Precision Pool-2nd Edition [Paperback]

Have you ever sat down to read a "how to" book and discovered so many errors, page after page, chapter after chapter, that it becomes a game of Find-The-Next-Boner rather than What-Can-I-Learn? This accurately describes the feeling I had while reading the ironically titled "Precision Pool."

It's hard to know where to start because the mishmosh of mistakes that beset this work are varied and great in number. There are sentences confusing right and left (page 128), illustrations contradicting the text (page 72, Rotation and Straight Pool racking), illustrations confusing outside with inside english (page 105, illustration 5.16) and just plain bad advice (page 155 and illustration 6.16, running a rack of 8-Ball).

The discussion of the massé starting on page 125 is a typical example of what's wrong with this book. If you're going to discuss a shot, make it comprehensible and comprehensive; don't gloss over it. Here the massé is treated like just one more shot in a player's bag of tricks, for beginner and advanced player alike to easily master. I doubt a beginner is going to understand how to shoot this shot or what stroke to use from Mr. Kanov's visage on page 127 and the illustrations on page 128. However, you can get this from Bob Byrne's excellent book, "Advanced Technique in Pool and Billiards."

Compounding the problem are confusing sentences, catching the authors not knowing their right from their left or object ball from interfering ball: "Now let's say you want to completely curve the ball around the object ball, and it's just to the left of the cue ball. You would hit it at about 5:00, shooting straight down at the imaginary clock face on the cue ball to massé it to the right." Say what? To the right? ... but I thought it was to the left? God, I'm confused; let's go play chess. The sentence should read: "To curve the cue ball around an interfering ball and hit the object ball on your right, picture an "elevated" clock face and aim for 5:00 with the angle of your cue 80 to 85 degrees to the table bed, depending upon the slipperiness of the cloth. Stroke firmly, but not too hard." Mr. Byrne's description and illustrations are better still.

And there's more! If there's a distinct difference between illustration 5.36 (page 126), a curve shot using a "slightly elevated cue," and illustration 5.37 (also page 126), a curve shot using an "extremely elevated cue," I'd like someone to point it out. I pity the poor beginner who's trying to make sense of all this.

Returning to that rack of 8-Ball on page 155, why in a book titled "Precision Pool" would a low percentage, touchy position shot on the 6-ball, bringing the cue-ball up table between the 15 and the rail for the 1-Ball in the corner be recommended when the sequence of 4, 1, 7, 5, 2, 6, 3 and the game winning 8 is so much more natural? The authors obviously want to make the point that the 6-ball should be taken early if you're an offensive player and left as a blocker if you have a penchant for defense. But with the natural angle from the 2-ball to the 6-ball and from the 6-ball to the 3-ball in the same pocket, why not have your cake and eat it too. If this were straight pool, I'd say the authors were right, but in this case their view is indefensible.

The coups de grāce was what I read on page 69 regarding deflection and throw. To quote "Nobody disputes the existence of deflection and throw ... Many have even come up with lovely charts depicting how much you need to adjust your aim for different shots ... [but] just try to apply this knowledge [in] a game situation ... think of [a] football traveling through the air ... Does the football player calculate the spin on its approach, combined with the day's wind velocity, to determine exactly where his hands should be to grasp the ball? Of course not." This simplistic comparison, knowingly or not, denigrates the work of Jack Koehler, Bob Jewett and Bob Byrne, men who have tried to bring some understanding and genuine precision to this game, something these two authors need not worry about in their work.

To be fair, the book isn't all bad - for example, the center ball drill on page 53. However, I'd modify it to a table length accuracy drill up and back, spacing the target balls no more than 2-1/2 inches apart. Also, the authors' chapter on the break isn't bad, their pre-shot routine suggestions (page 28) are accurate and well explained, and the practice games and seven-day practice routine (pages 237-239) are a most valuable part of the book. Still these relatively few pages in a 246 page work do not a good book make.

Frankly, I'm at a loss to explain how Shari Stauch, editor of Pool and Billiards Magazine, and Gerry Kanov, contributing writer to P and B, could turn out this kind of work. The poor writing, editing and proofreading is an embarrassment to the history of instructional pool books, and Human Kinetics, the small publisher of sports and fitness books who funded the project, should be ashamed. Except for the occasional good suggestion, this book can only be recommend to ball-bangers and felt-rippers, and maybe not to them.

Advanced players can benefit from a review of the fundamentals of bridges and stroke as well as the "reasons behind certain spohisticated shots and position play" from time to time. Advanced and Intermediate players will find sound instruction on patterns, position play, banks, stategy and, most importantly, the mental aspects of competition play. Beginning players will find this a resource for several years as they build a competitive game.

One of the strengths of this book is that it "reveals" many of the mystreies of the game as to why certain shots roll long, or short, as they play out. Precision Pool give details about banking and cushion first shots that few people truly understand. Best of all the diagrams and descriptions make it possible for any player to understand these subtle, but all important, aspects of object ball and cue ball travel.

It would be fair to say that I learned more from this book than any other I have used in over fourty year's of pool and 3 cushion play. I use this book frequently in conjunction with teaching students at all levels of ability.

Precision Pool is the only instruction book we carry at Palace Billiards. I recommend it with confidence to our customers. It will be "the best twenty dollars they will ever spend on their game."