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Chapter 5. MORE BALL-TO-BALL CONTACTS

The Natural Angle

Figure 8 shows the most important ball-to-ball contact in the game of billiards. It is the half-ball stroke, and is made by aiming through the centre of your ball to the extreme edge of the object-ball. If you do this and strike your ball truly in its centre, the angle your ball will take after contact with the object-ball is known as the natural angle. It never varies unless you use side, screw, or forcing strength, and is in such constant request that I suppose I must score more than half my points in match play by the half-ball stroke, or very slight departures from it. Apart from its scoring value, however, the half-ball stroke serves as a standard of comparison for countless other shots. We speak of a shot being "wider" than a half-ball, or "narrower" than a half-ball, and although it is correct to say that the angle of departure after contact is more obtuse or more acute than the true half-ball, yet I prefer the "wider" and "narrower" familiar to generations of cue-men.

"Narrower" and "Wider" Angles

To make this quite clear, look at Fig. 12. The line from the red to the pocket shows the natural angle produced by a true half-ball contact between the cue-ball and the red. The line to point "A" shows what we call a "narrower" angle than the half-ball will give. The line to point "B" shows a "wider" angle. These lines can be multiplied indefinitely, they can be held to apply to the angle of any stroke which differs from the natural angle. But they do not apply beyond a right-angle screw, which may be accepted as the limit when you speak of a "wide" angle. Beyond this, you get more or less of a distinct screw-back effect.

Value of Half-Ball Play

Another material point connected with the half-ball stroke is that the part of the object-ball you wish to hit is always clearly denned. It is a curious fact that there are only two strokes in the whole of the game of billiards where you cannot make a mistake as regards the part of the object-ball you ought to hit.

One of these is the "full-ball", where you have the unmistakable centre of the object-ball to aim at. The other is the half-ball, where you have the edge of the object-ball standing out clear and sharp as your invariable target. In every other case, you have to estimate your target, to judge for yourself what part of the object-ball must be struck to produce a desired effect. As the "full-ball" shot is rather infrequently met with, you may say that the half-ball stroke is the only one in constant request which automatically offers its own target on the object-ball. This is a very great advantage, and explains why you can never learn too much about the scope of the half-ball shot. There is so much in this that if you show me a man who seldom misses a half-ball stroke, I will show you an uncommonly good player. On the other hand, those who know little or nothing of half-ball play, will always consider a twenty break something of a performance for them, and this will be true if they play billiards for a lifetime.

Other Ball-to-Ball Contacts

When you depart from the half-ball stroke, the most usual ball-to-ball contacts are those illustrated in Figs. 9-11, which are known as "three-quarter ball", "quarter ball", and "fine ball" contacts respectively. You will notice these variations as they occur, and as my book now takes a definite turn in quite a new direction, I want you to help me by carefully taking stock of how we stand at the moment.

The Value of Practice

I have taught you how to stand at the table, how to hold and swing your cue, how to strike your ball truly, how to impart top, screw, and side, and have given you an insight into ball-to-ball contacts. All this should be considered as general knowledge to be applied to particular strokes, and the more thoroughly you study and practice the general principles of the game the better you will play it. One of my greatest troubles with pupils is that they want to know how to make certain "strokes" long before they have mastered the elements of cue-man ship. They want to know something about the masse stroke or nursery cannon play before they can make three consecutive half-ball losers. Do be careful not to fall into this very common error, if you will only take plenty of pains with what I have told you up to the present, you can almost leave your stroke play to take care of itself.

Half-Ball Losers

I now come to the transition from general principles to strokes played with a definite break-building purpose, and the strokes I am about to demonstrate are those I always set to pupils who come to me for lessons. Fig. 13 is a simple little shot which teaches a great deal. Place the red ball 151/2 inches below the middle spot, and, to begin with, place the cue-ball on the extreme left-hand spot of the baulk line. Play a plain half-ball stroke into the right-hand middle pocket, take care not to impart the least side to your ball, and play to direct the red straight up and down the table as shown by the continuous line in the diagram. An ideal stroke will return the red to its original position, but only George Gray at his best could do this with commendable consistency.

