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Chapter 7. LOSING HAZARDS

In this chapter I am taking you back on the broad path of billiard progress.

Those all-round cannons and screw cannons, which I have dealt with in various other chapters of this book, are invariably extremely useful when you want them, and a working knowledge of the "drop cannon", which I went to some trouble to describe in the previous chapter, is something more than useful. But losing hazards are the acknowledged mainstay of English billiards. Every time you go in-off a ball you are allowed to place your ball where you please in the baulk half-circle. Melbourne Inman and Willie Smith made this the most potent factor in their play when winning the Championship in turn. That is how great the advantage is every time you make a well-played losing hazard, and the two wonderful cue-men I have named show what this advantage means when it is exploited to the utmost by a master.

Red Loser from Hand

Figure 19, therefore, bids you return to the prosaic, but most lucrative, red loser from hand. It is not so very different from an earlier example. You place the red ball carefully in the centre of the table and 21 1/4 inches from the baulk line, and put the cue-ball on the baulk-line 26 1/4 inches from the side cushion. This is another recurring position, offering you a plain loser into either middle pocket, according to which side of the "D" you place your ball. Once again you play to send the red straight up the table and back again. Strike your ball in the middle, cue smoothly, and hit the red a little thicker than half-ball. You will find this a trifle more difficult than the other one was which you played off the extreme spots of the "D", because I have placed your ball where you must keep the red in fairly good line or you will be very liable to miss the pocket.

Baulk Line Play

Very possibly, when you are practicing this shot, you will bring the red back too far, leaving it quite close to the baulk line, as shown in Fig. 20. Here the best shot is the fine loser played with sufficient strength to cut the red into position over the opposite middle pocket, as shown by the continuous line in my diagram.

Strike your ball clean, avoid putting on any side at all costs, and do not be afraid to play a free and confident stroke which has enough movement in it to steer the red where you want it. If the red is even more close to the baulk line than is indicated in my diagram, play the same shot, but bring your ball far enough back into baulk to leave at least six inches between your ball and the red.

Should the red stop so close to the baulk line that you have to look at it twice to make sure that it is out of baulk, then you should play for one of the baulk pockets.

Your exact shot will depend on the precise position of the red. By taking advantage of the fact that you can play in baulk to strike any portion of a ball which lies out of baulk, it is often possible to place your ball very carefully on the baulk line and play a plain half-ball loser into a baulk pocket when the object-ball is barely out of baulk. When this cannot be done, bring your ball close to the object-ball and play a thinnish sharp shot into a baulk pocket.

In each case you should play at the right strength to leave the object-ball in position for a middle pocket loser, which is not an easy thing to do when you have to play a fine shot for the baulk pocket. Of course, in advising these strokes I am assuming that the object-ball lies far enough towards the centre of the table to make them playable. If the object-ball stops too near the side cushion for these strokes, screw or side, perhaps both, will have to be called into requisition, and the stroke enters into an entirely different category.

How to Practice

I mention these leaves because any of them may crop up when you are practising, as in Fig. 19. Usually you will disregard them, spot the red afresh in its original position, and continue your practice with the idea of bringing the red back correctly.

Occasionally, however, it is as well to have a shot at the leave which is the result of your mishandling.

This will teach you what to do if the same thing happens when you are playing against an opponent, who might object if you picked the red up and spotted it in ideal position! It will make you more resourceful, and I advise you to do it in moderation. But it will do you much more harm than good if it induces you to "knock the balls about" instead of persevering in the endeavour to attain a correct leave. What I mean is that if you are making this hazard fairly well at practice, keeping the red nicely in line as a rule, and usually leaving a middle pocket hazard, then you will do well to play the variations which may be left owing to a bad positional stroke. This can be accepted as a general rule whenever you are practising a set-stroke.

Suppose, for example, when playing the hazard shown in Fig. 20, you made the loser and left the red too close to the side cushion for another loser to continue the break with.

Figure 21 shows what I mean, and if you get a leave of this sort, the correct stroke is to pocket the red in the middle pocket and take the cue-ball through into position for a half-ball loser off the spotted red. This loser is one of the best practice shots you can play, and you can set it up at any time by placing the red on the spot and the cue-ball in line with the shoulder of the middle pocket nearest to the top cushion. But I think you will learn more if you pot the red and gain the position as shown in Fig. 21. You will have to play this red winner to gain position for the cross loser when you are engaged in a serious contest of any kind, so you had better practice it carefully when you have only yourself to beat.

Making the Best of Bad Leaves

When playing the stroke shown in Fig. 21, you must not play too straight at the red, or you may pot it and send your own ball into the pocket as well, a bad shot. The best stroke follows through to leave your ball nicely clear of the cushion (as in Fig. 21) and in correct line for the half-ball loser, as shown in Fig. 22. But when you are trying to do this, you are very likely to leave your ball in one of the three positions shown in Fig. 22. Of these, No. 1 is the worst, and you always want to guard against it when playing the red winner shown in Fig. 21.

