| brain
- 23 Feb 2013
Total Posts: 578
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| Congrats to Justin Flores on a solid victory and Master-level performance last night at the weekly in Houston. Congrats to Colin who once again is consistently finishing near the top and nearly had this one out away.
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- 23 Feb 2013
Total Posts: 658
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| Nice job, Justin on winning the tournament last night. Great job too, to Colin for coming in second place.
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| brain
- 25 Feb 2013
Total Posts: 578
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| As posted in another thread, SRO officially closed its doors today. We will begin the journey of finding a new weekly location. Stay tuned...
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| jasonstevens
- 26 Feb 2013
Total Posts: 176
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newspaper article about SRO closing
http://www.29-95.com/bars-clubs/story/longtime-sports-bar-sro-closing
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| ajflanagan
- 28 Feb 2013
Total Posts: 509
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Puck. Friday. 8pm. Speedy's. 11440 Hempstead Rd. Tell all your friends. Be there!
Speedy's is a gokart track and game room located about 2 minutes from SRO. They currently have 4 tables in good playable condition that will work just fine for us in a pinch. And we're in a pinch.
We're working on some great prospects to get us out of the pinch. Speedy's will be a fun place to play while we're are building other relationships. Who know,s Speedy's might become a regular weekly that will help grow our youth player base even more.
So, no excuses... long live Air Hockey!
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| ajflanagan
- 02 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 509
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The unfortunate demise of SRO didn't stop the puck in Houston. The players want puck... and it's puck they will get!
Speedy's turned out to be a fine spot for us to play while in this transition. They have 4 great Dynamo tables. Two are brand new Dynamo Best Shot (coin op version of the Pro Style) and one is an older blue top. The fourth table is a well broken in black top with black rails, although most of the finish has worn off this inside of the rails, so it's very playable and holds banks just fine. The tables are mostly set up in an area with several coin op pool tables and set away from the noisy video games. The place wasn't too crowded... mostly teenagers doing what teenagers do. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to make the rounds and invite them all to play, but we did get one new player, Javier Reynoso.
We had 21 players show up for the inaugural Friday night tournament at Speedy's. Not bad considering we made the announcement less than 24 hours before face off!
Congrats to Max Silverstein's kid, Noe for his first weekly win tonight! Noe started coming out to weeklies a week or two ago and really surprised us all. Apparently, he's been getting some table time in with the Ortiz clan and with his dad, Max. This weekly win earned Noe a quick promotion to a level 1.
Lazaro Garcia fought hard against Noe in the finals after cruising through the winners bracket. It's just really tough to take down a new level 0 with some skills!
As our search for a new home continues, Speedy's will be our spot for Friday nights. So, let's do it again next Friday at 8! First matches will be called at 8:30.
Play puck!
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| carolina phil
- 02 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 1084
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The Houston weekly was held tonight, Friday March 1, 2013 at Speedy's on Hempstead west of NW Mall in the same general area as was SRO.
Speedy's is Great! Four tables. Clean place. No smoking. Scores of games. But not noisy due to good insulation and the placement of the ah tables.
Lots of room. Good AC. But most of all I see dozens of potential new teen AH players. As tables freed up non tournament players were on the tables playing AH. With some signage and recruiting, we will add many more players than we ever could add at SRO. This place is fertile ground!
Thanks to Danny and Andrew for making arrangements this week, and thanks to Frank Perez for his long term contact with Speedy's.
We will be back next week for the weekly ah tourney at 8 PM.
Phil
Congrats to Noe Silverstein for winning over Lazaro in the first Speedy's finals!
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- 08 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 658
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| Congratulations Castano, Cummings, and Cheung on a great weekly showing.
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| ajflanagan
- 09 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 509
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We had another 22 player turnout at Speedy's last night! Ramiro Castano came out in a blaze of glory and tore through the winner's side until running into Mike Cummings. The finals went 2 sets and Ramiro was able to pull out a victory for his second weekly win this year. Peter Cheung finished 3rd and Tad Gibson took the 4th spot.
Good things are brewing in the Houston Air Hockey scene. We are in talks with a few different venues for weeklies. We also have some great options for the World Championship series coming up in July. Once everything is nailed down, we'll post the info.
Speedy's has been a really great venue so far. Each week we get some interested teens... perhaps a little too nervous to dive right into the competition, but a few stuck around for tips from Dr. Phil after the tournament. Hopefully we'll see them return next week.
Speedy's management has agreed to let us shift a few tables around so we can get the 3 best tables consolidated in the back section. That should help the weeklies run smoother and quicker. The changes will likely happen after their Spring Break rush is over.
Big matches this Sunday afternoon. Syed vs Danny followed 20 minutes later by Andrew vs Danny. Hopefully Syed wears him out enough so I can at least get a game or 2. This double header should be entitled, "Lambs to the Slaughter".
See ya'll next Friday at Speedy's!
Play Puck!
