Topic: All Tables Model Ratings

[foozkillah]

Hey bbtuna,

Since you've already amassed and accounted and tabulated and rated the Tornado models from early ones through today, perhaps you could start a model rating system, with input from others via poll or via a post with corroborating experience or information that would rate all current tables.

Like a blue book for foosball in North America.  You could have a current or last-checked, last-noted prevailing price (from Craigslist and/or, yahoo auctions, eBay and/or Buy.com, etc..), specific features and introduced improvements and variations.  It would be so helpful for everyone looking to purchase a new or used table, and how much to sell or trade them in for, later..

Then we could all add to it, making parallel ratings and price values for TS greentops, bluetops, browntop $1M's, Deutscher-Meisters, Dynamos, even Bonzini's and Rene-Pierre's ...  Would be nice if a table from a certain year or production run could have:

1. Prevailing price right now, and where last seen available, if not a new one.
2. Quality rating by consensus, from 1 through 10, where 10 would be the best Tornado ever.
3. How to identify via serial number, markings, actual photos, etc. the model and year.
4. Best ball and equipment ratings.

You could even compile this annually and sell ads online for updates.  Whaddaya twink?  You seem to alread have compiled a great basis for a foos bluebook.  Wouldn't be that much further to expand that.  I brought this up because all the comparable league/tour games/hobbies like pocket billiards, bowling, darts, and table tennis all seem to have their own bluebooks or equivalents, whether based on a dominant manufacturer/s, a joint venture between players, manufacturers and/or organizers, etc.

And putting it in easily updateable chapters on here or other place like your own website would be tons easier than the old school origins of those other games/hobbies (magazines, reviews, association ratings, etc..)

[Will17]

I think you should make a word document that can be emailed to anyone that is interested in buying a table. You could include pictures/diagrams and all of the other relevant information that you have added to this site. Also the table rating is a good idea.

[bbtuna]

killa,

thanks for thinking of me...good idea but it seems much more complex than what I have done...I keep track of the used market on eBay but not other sources except when I am involved with helping someone find a table...I think what you are suggesting is breaking them out by serial number runs...Ed Geer may have that information but he would be the only one and I don't know if anyone has a clear picture of exactly what table runs produced what annomolies...like the Grey Marble saga...because I lived through it I can give general time-frames but nothing concrete related to serial numbers

then, to include other tables, wow, that would for sure require outside help...I am okay with the evolution of Warrior so far and should keep up with that as it goes but I know NOTHING about Garlando, Bonzini, Tech Ball, etc when it comes to their production histories

plus, I am starting to place some of my energies toward our local foosball community and I expect this involvement to grow

Will,
I have this in a word document right now and I will try and add pictures as I go

I have toyed with the idea of a website and if I do that I will make it available there but that is not as high on my priority list right now as local foosball development with KC TOURNAMENT FOOSBALL...there is so much that can be done...I need to crack the golden egg of support

we don't need to get rich, but as an organization, we need a way to raise money to expand what kinds of support/promotion we provide current local foosers and prospective ones

[foozkillah]

BBT,

Not to worry... you could start it in stages, like when Mark started Netfoos... add stuff as you go along... Your awesome awesome descriptions that I remember of different production runs (who cares about the serial numbers any more, except collectors, after Tornado and some distributors started mixing and matching them?)

Just like the rest of the world, with the exception of certain municipalities in France, your initial mashup bluebook would still be a great source of help, just by replying with a link to it.   And I'm sure you could easily put a forum and specifics add-ons to your site as you went along... with the foos users all helping out.  Growing sites and portals are always the best, and the only ones that really last.  Even just that Word doc and replies in hypertext for links (you could easily hyperparse and put links in to a living index within the doc) would be a great start.

Ed G?  Poor Ed, right now on the foosballboard, he's being sized up for being tarred and feathered by Euro players going to worlds and at the same time being goaded by American and Canadian anti-sandbaggers to fix all the sins and omissions of Tornado from years past before September.  But it's a yobb manghh, so be it.  LOLOLOL  I tried to point out certain things that didn't make sense (they had to change them) for a Worlds, and he said he was just the messenger... and to stay off the thread, and then the Euro's figured out what I was saying,,, oh boyyyyyy..

And Ed's prolly put in as much arse-busting time and patience into national foosball as anybody...  But ya can't be selling love dolls at the XXX store and tell Germans, French, Brits, Belgians and other Euros to ONLY use the butt end.  Even at half-price.

Oh wait a minute, come to think of it, some of them might actually like that.... ya never knowwwwww...

