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PLAY YOUR BEST STRAIGHT POOL
By Phil Capelle

It's Real Love Baby
A Book Review by Elliot S. Eisenberg

Four adjectives characterize Phil Capelle's book "Play Your Best Straight Pool." First, it's encyclopedic in scope. Second, it's scholarly in presentation. Third, it's articulate in style. And, finally, it's superlative in contribution to pool/billiards education.

Right from the opening frame of this straight pool treatise
Mr. Capelle leaves his competitors frozen on the end rail without having disturbed a single ball in the pack. Stated alternatively, the Table of Contents of this book is voluminous, comprehensive, and erudite. Even without carefully reviewing each of the nine pages in the contents section the reader is given a glimpse of the type of detail the author employs. My first thought in reading it was that it was like an encyclopedia. No stone left unturned... somewhere between the Duane's Series of Ophthalmology and Brittanica...an accurate foreshadowing of the surgically precise 394 pages that follow. While many fine straight pool texts on the market help to educate all levels of players none of them fracture the game to its component parts to the level of "Play Your Best Straight Pool." The topic specificity is so high and so discriminating all 14.1 players will be thoroughly addicted by Chapter 1. By the time I read the subsection `Bending with Draw' and `Bumping Balls with Spin' I was in need of an immediate fix. STAT. Two hours of nothing but straight pool at `Hard Times...No other instruction text in the field has demonstrated this level of comprehensiveness.

In order for a book to be considered scholarly it should meet the burden of bringing the hidden to the revealed. Capelle's text aptly passes muster in this regard. In most cases, with the exception of a few naturally gifted elite players, straight pool knowledge is the gradual cumulation of years of practice and experience. With luck, a beacon such as "Play Your Best Straight Pool" arrives and a bright light transforms the journeyman into a player. A specific example in Capelle's text is his discussion of jumping the cue ball into the rack. In a chapter entitled "Break Shots" the author discusses a dreaded phenomenon where the player has a potential break shot but unfortunately leaves the cueball in a position that is almost straight in. This would result in a situation where there is an insufficient angle of cue ball defection after impact. The net effect is a lack of the necessary force to scatter the triangulated balls and continue the run. In other words the cut angle is too shallow. The author's solution to the dilemma is to send the cueball airborne by executing a jump shot. The flying cueball then descends on the nearby rack and its weight and velocity are an impetus to scatter the balls. This concept is clearly not obvious. Even a moderately skillful straight pool player, one who is capable of stringing a number of racks together, may not envision a jump shot as a solution to dispersing clustered balls. Furthermore, as a corollary to this principle Capelle amplifies the idea in another section of the text where he advocates a semi-jump shot with force follow to break a difficult cluster. In both scenarios the reader is illuminated with sophisticated knowledge not evident by casual observation.

The book is clearly presented, well formatted, and fits together in a distinct but connected sequence. Exemplifying this articulate style is a seven page mini-dissertation on `Manufacturing Break Shots' - a subsection from the chapter labeled "Pattern Play." First, Capelle introduces the reader to the concept. Then he defines the goal and necessity of maneuvering critical balls into strategic positions to maintain runs. Next, with the use of precise and scaled drawings (consistent throughout the book) he takes the pool enthusiast on a step by step tour teaching the creation of break shots. Finally, he masterfully ends the short discourse with advanced techniques employing spin, draw, bank shots, and visualization.

On a somewhat personal note my goal in reading "Play Your Best Straight Pool" was to facilitate coming out of retirement. I hadn't played 14.1 Continuous in over a decade. For over ten years I didn't even walk into a pool hall. There was a significant hiatus in my billiard career. As a result a burning question remained in my mind. Will the game come back like riding a bicycle or will I be struggling to make every ball? After I read the section of `Manufacturing Break Shots' I couldn't think of anything else. Brushing my teeth in the morning I was pushing out the 15 ball into the classic `Mosconi break.' At noon I nudged the 2 ball into position for a break shot behind the rack. Going to sleep I kissed and banked the 5 ball into position alongside the triangle. Day and Night Straight Pool. In practice it went the same way. Phil's book actualized my goal and made it reality. This was love, baby. Real love.

A quotation from the often cited 1961 immortal film masterpiece `The Hustler' is relevant. The protagonist, Fast Eddie Felson--a straight pool player--cavalierly enters a billiard room. Addressing the cashier behind the counter he says "No bar?" Sternly, in a reprimanding tone, the cashier replies "No bar, no pinball machines, no bowling alley, just pool...nothing else. This is Ames, Mister." The observant viewer gleans an epiphany from these lines. No other games of value exist. Nothing else matters. Phil Capelle intimately understands those lines and with his labor of love "Play Your Best Straight Pool" he has given pool a lasting contribution by dissecting the greatest of games.

This book is the finest in its genre and one can only hope
Capelle will bless us with a sequel