You should try your hardest to leave the ball well placed for a similar stroke to follow, but the great thing is to keep the red nicely in the centre of the table. By placing your ball on the right-hand spot of the baulk line, and spotting the red as before, you play the same stroke into the other middle pocket. Make a point of doing this, as it is bad for your billiards to develop a liking for playing shots in one direction only-most beginners are much too fond of right-hand pockets. To save needless repetition, please note that I want you to do this all the time, and from now will take it for granted that you will play to the right or left whenever you can do so by simply reversing the position.

Importance of After-position

To resume with the stroke shown in Fig. 13. I want to show you why you should strive to keep the red in the centre of the table at all costs. Suppose you play with such bad strength that the red stops on the pyramid spot. In this event, Fig. 14 shows you how to cope with the situation. Place your ball a full inch and a half inside the right-hand spot of the baulk line, play a free and true half-ball loser into the left top pocket, and bring the red round into good position over the middle pocket as shown in my diagram. In the much more likely event of the red stopping on the centre-spot, place your ball seven and a half inches to the right of the centre spot of the baulk line, play a long half-ball loser into the right-top pocket, and bring the red into position off three cushions, as shown by the artist in Fig. 15. And allow me to inform you that you will be an artist with a cue if you can make the strokes shown in Figs. 14 and 15 with consistent accuracy both as regards the actual score and the correct after-position of the red ball.

My immediate object is to prove that you have the chance of leaving these strokes, or others of a similar nature, if you keep the red ball well towards the centre of the table. But if you manage to scramble in-off the red somehow into a middle pocket, and leave the red too close to a side cushion for a half-ball loser to be playable from hand, you are in trouble. Remember, then, when practicing as in Fig. 13, that while strength of stroke is most desirable, as you cannot do better than leave the red in its original position, yet correct direction is absolutely indispensable, as it gives you an opportunity to retrieve your break when your strength is at fault, as it is sure to be sooner or later.

Angle and Cue Delivery

I cannot dismiss Figs. 14 and 15 quite so casually as this. The loser from hand off the pyramid spot is far from easy to control in a positional sense. It is possible to score the pocket by a stroke distinctly more full on the red than a true half-ball should be, when the red is almost sure to run into bad position near the side cushion. The true half-ball, which brings the red off the side cushion and over the middle pocket, demands very free and accurate cueing. You should persevere with this, it will be most useful to you as your game improves; for the loser off the pyramid spot, or somewhere near it, is often played badly by amateurs who make their forty and fifty breaks at times. They will play more thickly on the red than they should, and thus fail to bring that ball off the two cushions at the correct angle to produce a satisfactory leave.

As regards Fig. 15, this has been justly called the key-stroke of billiards. It is a great test of smooth and true cueing to make this long loser and bring the red into position off three cushions. Getting the red off the third cushion is the problem, and nothing but free cueing will solve it. As I have stated, you can make this stroke by placing your ball 7 1/2 inches from the centre spot of the baulk line in the direction of the pocket you are playing for. The stroke then becomes a plain half-ball, and can be made to perfection by striking your ball truly in its centre. Tom Newman plays the stroke in this way, but I fancy that Willie Smith spots his ball a shade nearer the centre of the baulk-line, and strikes it rather above its centre. My way of playing the stroke is by placing my ball as far back in baulk as I can, which enables me to gauge the angle better and gives a longer flight to the cue-ball before the red is hit. I place my ball 22 inches from the baulk cushion and 26 inches from the side cushion, thus bringing it to the spot marked by a cross in Fig. 15.

I strike my ball high, but am very careful not to put on any side, and let my cue go through the ball so freely that my body rises with it as the stroke is finished. Of course, I do not move my body until my cue strikes home-it would be fatal to do that-my action merely allows the momentum of my stroke to exhaust itself in the most natural way. I find this forward move of the body helpful in many strokes played freely, and commend it, provided there is no movement until after the cue strikes the ball.

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