All right – how about ‘Suggested Reading’?  There’s no quiz on Friday anyway.  There IS a quiz every Tuesday, though, or whichever day of the week you have your league play or favorite tournament.

I’ve read some of these books cover-to-cover and others continue to be ready ‘reference’, new insights and review material.  What I like about each of the ‘how to’ instructional books is that you don’t have to start at the beginning of them and read chapters in order.  IF you’re a beginner however, I WOULD recommend reading “Byrne’s Standard Book of Pool and Billiards” from the beginning of the book. 

For everyone else, and each of the other books, you can flip them open to a specific area of your interest or completely at random, and in one or two pages reading you will learn some new skill and/or key points about various shots’ execution or the right frame of mind.

 

After you’ve read all of Robert Byrne’s ‘Standard’ book, you should take a look at his “Complete Book of Pool Shots”.  Everyone should strive to bring good form and execution to each and every one of their ‘standard’ – as in Standard Operating Procedure (S.O.P.) – shots, but the players who have the upper hand are those who have EXTRA shots in their skill set.  This is a book of practical shots – NOT useless pre-staged trick shots.  These shots can get you out of a jam or solve a problem when it looks as if your turn at table is about to get shut down. 

 

A bit drier in the delivery (Byrne can be downright humorous, in spurts) Phil Capelle nonetheless delivers the most important information on strategy, execution and percentages, without wasted words.  Even with his economy of prose, he still manages to share examples of how many situations outlined and diagrammed in his books related to real life competition between professional players.

 

 

One Pocket is, admittedly, a diversion game for me, but I really enjoy playing with someone who plays it well and/or someone who just loves the game.  “UPscale One-Pocket”??  Is Mr. Koehler suggesting that there is ‘Low-brow’ or ‘Low-rent’ One Pocket?  Not really.  Some people describe One-Pocket as chess (to checkers) or calculus (to simple addition/subtraction).  Actually, I think 3-cushion Billiards should be ‘calculus’ and maybe One-Pocket should be ‘statistics’…

 

What about your ‘mental’ game?  DR. Bob Fancher, Ph.D., a psychotherapist AND league pool player, pulls no punches in letting you know exactly HOW you can deal with confidence issues and distraction – among other things.  I think you will be surprised at his matter-of-fact prescriptions for overcoming the psychological problems many pool players share.

 

As the title implies, DR. Selleck, another Ph.D., has useful advice for “…the Game of Your Life” which might be played on a pocket billiard table – or might not.  You might not be sports-minded at all but if the rest of your life – or significant chunks of it – is crap, then pick up these tips on how to fix that.  You may even want to start dealing with some of  that $#!+ before joining us on league night.