You want strong right-hand side on your ball to make the loser into the top pocket from No. 1 position, and the ball-to-ball contact should be finer than half-ball, how much finer depends on the exact position of the cue-ball; as very little variation in angle makes a great difference when your ball has gone up the table near the side cushion and out of correct line for the loser off the spotted red. It is much better to err in the other direction, thus leaving No. 2, which offers a slightly "wider" shot than the true half-ball into the top pocket. You rectify this by playing plain-ball at free strength. No. 3 is a forcer; you play a clean half-ball hard enough to bring the red in and out of baulk, striking your ball high and taking care not to use any side. All the strokes should be handled to keep the red in the centre of the table so that a hazard is offered for the next stroke. A middle pocket in-off is the best leave, but if you have a simple half-ball into a top pocket to play at, you will have no cause for any complaint.

Cushion Rail as Auxiliary Bridge

When playing the losers now under discussion, do not be afraid of sliding your cue over the cushion rail when your ball is either touching the cushion, or so nearly so that you cannot make your usual bridge on the bed of the table. Whenever your ball is left in this way, you should rest your cue as flat as you can on the cushion rail, and arrange your bridge-hand to steady the cue rather than support it. As an experiment, it is not at all a bad idea to try a shot or two with one hand, merely to acquire the knack of relying on the cushion rail when your ball is near it. This will show you how little help the cue really requires from your bridge-hand under the circumstances. The fingers and thumb of your bridge-hand merely provide a groove through which your cue moves while the cushion rail supports it. You cannot go wrong if you remember to keep your cue as flat on the cushion rail as you can, and adjust your bridge hand to prevent your cue from swaying.

The foregoing hints will be most useful when you tackle the shot shown in Fig. 23. This is a half-ball losing hazard played off the spotted red. As shown in the diagram, the cue-ball is placed against the top cushion just clear of the pocket jaw. By manipulating your cue in the manner dealt with in my preceding paragraph, and by playing a plain half-ball on the red, you will make the loser into the facing top pocket. The stroke is one you ought never to miss, you must not miss it if you mean to become anything of a player.

Furthermore, you ought always to get the correct leave, which is the middle pocket loser indicated by the continuous line in my diagram. This profitable stroke and the cross losers shown in Fig. 22 are of great break-building utility. Each of these strokes is always playable when the cue-ball is anywhere on a line between that ball and the object-ball, as shown in Figs. 22 and 23. By leaving the cue-ball anywhere on these lines, provided it is not too close to the red, you gain the most profitable leave in the game for almost any cue-man. Spot-end position is doubtless better for a few top-of-the-table specialists, but if you leave me command of the half-ball losers off the spotted reds as shown in Figs. 22 and 23, that will do very nicely for me to begin a break with. Bear this in mind whenever you pot the red, try your level best to leave your ball on the lines shown fully in Fig. 24, as often as you have a reasonable chance of doing so, and your billiard progress will take a marked step forward.

Sundry Variations

The possibilities of the game of billiards are so infinite that to deal with them at all exhaustively is more than I could achieve if you came to me for lessons every day of your life. The most I can do is to show you certain shots and leave you to use your own judgment when others of a similar kind, but not exactly the same, occur during actual play. Figure 25 illustrates this teaching method.

It shows the red on the spot with the cue-ball tight against the top cushion and so far from the pocket opening that the half-ball loser into the facing top pocket is nowhere near playable. To make this loser you must raise the butt of your cue, hit your ball high and with as much right-hand side as you can put on it. Aim to strike the red "full in the face", when your ball will swerve in the manner shown in my diagram, hit the red half-ball, and enter the pocket accordingly.

By playing in this manner you can score the pocket at such well-judged strength that the red is left in good position near the middle pocket. This is a very useful stroke, and most instructive apart from its immediate purpose.

How to Impart "Swerve"

It shows what happens when you raise the butt of your cue and impart side. You can actually see the cue-ball curl as it travels towards the red, and I want you to understand that this sort of thing happens to a varying extent whenever you lift the butt of your cue and strike your ball away from its centre. That is why, in all ordinary strokes, I keep telling you to hold your cue as level as you can. It is clever and effective to make your ball swerve on purpose, as you do when playing as in Fig. 25, but accidental effects of this kind, caused through purposeless lifting of your cue-butt, will ruin your billiards utterly and completely.

The Use of Side

You will see, when playing as in Fig. 25, that you have only to move your ball a very little to place it on the correct line for the half-ball shot as shown in Fig. 23. But between this line and the cushion there is a space where the swerve stroke "does too much" and the plain-ball shot is no use. Then you must use right-hand side, but be chary of doing this unless you are sure that your ball is between the cushion and the correct half-ball line. You will see the utility of this side if you move your ball a little closer to the red. In the other direction, when your ball gets further from the top cushion than the half-ball line, then you need left-hand side to correct the course of your ball and take it into the pocket.

Fine Ball-to-Ball Contacts

In each case, I want you to note, I am advocating the use of side in conjunction with a half-ball contact. When your ball gets too far from the cushion for you to make a pocket in this way, I think you had better abandon the use of side, strike your ball high and clean, and depend on dividing the object-ball. Obviously, the further you take your ball from the cushion, the finer you must strike the red to score the facing top pocket, and if you move your ball in this manner by minute degrees until it is better to try to pot the red than to attempt a loser off it, then you will learn a most valuable lesson as regards the effect of plain ball-to-ball contacts finer than half-ball. In every case you should play at the right strength to leave the red somewhere near the middle pocket, and when playing some of the fine strokes, you must not be surprised if you make a six shot. You do not play for this, but it is always likely to happen when trying these fine losers off the spotted red.

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