Air hockey wizard from Louisville turns the sport into a science

It isn't impossible, but it's tough to get better at air hockey without a table. Just ask Louisville native Liz Cash, who is probably one of the best players in the world.

Before her breakthrough, and before she was set to attend this weekend's Air Hockey World Championships, she and her training partner had one goal – win the 2017 amateur tournament, and take home the grand prize.

"The winner of the amateur bracket won an air hockey table, which, for me and my teammate, was a really good opportunity," Cash said Monday in a phone interview from New York City. A new regulation-size air hockey table can cost upward of $2,000.

They came up short that time, but Cash has been busy in the two years since, training at the same Brooklyn pool hall on the same creaky old table. The goal this year, it's safe to say, is a little different.

"I don’t want to be cocky," she said. "My teammate definitely thinks that I have what it takes right now to be the top-ranked woman."

Cash, 36, had just wrapped up a four-hour practice Monday when contacted by the Courier Journal. She'd spent a little more time that afternoon at Brownstone Billiards because longtime air hockey pro Michael Rosen had come by to hit the table with her and Justin Flores, her training partner and another one of the top players in the country.

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It was an exhausting session, but with the Air Hockey Players Association's world championship just days away, she didn't have time to take a break. Cash will fly to Colorado for the tournament Thursday, with the competition beginning the next day. And while getting ready to face the best air hockey players in the world obviously requires a lot of time on the table, that's not all it takes.

'High-speed chess'

Cash knows you might not take air hockey too seriously, and she didn't either when she got into the sport a few years ago. The way she prepares, though, is no joke.

There are the marathon sessions at Brownstone Billiards, her normal training spot and one of the few places in New York with a regulation-size 8-foot table. And there are the gymnastics exercises at Crossfit Kingsboro, where she works with clients as a personal trainer.

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But there's also juggling, she said, as a way to exercise her cerebellum, and other vision drills she uses when she isn't able to practice on an actual air hockey table.

"The function of the cerebellum is precision of movement, accuracy with targets, anything that has to do with rapid movement," Cash said about her training. "So with air hockey, I thought 'OK, let me do what I can when I don’t have a table' because we have very limited access."

Mental focus is important, but staying loose physically is as well. Cash said the key is being able to move quickly – your game has to be "fast and furious," with quick reaction times. That all goes back to your shoulders and other joints.

"In air hockey, there’s a number of shots that can be executed from more points off the table if you have as much mobility at the wrist, elbow and shoulder. That way you can quickly pop into whatever position you need to end up in to hit the shot at just the right angle," she said. "That’s the name of the game – how many shots can you hit from as many places on the table as possible?"

It's a lot of work, with or without an air hockey table, but that's what it takes against the toughest competition.

"At this level of air hockey, it’s really high-speed chess," she said. "You have to be able to pretty quickly identify what your opponent’s weak points are, and what are their strong points against you, and how can you flip the script from that to exploit whatever they’re not good at and capitalize on your strengths."

Taking air hockey seriously

Versatility is one of Cash's specialties. She was a member of the soccer, rowing and rock climbing teams at St. Francis School in Louisville and took up boxing and competitive cycling during her time at the College of Santa Fe. In her spare time growing up, she played the drums and practiced martial arts, which she took up when she was 5 years old. She practiced kung fu in high school.

Those sports and activities, which ignited her competitive drive, gave her a base when she started to take air hockey seriously. But it was a learning process.

Cash met Flores in 2015 when a friend whom she had casually played with invited her to an air hockey event at a New York bar. She didn't hear from Flores again, she said, until 2017, when she published a social media post about air hockey.

“He happened to see it and was like, ‘oh, hey, I see you’re still playing – do you want to come to Air Hockey World Championships?" she said. "And so, with like eight weeks to go, I was like ‘sure, that sounds like fun!’”

They didn't win, although they gave it their best as teammates in the doubles rounds and in the amateur tournament. But she's honed her skills in the two years since, practicing two or three times a week for hours at a time leading up to tournaments, and others have taken note. Cash and Flores were the subjects of a recent New York Times article detailing their training and strategy.

You better believe the competition has read that story by now – and studied Cash's stance, where she whips her leg up to get as much force behind the puck as possible.

They're not the only ones paying attention, though. Cash can name-drop other contenders who will be in Colorado this weekend and is familiar with strengths and weaknesses of her competition. It's a one-bracket tournament that isn't split up between genders, and Cash said her goal is to have the best finish among all the women.

"I’ve watched some footage on some of the other female competitors," said Cash, who graduated from St. Francis in 2001. "... The only real wild card for me is how they seed the tournament. I could go up against the current world champion – like, the overall world champion – and that could be a very different outcome early in the tournament."

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Cash and Flores will each compete in both the singles and doubles competitions. They'll take the table as teammates in Friday's doubles tournament, and then will go it alone in the singles bracket a day later.

Winning will be a marathon, not a sprint. The first person to score seven points wins the game, and you have to win a best-of-seven series of games to win a set and advance. That can take some time, especially against high-level competition.

It may look easy when you watch a couple take a table at the bar. But when a contender like Cash is on the table, it's a different game entirely.

"Air hockey is a little unique because it requires the kind of fast-twitch muscles that create quick reactions and explosiveness, but you also have to have endurance," she said. "It’s more of a sport than people realize, because you really have to have your nutrition, and your hydration. Your muscles have to be able to go the distance to play for hours."

Lucas Aulbach can be reached at laulbach@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4649 or on Twitter @LucasAulbachCJ. Support strong local journalism and subscribe: www.courier-journal.com/lucasa.