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- 16 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 658
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| Nice win, Jacob! Good job, Ehab.....Ehab? :) And Syed too.
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| stubbs7
- 16 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 582
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| Way to go Jacob! Great to see Ehab come out as well.
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| ajflanagan
- 18 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 509
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Air Hockey Update: Friday March 15 - Spring Break brought out a huge crowd to Speedy's this week. We had 24 players for our largest tournament at the new venue! Local Master Elite, Ehab Shoukry played in his first weekly tournament in quite a while... although the time off didn't seem to cause much rust. Ehab came in with a low seed and cruised right through the bracket defeating AJ Ortiz (2-1), Ramiro Castano(2-0), Andrew Flanagan (2-0) and Peter Cheung (2-0) before running into up and coming pro, Jacob Weissman. Jacob battled through the top half of the chart defeating Mark Waheed (2-1), Syed Rahman (2-1) and Lazaro Garcia (2-1) before facing off against Shoukry. In a close, hard fought battle, Jacob was able to pull out a win and sent Ehab to the loser's bracket.
Syed Rahman and Johnny Rivera were the dominant forces through the loser's bracket. In the end, Lazaro Garcia knocked Johnny out of the tournament to face Syed, his practice partner, in the quarter finals. Syed laid the wood to Lazaro and knocked him out in 4th place. Syed's normally cool, calm and collected game plan seemed to get a little rattled against Ehab Shoukry in the semi-final match. Ehab won that match in 3 games to face off against Jacob Weissman again in the finals. This match was nothing at all like the first match between these two. Although Jacob (level 4) used his 2 point spot against the level 6, Shoukry... he didn't really need it. The match was over quickly. 7-3 the first game and 7-4 the second.
Congratulations to Jacob for his first weekly win in his first weekly appearance at Speedy's!
Now that Spring Break and St. Patrick's Day are behind us, we can resume our talks with a few different venues for weekly play. It appears that Speedy's will be our Friday night home... at least for a while. The management has been very welcoming and agreed to shuffle around a couple of the tables in order to get the best 3 tables together in the back section.
As soon as we have more information about the new weekly venues and the July World Championship venue, we will post it immediately!
Play Puck!
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| ajflanagan
- 18 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 509
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HOUSTON PUCKSTERS!
A couple of quick notes...
Speedy's has been a great venue for our weekly tournaments when we had nowhere else to turn on such short notice. The central location, close to SRO, made the transition for players very easy. I want to go over a couple of issues that will make things run even better for everyone.
1 - PARKING
The parking lot at Speedy's is small. You may not have realized, there is additional parking on the north side of the building. Also, there is parking available on the grass along Hempstead. If the lot is full when you get there, hang out for a few minutes. Most of the big crowd of younger kids with their parents start to leave around 8 or 8:30 and the parking lot clears out a bit.
2 - TOKENS
The tables are set at 4 tokens per game. If you cash in $1s and $5s in the token machine, you are basically paying $1 per game. However, if you go to the front desk or find the token machine that takes $20s, you can get 108 tokens for $20. That's $7 in "free" tokens! I'm no mathematician, but that brings your per game cost right back down to about 75 cents each.
3 - TOURNEY MANAGEMENT
At the moment, the four tables are very spread out. We are working on a solution to get the best 3 tables in the back area so we don't have to wade through a sea of pool players and video gamers to get to the tables. However, Speedy's is a big, noisy place. With all the bells and whistles, it's very easy for players to get distracted and wander off. This is a PROBLEM for the Tournament Directors. We have been teaming up so one person can manage the chart while the other person hunts down players. We cannot hunt you down for every match! Remember, Speedy's closes at 1AM on Fridays. We have been cutting it very close the last couple of weeks. Please stick around the table #3 area where the Tournament Director is calling matches.
IMPORTANT
IF YOU WIN YOUR MATCH, DO NOT LEAVE THE TABLE YOU PLAYED ON. When you wander off, ever for a few seconds, some kids are going jump on the table and delay the tournament. The ref should report scores to the TD and winning player should STAY AT THE TABLE to ref the next match. REPEAT... STAY AT THE TABLE. Do not walk over to the TD to find out what the next match is. If you need to leave your table for any reason, please find another player to hold the table or ref your match.
Play Puck!
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| Q
- 23 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 497
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| Congrats on back to back weekly wins Jacob!
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| jtweissm
- 23 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 87
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| Thanks Q!
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| stubbs7
- 23 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 582
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| When do you go up to a level 5 Jacob? :)
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| jtweissm
- 23 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 87
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I don't know... maybe when I beat Brian? Just kidding Brain!
In all seriousness though, I have no idea, hopefully soon, but not too soon! 
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- 23 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 658
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| Great job, Jacob.
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| CranberryJelly
- 23 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 11
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| Congrats Jacob!
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| brain
- 24 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 578
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Well Jacob if your move-up is based on your beating me, you may be stuck at level 4 for a while. I am ready for a challenge when you are. 