[bbtuna]

I have wanted to say I appreciate the props and good ideas...been kind of distracted with Chris Dube's daughter dying

anyway, on Ed, yea, I keep up over there and I post under several other names...if you spent a minute or two you probably could figure it out since i am intersted in all things related to foosball today and more particularly in American foosball so I give myself away...all my local buds had me spotted right away because I am such a detailed, opinionated, blow hard...I think you can relate

[foozkillah]

BBT,

Yeah, that was a real bummer bout her passing.  I remember bringing along Jacob "Junkyard Dog" Still at 17 to 95 Worlds in Dallas.  That's the first year we started coming in a horde (25 that year) from Mike Cody's Palm Beach Billiards group in South Florida.  Jake met and made great friends with NM's Daniel Lueras, Jr., whom he played Rookie dubs with, and whose dad, Sr., won Goalie Wars I believe...

On the first day, we'd come down from breakfast with Dave C and Tonawanda's Jim "SnapCracklePop" McKinney (whom I met and helped with the table setups - he was doing it for free package entry) and Jake saw Chris warming up on a table, having only one of his Reebok Steps from his room.  Jake started playing with Dube and Dube had to switch the Step each time, from forward to goalkeeper.  After a while, our mischievous Rookie hacker Jake started to quickset while Chris would be switching the Step back to goal..  Chris never got mad, and after a while they were just all laughing their asses off.  Pretty soon all of us watching, Mike Cody and Michael Smith, even Thor, were all cramping with laughter.

That is how I always think of the little Titan of Iowa foos.   May he rassle and pin down his pain, just like he and his wrestling buddies have done all their lives..

[foozkillah]

I have wanted to say I appreciate the props and good ideas...
........
American foosball so I give myself away...all my local buds had me spotted right away because I am such a detailed, opinionated, blow hard

Yeah, and there's tons of them on that other board...  

...I think you can relate

You're asking moi?  Uhhh,... I have no detailed opinions on that ....

Dunno what you might be talking about...

 

[bbtuna]

looks like you are on to one name but there are two

anyway, chris is from MO not IA so don't be taken our boy from us

his wrestling name is Little Kato...bunch of bad ass drity SOB midgets

the Half Pint Brawlers....here is a link but understand this is "R" rated no joke
http://www.halfpintbrawlers.com/site/layout.php

Yea, Kent was saying the other day, Dube used to Play with Joe (Rhodes) when he was growing up (and was a child phenom) and seeing Dube and this little kid playing together always drew crowds

but hey, that is because Dube is an attraction in an of himself...I played the last draw with him and I weigh a ton and so in our case, it was a draw because it was the Midget and the Fatman

he might not have gotten mad when you saw him but his anger is mythic in its scale   and freakquency (pun intended) he has mellowed some in his later years from what I am told but he is still a fierce competitor and he can still be set off

he is a good guy and I have really enjoyed getting to know him...he is obviously quite the athlete regardless of his size...in the end though most importantly he is a person and father and dad just lost his little girl and that is sad

yes you, you run on an on...I wanted to give someone your stuff on the Central Zone, which I did, last week and it was 9 pages single spaced, small type, small margins...the kid is going to go blind trying to read it...I challenge you to condense that down to 4 pages max

as a side note, TCZ has worked like magic for me and I have sold a number of people on it...I ran into my first resistence last week but he will convert to the way or he will die

[foozkillah]

BBT,

[Cough! cough! cough!] Uhh, oh yeah... I kinda knew that, especially with foos reviving (KCTrayn ?) over there... but I always remembered him playing back in the day against Thor and Maggie D et al in Iowa (was that at Dante's Waterloo? Des Moines? It get's hazy...) and he was a foos Titan whenever he played in Iowa..  I wonder if that's part of the reason why his p-kick was different from Thor's?  And I saw them both a couple times in Tampa at Rudy's back in the day..  Somehow I kept getting the idea in my head he was from Iowa...  Apologies...

As for Central Zone D, I just laid those out as I did in training sessions with our scrubs...  yeah, it's a little wordy... I do the repetition and examples and clarifications in the sessions to reinforce the ideas in as many ways as possible.  Drive em blind, eh?  Well, good thing it's solid, because eventually the zoners should be able to defend by just smelling that dang ball, LOLOL...  no sight required!  hehehehe...  But OK, I should condense the text ... put a disclaimer that the reader has to understand player position numbering, what the lanes are, etc....   I was trying to avoid multiple clarifications after someone would read it... That didn't work.... Good thing with the clarifications is, the same principles work with Jupiters, Lehmachers, Garlandos, Legends, RP's etc..

And what's funny is what finally made me decide to put it down originally was trying to answer that guy silavox's questions a few years back... He's one of yours, too, right, one of Ron's boyz?  Too bad Billy Mays is gone, he would have made a perfect Central Zone video...  maybe that ShamWow-SlapChop guy...

