is that this is the ONLY website I support as a table mechanic, though I've had offers from other sites to help build a mechanic's section, I'm not interested in repeating the last 3 1/2 years somewhere else;)

Glen
 
AzHousePro said:
Yup, that would be me.

It was originally supposed to be a site for local Arizona pool. That idea went out the window in a hurry and it took on a life of it's own.

Mike
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Wow. I never thought az stood for Arizona. I always thought it was there because you can find a to z about billiards on here.
 
Nothing makes me feel like a celebrity more than to go to a show and meet so many AZBers, many of whom NEVER post. Most of them make comments like you don't seem like half the asshole you are on AZ :-)

Lucky for you Mike that you live in a state that supports the name "AZ" billiards :-) For some reason MNBilliards never quite caught on.......

Thanks for continuing to support a place for all of us to hang out.
 
Fatboy said:
All jokeing aside( was just being silly in my post, i'm very stressed now and tring to relieve a but of tension) But back to what I said Isnt it a wonderful feeling to have a idea just explode into something you most likely didnt expect. And when that happens it takes a strong person to keep a level head and hold things together. You have done that very well and I admire that, its easy to screw up think Mike Tyson.

I wish you continured success and thank you for evetything, with my back problems/operations. I spent alot of hours on AZ passing the time, I try and contribute quality posts( was just being silly eariler) but as a ruleI provide good content and help people, that is what we owe you as a community that you created. Success is where timing and luck intersect.

sincerly

eric
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Eric, you must have read my mind as I also had 3 back operations(2 in last 15 months) and AZB has keep me somewhat sane and passing time as opposed to the TV. So ty AZB.....Hope all is well with your back now..Jeff
 
For all you folks that talk about the value of AZBilliards. It would be nice of you to get a membership like i have off to the left. Very inexpensive and would show your true support for this forum that you spend so much time on. Man up boys.
 
I signed up for the club membership today. I don't know why I took so long. Anyway, I'm a member now. Long live AZBilliards.


Shane
 
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