The Illustrated Principles of Pool and Billiards

Master one of the world’s most popular games with the help of a mechanical engineering professor who has a passion for pool. More than 80 principles of the game, presented with 250-plus precisely scaled illustrations and photographs, offer players of all levels a thorough overview of the fundamentals of 8-ball and 9-ball, including grip and stance, basic shots, position play and strategy, bank and kick shots, and advanced techniques such as carom and jump shots. Organized for quick study, this must-have guide features extensive cross-references and is supplemented with video clips, interesting mathematical formulas, and other resources also available at www.engr.colostate.edu/pool.

If you think the best pool players are leather-jacketed badasses who quit school at 12 to shark sailors out of their paychecks, think again. Pool involves complex physical principles that aren't taught until long after the delinquents have departed the academy. "Dr. Dave," both a professor of mechanical engineering and a Billiards Digest columnist, has written a textbook-style how-to that focuses on the game's fundamental principles. It's loaded with excellent color diagrams, decent photographs, and useful sidebars. He's a Web geek, too--there are dozens of cross-references to his site, where free videos demonstrate the lessons on the page. (The site even offers technical proofs!) There's so much information packed in here that learners who prefer a prosy approach may be put off. It's written clearly, though, and for the nuts-and-bolts crowd--make that the graphing-calculator and circuit-board set--it's hard to imagine a better primer. Reminiscent of Jack Koehler's excellent The Science of Pocket Billiards (1989). Pool is for nerds--and that's cool. Keir Graff
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