[bbtuna]

Slivox is Steve Tran - he is a MO/KS boy...we are all on the KC border here...steve is on the KS side and I am on the MO side with Dube and the Rhodes, Tim Painter, and others so you know where the real power lies...gotta go 3 1/2 hours west of the state line to get to Chris Harrington and Mark Murrell (the table engineer and real "inventory" of the metal clad F5) and 2 hours east to get to Shane Darby in Columbia

KCTrayn, Chris Tryanor is a MI transplant and a contemporary with Ron Olson but didn't keep after the game like Ron...even so he won Rookie Nationals when they had that crazy format in Chicago...he is improving...he is a natural and strong lefty and it really shows in his game...his 5 bar is strong and getting stronger he is getting tougher all around

Steve T. and Chris T. really hung together for nearly 2 years faithfully attending the tournaments and Chris got us on to NetFoos and Steve is the social director...he makes foosball fun and the reason things are better here, and growing.  While they did that I drove Fun Fridays at Buzzard Beach

I think it is because when players come for the weekly DYP's, in the old days they didn't eat or drink...now they do lots of both...makes the time more fun, more of an event, meeting up with each other, makes it good for Sharks (the bar)..win, win all around...also, a number of get togethers on Fridays and here and there at other times

the 3 of us are close buds and are the ones driving KC TOURNAMENT FOOSBALL...my background is project management, process improvement, and organizational structure/growth/leadership and I am fully engaged right now for the first time - we now have a team, direction, goals and I have a list a mile long of things to work through and we are trying to tackle these things in order of importance---we will see how the experiment goes and if we can sustain it

by the way, Steve, a Mensa student growing up, understands the central zone but hasn't figured out yet how to implement it...maybe a partner thing, but I played with a complete rookie, really a beginner, who read and worked throught it, and we used it at MO, took 3rd in Rook and had maybe 1 or 2 goals scored on us the entire time and those were accidentental perfect or just crazy shots

the lower the rank, the better the defense but it is still good with PM's ... when I played with Dube, he didn't call it CZ but he talked to me about the approach and what he wanted and it was exactly the same...no one scored on us...i think he was surprised I knew it as well as I did - anybody using the old goalie cover the corner thing is like cave man trying to send smoke signals next to a guy with an iPhone

[foozkillah]

BBT, or Charles,

Funny you should mention Traynor and RonZilla... we have MI transplant PM Michael Cody to thank for developing South Florida foosball.  He started playing tourneys in 90 at the old Cross County Mall gameroom in West Palm Beach.  He's now retired to focus on touring as the chaperone for his twins Dalton and Dakota, who are nationally ranked on tour for BMX racing, soon to go X-games when they hit 14yrs old.

South Florida had always had strong local foos from PM's Johnny Horton, Chris Starczewski and Rick Ino bouncing back and forth over the years between Tampa-St Pete on the west coast and SoFlo, plus PM Mike Yore went to FAU down here in Boca.  Former World Champ Mike Green was living and working here, too, and Rick Dell was around, too.

But Mike Cody continued with weekly tournaments in North Palm Beach at the Brass Ring Pub, then twice weekly at Jonathan's Pub in West Palm Beach, then moved the twice weeklies to Palm Beach Billiards in 94, also in North Palm Beach.  By 95, we had over 25 players going to Worlds, Tampa and Atlanta regularly.  Of course it goes in cycles, and that surge quieted down by 2001, but it developed pros Gary Gold, Jason Reep, and especially Adam Horowitz - only human to stand toe-to-toe with Spredey in both 5bar skills and overall game... Too bad he had to quit when foos went quiet here for a while.  So did PB Billiards' Shane "Miley" Ledford, who won Worlds Rookie dubs with Kenny "Rasputin" Bixgorin..

But it must be the water or something in Michigan...  at least near Bay City where Mike Cody and Michael Smith are from...  Makes ya good at foosball and go spread the foos...

[foozkillah]

And as for Steve "silavox" Tran,

That is so hilarious that he's having trouble implementing Central Zone D!  When dozens and dozens of abject beginners and rooks, after I sent him the original drafts in PMs so long ago, have gone and done so well with it!  I'm happy to hear you're  doing well with it, too!

Is it the discipline to move just one inch over, to shut down either center lane that he's having trouble with?  Or is it the forward side, centering the 5bar and constantly going end-to-end with the 3bar?  I sure hope he's still not trying to block the opposing goalkeeper passing 2bar-5bar or 2bar-3bar, or banking, while he's in nets!   

It is kind of scary, too, when I see scrubs I've trained draw players like Ryan and Spredey, and slip perfectly into zone D, and then block the opposing pro or PM as well with the basic no-sliding 'post' D I also taught them, against rollovers and pinshots.  Nothing quite like seeing ones you've trained get in the money and win at one's local DYPs and brings... and then do the same thing at a regional or Atlanta...