I started playing foosball at the age of sixteen back in Houston Texas where I grew up. I was fortunate that the tables I learned on were Tornado and Dynamo. At first, I only played front and the push-kick was my only weapon until I learned how to do pin shots. In the early 80s, my passing knowledge was not that great then, so I was forced to play goalie more often than I wanted to. Soon, I became fairly good at blocking most of the popularly used shots. I developed numerous kinds of defenses which I proudly named. For instance, there is the "flex" defense, the "sucker dee", and the "doom's day" defense. Please, see the section on defense. Then, I realized that if I was going to play front and dominate, I was going to have to learn how to pass. For the years that followed, passing was where most of my attention went to. Even to this day, passing is the main area I still practice the most. Please, see the section on passing.
I have never won any kind of a tournament, usually getting second at most, but I have played against some who are well renowned in the sport of foosball. For many years, I played against John Smith back in Pasadena, TX. He had one of the best pull shots I have ever seen. He was a very quite fellow when he played. He was very methodical and disciplined as well. His passing game was crisp and accurate and his pull shot penetrated most defenses. I learned a lot about how to defense the pull playing against John; however, he still won more games than I did when we played.
