Dear folks, there's just not two ways about it. Bar none, if you're going to play pool rather than practice pool or perform pool drills, Straight Pool is the game you want to play to improve your skills for all other pool games. Why? Because unless you hit superior break shots for each and every rack, you're constantly looking at carom shots, combination shots, subtle movements for the cue ball and occasional multi-rail, wild cue ball positions, backwards cut angles and more.
You'll also have the chance to assess your skills and achieve a goal you can never, ever achieve with 8-Ball or 9-Ball, the chance to run ten balls or more in a single rack of pool.
I'd like to see Straight Pool on sports television, but the commentators lack certain skills of exposition, the viewing audience is considered too stupid and with too short an attention span to enjoy viewing the game, and the game is considered too "slow" (read = it might take more than 30 seconds to run the whole rack of balls). Sigh.
