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Chapter 6. SOMETHING ABOUT CANNONS

I have discovered that a change is useful when training my pupils. There is no denying the fact that the road to billiard proficiency is rather dull and wearisome until success draws near. Cue-swinging and the playing of plain-ball strokes are extremely apt to pall. A billiard hero would stick to them with Excelsior-like fortitude and reap his reward at the end, for they are the indispensable fundamentals of billiard playing.

But, flesh and blood being what it is, I find my pupils like a little variety, after which they return to their ordinary practice with fresh zest.

Multi-Cushion Cannons

Therefore, I am giving you one or two shots which will both amuse and instruct you. Do not spend too much time over them. If you use them to break the monotony of a spell of plain-ball stroke practice, they will serve their purpose. Thus in time you will learn a few good individual shots without interfering to any material extent with your progress at the "plain ones that matter". Fig. 16 illustrates one of these "change" shots, as I call them, and a very useful shot it is when you want it in actual play. It is a cannon played off three cushions in the manner shown in my diagram.

The cue-ball is in hand, and a screw cannon from red to white is distinctly playable, either direct or off the side cushion, the latter for preference.

This cannon is the easiest score the balls offer, as the chance of a "short jenny" into the middle pocket is not worth taking. But if you play the screw cannon, you will "split" the balls for a certainty, and if you can say where they are even likely to stop, you must be a better judge of positional probabilities than I am.

On the other hand, if you play the cannon as shown, you should bring the first object-ball across the table and back again, as indicated by the continuous line in my diagram, and leave the balls nicely together for break-making. Use right-hand side and strike your ball rather high, but do not play with all the force you can put into your cueing. If the cushions on your table are fit to play on, a smart swing of the cue, with plenty of side, will send your ball spinning round the table as prettily as you please.

Incidentally, if you make the cannon via the baulk cushion as well as the other three, you can call it a good shot-so you can if your ball also happens just to graze the side cushion before the cannon is completed.

Cannons of this type are often wanted, and are playable if you move the first object-ball until it is almost on the baulk line and nearly touching the side cushion.

They are the game when the "short jenny" is either impossible or too risky, and as the ball-to-ball contact varies as you move the first object-ball, I propose to let you work this out for yourself. It will be excellent training for you in the fine art of judging how to hit an object-ball to gain a desired series of angles off a number of cushions. Two or three experimental shots will give you the general idea, after which you can work away on your own account and learn much of real value if you play steadily and think of what you are doing.

Angle and Strength

There are two things I want you to watch when tackling the situation in Fig. 16 and its variations. The first is to guard against hitting the first object-ball too thickly. This makes the angle very difficult to get, and also takes a lot of pace out of your ball and transfers it to the object-ball, where it ruins your position. Speaking generally, this rule holds good with the vast majority of multi-cushion cannons. These strokes are missed over and over again by reason of the cue-ball "falling short", especially if the cushions are none too fast. The underlying cause of this trouble is striking the first object-ball too thickly, more thickly than there is any occasion for, particularly when you can place your ball anywhere you please in baulk. A contributory cause may be insufficient side. Be careful to avoid bad cueing-as it is simply hopeless to try to make cannons off several cushions in workmanlike style if your cueing lacks pliant freedom.

Control of After-Position

The other point I want you to notice in pig. 16 is that you endeavour to control, in a positional sense, only the first object-ball. You are content to bring that ball back across the table into usable position, and are satisfied if you can strike the second object-ball almost anywhere to make the cannon, considering yourself unlucky if you drop so full on that ball as to lose it in the baulk pocket.

Now, I am going to tell you that, for quite a long time, it will pay you to make this the guiding principle of all your cannon play.

If you can make your cannons and steer the first object-ball where you want it with reasonable exactitude, you will be decidedly useful behind a billiard cue. Then you can turn your attention on the most difficult thing in billiards, the positional control of all three balls when playing cannons. But if you attempt three ball control when your billiards is raw and unformed, you are setting yourself an impossible task.

You must reach this point of achievement by degrees, and your first step must be striving to control the first object-ball positionally as well as directing the cue-ball to make the cannon. By the time you can do this at all consistently, you will not need any telling about the difficulty of controlling the second object-ball in cannon play-you will know all about it. Of course, you must apply this principle with ordinary judgment. If you have a baby cannon left direct from white to red, and a mere tap will enable you to place the red over a pocket, you do it and leave the general principle to take care of itself for the time being.

But outside these exceptional instances, the safe rule is to concentrate on getting the first object-ball where you want it. Figure 17 gives another illustration of this. Here we have all three balls behind the baulk line, with a screw-back cannon from white to red the obvious shot to play. The cannon itself is quite easy if you apply screw in accordance with my instructions in Chapter Three. A little left side will help the stroke, but the main thing I want you to watch is the direction of the first object-ball. If you play this against the top cushion at the angle indicated by the continuous line in my diagram, it will return into good position near the other balls when the cannon is made. You should play a quick stroke with plenty of life in it, and if you shape at the shot with confidence, you will soon get the cannon and leave the balls together time after time. The ball-to-ball contact is almost full, so nearly so that if you aim to pot the red at the right place on the top cushion, the cannon is absolutely a dead certainty providing that you strike your ball correctly.

"Drop" Cannons

The foregoing cannons may be regarded as rather spectacular examples of ball control in cannon play. I have instanced them because they show very clearly how you can control the path of the first object-ball, and also because they provide a change in stroke play which makes your practice more agreeable. But for every cannon of the type shown in Figs. 16 and 17 you will have to play a dozen or more of the sort known as "drop" cannons.

Various definitions of this word are current among billiard players, but I want you to "drop" the first object-ball into position when playing ball-to-ball cannons, mostly from hand. The word is also commonly applied to cannons made off one cushion, usually the top cushion, and which "drop" the balls together nicely for a break. Strictly speaking, "drop" cannons should be played to direct the first object-ball correctly, and also to "drop" on the second object-ball with the best positional result. But this is so very difficult that the best professionals constantly fail at it. They make the cannon, steer the first object-ball where they want it, and sometimes complete the cannon on the second object-ball to their entire satisfaction. But in the event of the cue-ball "dropping" more or less awkwardly on the second object-ball, they have to play a rather different shot from the one they had in mind. As this is the case, I think it is merely annoying to ask a beginner to flog away at "drop" cannons with the idea of controlling all three balls-he will be lucky to do it when he can make useful breaks.

Strike the Object-Ball Thickly

Fig. 18 is most instructive in this respect. It is a typical "drop" cannon played from hand. It should be played rather thicker than half-ball to make sure of taking the first object-ball well up the table to the vicinity of the billiard spot. That is what I want you to concentrate on, for if you cannon with this command of the first object-ball, you must play at correct strength. If you complete your cannon to perfection, you will strike the red, the second object-ball, so that it leaves a red winner into the facing top pocket. Then you put the red down, leave position for a little cannon, and away you go on the top-of-the-table game. But you cannot rush along at this pace. Very likely you will cannon more or less imperfectly so far as "dropping" on the red is concerned. But if you have guided the white reasonably well, you will be unlucky if you do not get usable position of some kind, a cannon, more likely than not. The thing to be careful about in playing drop cannons is to strike the first object-ball thickly enough. Very often these shots are better played nearer three-quarter-ball than half-ball, as too thin a contact means leaving your ball between the other two with disastrous positional results. If you bear this in mind, and resolve to steer the one ball to the best of your ability, you will gradually reach some measure of certainty in cannoning on the second object-ball, but it is heart-breaking for a beginner to try to do this all at once.

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