Rios,
sorry I didn't respond sooner, I lost the site and kept waiting for it to come back and I accidentaly got back today and low and behold the site was never down
anyway, i got my panties in a bunch because of the "hack" comment - I missed your smilely wink face and didn't get that as sarcastic humor so my bad, sorry
on Chris Dube, I know him personally and have played him and thought he was a good example (exception for sure but still proof the open hand is alive) and you suggested him not even a semi-pro which curddled my milk a little...no worries though, Chris can defend himself if he wants to, maybe you will get the privelege of playing him some day and you will see the art of the open-handed pullkick
and finally on the Euro Pin...you can not dismiss this by saying the Euro Pin, "is open handed by nature" well the rollover flips over by nature but that doesn't make any less a rollover...I am just trying to be funny...the Euro Pin is one of the great open-handed shots and saying the open-handed part of the shot (which is the entrie shot) is "natural" and so it can't be counted is at the very least faulty logic
the Open-handed shot is 90% of the Euro shots because of the Euro tables which are heavy into control...this makes shooting "inline" set shots (pulls, pushkicks, pullkicks, pushes) so hard the vast majority won't use them and now they have years of culture with the front toe and the best player in the world, possiblly ever, shoots their shot...only countries switching to Tornado (like Britian) are going to develop an American style game
in the US, we are primarily Tornado and it has the least amount of control of all the ITSF tables and doesn't lend itself to the Euro Pin (palm roll) although it can be done as Fred and other Euros have proven
one of the main reasons you don't see more pull/pushkicks is because the front face of the man is curved and it makes hitting accurate consistent angles very very difficult (not because a palm roll doesn't work)...a couple of exceptions but only one or two and all second level right now (Jeep's pushkick was the last at the top and Chris Dubes' pullkick the last of the those [well and Thor I hear is great but he was never at the top])
you are right though, as a general rule on Tornado, there are NO players in the top 80 (I just looked at the list) who shoot open-handed with their primary shot (exception already noted in Fred)
sorry I think I was having a bad couple of days...you make a good point, not many palm rolls but it isn't because the palm roll isn't any good, it is because the table doesn't lend itself to people shooting it and there are other shots that are easier to do on this table and which have a long varied history of success (on our table)