I realize you said just kidding, but putting "j/k" on an underhanded comment doesn't change its intent or impact. There are plenty of small people in this online arena that feed their insecurities by cutting on producers and then acting like it was meant in jest. You are not like these people. Moeover, I know your father well, and besides being a great champion, he is a good honest conservative man who respects the value of producers in any society. In this society, I am a producer and deserving of respect in comments regarding my methods. Please be fair to me in your comments. I am far from perfect, but I ahve developed a very good system over many years that has worked well.
For clarification, for the last several years I have run and/or attended 90% of the weeklies in Houston. I develop a personal and professional relationship with each player. I watch the players' shots, decisions, attitude, defense, and consistency. And yes I do use my own game to guage them as well, but that is a part of the decision-making process, not the entirety of it. For instance, if you beat me and then lose 2 straight matches, then you are not ready to move up. But if I am at the top of my game (playing true level 6 airhockey), you have finished top 4 several weeks in a row and you take me down in the finals and are a level 3 or below, then yes, the circumstances merit that a promotion is probably deserved. The same would be true if the win was over Tim, Danny, Ehab, Anthony, Syed or any of the "masters".
I have always based promotional decisions on analysis of data, progression, desire, attitude, and opinions of other weekly leaders. I make no secret of it that I like to move people up just before they are actually at that level because it pushes them to play harder, and 90% of the time they rise to the challenge fairly quickly. That is my method, and I do not apologize for it given the positive outcome it has generated in our large professional player base in Houston.
Andrew and Syed are now the primary decision-makers on promotions. They are running the weeklies and have the most exposure to players' games. They are also very fair and good analysts. Houston is lucky to have so many accomplished leaders.
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- 24 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 658
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jtweissm said: I don't know... maybe when I beat Brian? Just kidding Brain!
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Jacob, if you do that, he'll likely move you up to a level 6, followed by dishing out a long winded post on your tremendous, highly unlikely, amazing, and historic achievement in actually beating him. Oh just kidding....hmmm, on second thought, im quite serious. ;)
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| sjrbat
- 24 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 527
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Jacob is now a solid level 4, and the scary thing is he is getting better and better.
Last week we only had 12 people in the weekly. So based on such a low turnout, it is hard to move Jacob up from winning that weekly.
He is getting closer and closer.
Keep up the great playing Jacob.
Syed
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| TWeissman
- 26 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 210
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Actually, putting a "j/k" or a smiley face after a joke precisely changes the intent and should also change the impact. In a medium like a forums, these "emotes" are helpful to those who might otherwise think a person is being serious. That's the point.
However, the ultimate impact of a joke directed at an individual is definitely out of the control of the person making the joke. The impact rests primarily with the person it is directed at. A person can laugh at themselves, become angry or not care either way. It is clear this joke struck a sore spot, and Jacob was not aware this sore spot existed.
I have spoken to Jacob and he will refrain from making any jokes related to Brian.
I do hope that any other jokes that are made by Jacob directed at anyone else will be taken in good jest. After all, he doesn't know all our histories and what makes us all upset. So, it is genuinely innocent humor.
If however, he does go over the line (pun intended), let me know and I will rectify the situation with him.
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| carolina phil
- 26 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 1084
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I specialize in reading words for meaning; wrote a 300 page dissertation on that method. Jacob's words were innocent and no subtext was intended.
Phil
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| ajflanagan
- 26 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 509
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carolina phil said: I specialize in reading words for meaning; wrote a 300 page dissertation on that method. Jacob's words were innocent and no subtext was intended.
Phil |
I find this post to be condescending and laced with sarcasm.
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- 26 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 658
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Dont worry Jacob, anyone without a Brain (pun intended) can see the light heartedness in your joke. And no worries either, Phil, only a big Ass wouldnt see that you were being sincere. I guess we can just move on to other comments now...
When Fozzie Bear was asked what the most laughable thing in Airhockey was, he replied, "WCAH WCAH WCAH!!"
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| carolina phil
- 27 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 1084
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I was being sincere.
Phil
ajflanagan said: carolina phil said: I specialize in reading words for meaning; wrote a 300 page dissertation on that method. Jacob's words were innocent and no subtext was intended.
Phil |
I find this post to be condescending and laced with sarcasm.
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- 27 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 658
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carolina phil said: I was being sincere.
Phil
ajflanagan said: carolina phil said: I specialize in reading words for meaning; wrote a 300 page dissertation on that method. Jacob's words were innocent and no subtext was intended.
Phil |
I find this post to be condescending and laced with sarcasm.
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We know, Phil. AC's forte obviously isnt reading and understanding the meaning in WORDS. He's pretty good at sticking them on cars though. :)~
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| ajflanagan
- 27 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 509
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carolina phil said: I was being sincere.
Phil
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I was not.
See how that works? I'd love to read your dissertation, Phil.
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| carolina phil
- 27 Mar 2013
Total Posts: 1084
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Good one, lol.
Latergator,
JPAtor
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