Learning Foosball
Content from rec.sport.table-soccer FAQ4 v 1.2a
Learning Foosball: a Guide for Beginners and Intermediates
(C) 1995 Robert Uyeyama http://www.foosballheaven.com/
Permission granted to foosmanchu.com to publish in modified HTML format.

So You Thought You Were Good...
But Then You Went to the First Big Tournament

This chapter will be short, but will also be on the topic most dear to my heart. The chapter title describes me a few years ago, and the only difference today is that I'm still not good, but now I know it...

My only advice is that if you're beating all the players around you, you have to go out and find players who can beat you. Then you'll see what great foosball is like, and then you may be motivated to practice that brush-pass, that moving-defense, and all those other techniques that seemed like sheer nonsense to you before.

Probably the easiest way to find good players in your area is to find local Tornado tournaments. Call the Tornado Promotions Hot Line at (303) 933-1170, and they will be able to tell you the phone number of a "promotor" (i.e. tournament-organizer) in your area. Then call your promotor, who will give you all of the details. The Striker foosball tables are starting to make inroads in the foos-world, so you can also contact them at Dynamo at (800) 527-6054. Also, you can find many tournament listings in alt.sport.foosball's FAQ 3: "Playing Locations." And of course you can pipe up on alt.sport.foosball to see if any other players are in your area. Finally, if you're suspicious about these Tornado or Stryker tables you've heard of, give them a good try anyways: go to these tournaments for a few months, then decide what you think... I can almost guarantee you will eventually be a "convert"!

The other advantage to playing better players is that you learn faster...much faster. You'll learn what a good moving-defense for a pull shot or a snake is like; the subtleties are hard to figure out on your own! You'll learn new options from regular shot set-ups that you never knew existed. You'll learn the importance of ball spin, and how quickly you will lose if you don't have a brush pass or stick pass series. You may even learn downright useless things such as how to set up and shoot the flamboyant Rainbow (aerial shot), or the Alien. You get the idea.

So, whether you're the current college champ, bar champ, or a former addict, go ahead and find those better players... although you may lose more games than you're accustomed to, you will probably have a new drive to become better at the sport. And once you attend a Tour event, you'll be hopelessly hooked, and the entire sport will benefit from the widened base of competition players.

As a final word, please read Chapter 2 of this file. It contains some general advice which is valid and useful no matter how good you are at the sport. The sequence of choosing one shot, then learning and always using the brush-pass are key, as is the advice on strategy; even following these instructions will immediately improve your game (i.e. stop hacking from 5-rod and pass, and concentrate on one shot). The one thing I would add is to learn a good moving defense, since you will find that most players have 3-rod shots which can't be reliably raced-- even if your moving defense is still letting shots through, you'll find that the shots-against percentage has at least decreased compared to your stationary race-defense; unfortunately there is not a faqs (frequently-asked-questions) file on this topic yet, but it should be forthcoming. There are however, faq files on the brush-pass (faq2) and the snake (aka rollover) and pull shots (faq6) that are worth reading. Happy foosing!