Playing Pool – The Missing Manual
20 things that every pool player should know
That’s the title of the new pool book by Patrick Baumann. „Another book about pool – come on…“ That’s what some of you might think 🙂 But this book is different, just for the entertaining writing style alone. It’s a pleasure to see with how much joy this author explains pool. It’s a strong recommendation for beginners and advanced players. For beginners it’s a great and easy to understand introduction into pool – for the advanced player it’s an entertaining overview of important pool skills. Congratulations to Patrick Baumann for this book… Give it a go!
You’ll find a sample chapter below with the beautiful title „Easy does it, dude“ 🙂 Furthermore, you find some additional information at the bottom of this page about the author, another free sample and links to the website accompanying the book.
About the book
The book gives you the most important rules in 20 chapters to play better pool. You get the ebook for Amazon Kindle, Smartphones, Tablets and ePub-compatible reading devices.
The 20 rules are dealing with issues even advanced players have – and beginners of course. Every chapter starts with an easy to remember rule which helps you to recall the content of the chapter and put it into action.
You can get the book at Amazon; more purchase options at www.playing-pool.com/book.
Learn how to:
– take the right stance and how it will help you with aiming
– find the right contact point on the object ball every time
– control the cue ball
– keep your nerves together
– break the balls the right way
– and 15 more things to play better pool.
Not only does this book is packed with important advice, it’s also written in an easy to understand and entertaining way. The concepts of the book are illustrated with lots of pictures and illustrations.
You can get the book as an ebook for ebook readers like the Amazon Kindle or other reading devices. For Kindle devices, tablets and smartphones like the iPad or the iPhone you’ll get the book at Amazon. In the online store www.billardpro.de you get a bundled version with different formats for Kindle, other ebook readers (ePub) and a pdf file for printing.
See all details and how to get the book at www.playing-pool.com/book.
Sample chapter (Chapter 7):
7. Easy Does It, Dude
Note: Your wrist on the back hand is passive and does nothing. Only two fingers hold the cue. Your back swing is slow and easy.
It sure is a funny thing: We actually want such control while playing pool, I mean, the game is one of the most demanding “precision” sports around. And still, I want to tell you that we have to keep nice and relaxed during the game. OK, we should stay in control, but relaxed at the same time? Yeah, sure. But that is exactly what I mean. Just like the movement of a pendulum, we should move between the two sides of “relaxed” and „controlled”. How’s it go in meditation:
„Not too tight, not too loose.“
In this chapter, I will deal in particular with keeping loose the back hand, the back arm and wrist of the back hand. Tension here is counterproductive. Let’s look at the different elements of this part of the body each in turn:
The Wrist
The wrist is one of the greatest sources of mistakes. Mostly because players want to do something actively with their wrist, like control something, or even make the shot with it. Its a pity that with so many joints in our bodies this gives us too many opportunities to mess everything up. The wrist is one of those joints. There is only one position for the wrist: It dangles down in a relaxed manner and does nothing.
Two fingers hold on to the cue; the thumb and the index finger. They grip the cue snugly but not too tightly. There should be nothing between them but they also should not be cramped. The other fingers just lightly touch the cue. Now the wrist: As mentioned, it dangles down, nice and relaxed. Even when making the shot there is nothing that the wrist should do. Of course, the wrist will move along with the action but it should not be active itself. It just goes along with the swing. Once you get that, then you’re on the way to a good technique.
The Arm
The cue hand arm swings back completely and then swings fully forward with the stroke. This is achieved by keeping the upper arm still and bending the lower arm through at the elbow joint. What’s the best way to do this? Relaxed, of course! You don’t hesitate with the forward stroke and you don’t shove the arm violently forward during the stroke, even when we need a bit more momentum. We’re dealing with acceleration here, and that is not achieved with maximum power at the start, but rather with the increasing speed of the cue until the end of the stroke.
Try less to stroke the cue and the cue ball forward, rather, imagine that you wanted to pull a heavy weight forward with the cue stick. Think about throwing something, like a ball or a Frisbee: You dont throw this with a jerky motion but smoothly, starting relatively slowly and with full speed at the end of the throw when you let go. This release is the spot where the cue can go no further because the arm has fully swung through, that is, when the cue ball is already long gone.
Slow down your backswing
According to a popular legend, one of the most important coaches in the USA, Jerry Briesath, has a fifteen foot banner hanging in his pool school which says “Slow down your backswing!” He means by that, that we should swing back slowly so that we can accelerate nicely forward. Nobody needs to accelerate pulling back. We of course want the stroke to go forward. Most strokes go amiss because the backswing was jerky, not because something was wrong going forward (or, the forward stroke was messed up because of the backswing).
About the author
Patrick Baumann, born 1977, plays pool since he was 14. Since 2007 he’s a certified pool instructor, sanctioned by the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) Patrick helped several league and casual players to play better pool. He’s blogging about pool at www.playing-pool.com, runs his own online store at www.billardpro.de and owns a beautiful pool hall in Berlin, the Bata Bar & Billiards (www.batabar.com).
Download a free sample now, Free download: 10 rules to play better pool
All Important Links
Website by Patrick Baumann, Directly to the book about Patrick’s Website, Billardpro.de
