Phil Capelle's "Play Your Best Nine Ball." Who's read and what do you thiink?

9BallPaul

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Phil Capelle's "Play Your Best Nine Ball." Who's read and what do you thiink?

Picked up a copy the other day and intend to embark on my first formal study of 9-Ball. What should I expect?
 
Highly recommended. You'll get a lot out of this well-written and well-organized book.
 
To the best of my knowledge, Phil Capelle's "Play your best" series are the most comprehensive how to books regarding pool on the market.
 
Ive probably got the minority opinion on this one. For the most part it is a fantastic book, filled with a ton of good information. When the book talks about position routes however, I have some issues with it.
He breaks everything down into what he deems as C player, B player and A player levels of play. Some of the position routes he lists in the A player section are not reasonable high percentage shots for anybody but a select few players in this world. He takes examples from the pros in tournament competition settings and uses what they did as to get out of very tough spots as routes that you should know. IMO there are multiple cue ball routes in there that are far more complicated than the safes that should be shot in their place.
Chuck
 
if you read the book and you become 1% better is it worth reading. There is your answer. If it were that easy id read 100 books. Depending on how good you already are it cant do anything but help. why not read it. I have it
 
I recommend the book, It helped me a lot when I was starting out to play 9 ball. I like his principles of position play.
 
blueridge said:
I have several of Phil Capelle's books, and I would highly recommend every one of them.
I am in the same boat as blueridge on this one. I have improved my game after each one of his books I have read. I also like the little quotes he puts in the books in different places. See my sig line.
I would also suggest that you read "The Pleasure of Small Motions" when you are done with the one you have now.
 
Play your best nine ball is a great book. The diagrams are great, especially when he diagrams pro's runouts. It's massive too, its encyclopedic.

Justin.
 
All of his books are great. The problem is having the time, discipline and ability to remember or do everything.
 
Highly recommended... as is his Play Your Best Pool book.

When you sit down to read it, grab your hi-liter and your pencil... and when you find a statement that piques your interest, hi-lite it... and also take notes in the margins.

It will help you to remember the important stuff. :thumbup2:
 
I concur with the majority opinion here. All of the books in the Play Your Best series are excellent, with his PYB 9 Ball being no exception. I found all of his books to be riddled with typographical/editing errors that shouldn't have made the final print version, but I kept buying/reading them because the content quality was so high and there was so much of it. His diagrams are the best out there and he treats most subject areas with a comprehensiveness that other books lack.

Highly recommended.
 
i really enjoyed this book. it didn't turn my game around or anything but there was some useful information in it.

it was actually pretty fun to read too
 
Terrific book. I've loaned out a couple of copies and haven't gotten them back! But when I did have a copy handy, I would go back to it every few weeks.
 
I liked it alot as with most of his books. After you look at the diagram close your eyes and envision where you have to hit the cue ball and at what speed to pull the shot off.
 
I'm reading it now, and am enjoying it. I'm a relative newbie to serious pool, though.

I also have his PYB Pool, PYB Straight Pool and PYB 8 ball.

All of them are worth reading, in my humble opinion.
 
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