Powerful Pool

A new set of DVDs arrived on my front porch last week - Max Eberle's Powerful Pool (also available through Amazon). As you may recall I dove into Dr. Dave's VEPS a month or so ago, so I guess I've been in the mood for DVDs lately.

I like Powerful Pool a lot, and plan to watch it over and over again for awhile... and probably circle back to it from time to time as a refresher after that. In this set of three DVDs, the accomplished Eberle works his way through the most important fundamentals of pool such as stance, bridge, stroke, and aim. His casual and easy-going style makes this a very approachable and watchable set of DVDs for pretty much anyone interested in improving upon their pool fundamentals. Max takes things a bit beyond the pool table, even making a field trip out to his backyard to draw a few very interesting and appropriate parallels between pool and other sports.

I believe Powerful Pool is well suited for beginner and intermediate players, as well as probably more advanced players than they are willing to admit. While observing a local APA league player who happens to be a skill level 6 in 8-ball, my girlfriend leaned over to me and commented "this guy does just about everything Max said not to do in his DVDs." Of course, having just watched Powerful Pool with her the day before, I was thinking the exact same thing! While the player in question survives fairly well at SL 6, he tends to be very inconsistent in his play and has probably peaked some time ago. He and I have traded matches during unhandicapped APA Master's play, so even though he's currently a higher SL than I am, I've beaten him and quite soundly at that.

It's tough to compare Powerful Pool to VEPS. I don't really feel they compete with each other at all. They are completely different animals. As I mentioned earlier, Powerful Pool focuses primarily on body-centric mechanics that apply to just about every shot in pool in an easy-to-watch format whereas VEPS concentrates more on specific shots and related physics in a format intended to be digested little by little (with liberal use of the pause and rewind buttons on your remote). In my opinion, the two DVD sets complement each other well, and both belong in any serious pool player's library.