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Chapter 8. WINNING HAZARDS

In the last chapter I was dealing with losing hazards and a series of fine ball-to-ball contacts with the spotted red. If, however, you gradually move your cue-ball away from the top cushion, sooner or later you will bring it to a point from which you had better try to pocket the red instead of attempting to go in-off it. A little further, and you have the spot-stroke position from which my father scored so many thousands of points. This is shown in Fig. 26, and although the spot-stroke has lost much of its potency as a scoring force, yet it is such good potting practice that I advise you to take it up to a limited extent. When playing as in Fig. 26, you should strike your ball centrally, and drop the red in the pocket at just the right strength to allow your ball to run through into similar position on the other side of the spot. Then you pot the red again, and, if your execution is good enough, you can make several of these hazards before loss of position compels you to try something else. As the spot-stroke is barred, I do not wish you to practice it with the idea of retaining position at all costs. My desire is to use it to teach you how to pot a ball, and I know of no better shot for this purpose.

How to Pot a Ball

As regards potting a ball, never forget that, taken as a class, winning hazards are the most exacting shots in billiards. When you play a half-ball loser, you may strike the object-ball rather thicker than a true half-ball and score just the same. When you play for a cannon, you have the width of three balls for a target, and may score by a wide variety of contacts between the cue-ball and the first object-ball. But there is no such margin of choice when you play to pot a ball. Then you must hit the object-ball in exactly the right place or your hazard will certainly be missed. What is the right spot to aim to hit when potting a ball? That is the question you want answered at this stage. Hundreds of pupils have asked me this question, and I will explain how I answer it. If you place the red on the pyramid spot, with the white ball touching it and dead in line with the top pocket, as shown in Fig. 27, you have only to place your ball on the right-hand spot of the "D" to be ready for your aiming lesson.

Now I am about to ask you to do a rather strange thing. I want you to take careful aim to hit the white ball dead full. Having done this, pick up the white ball and take it away, and play to send your ball to the point you have aimed at, where the centre of the white was before you moved that ball. If you do this correctly, you will pot the red for a certainty. The same rule holds good no matter where an object-ball may lie.

You have only to imagine another ball touching it and dead in line with the pocket, and play to hit the imaginary ball absolutely full, when the winning hazard becomes automatic. The above, I find, is a most helpful guide to potting with the great majority of my pupils, but there are some who never seem to benefit by it. If this happens to be your predicament, try making a line through the centre of the object-ball to the centre of the pocket, and endeavour to knock the object-ball along this imaginary line. Do not experiment with this at anything like long range-try it with the red ball about eighteen inches from the cue-ball to begin with. If this does not help you, imagine a line taken from the centre of the pocket through the object-ball and extending for half the width of that ball away clear and straight over the table. If you make the centre of your ball hit the end of that imaginary line, you have another automatic aid to potting which cannot fail if you use it correctly.

A Scientific "Potting Guide"

For sheer scientific accuracy, however, Fig. 28 shows the best "potting guide" I know. The size of the balls is greatly exaggerated to make the idea clear. You begin by making a line through the object-ball to the centre of the pocket you are playing for. Then you draw another line parallel to the first and carry it through the cue-ball. This will give you "Point (1)" on the cue-ball and "Point (2)" on the object-ball, these points being exactly where the parallel lines fall on the two balls as shown in my diagram. If you make "Point (1)" strike "Point (2)" any winning hazard on the table must be made. These two points give you the correct line for ball-to-ball contact, but your line of aim and the line of your cue will be through the centre of your ball, as shown by the dotted line in my diagram.

Potting a ball comes natural to a few lucky ones. The others have to make the best possible use of one of the guides I have described. I cannot foretell which of these guides will be best for you, as individual peculiarities count for so much in this respect.

In a billiard sense, it is a case of "One man's meat is another man's poison", or the next thing to it, and I can only advise you to experiment until you discover which guide is most helpful to you and to rely upon it accordingly. But the sooner you can do without any such assistance the better it will be for your billiards. These guides to potting are only intended to carry the novice through his preliminary difficulties, or to help the more practiced exponent whose potting is very weak.

Ordinary Chalk is often Injurious to the Cloth

Once the right idea has been grasped and you begin to pot a ball with confidence and accuracy, then the working of the "guide" must become a sub-conscious process; you cannot stop to make imaginary lines on the table and work out problems connected with them while you are playing a serious game.

Incidentally, if you have a table of your own, you may be tempted to make these imaginary lines real ones to help you with your potting.

If you decide to do this, be careful to use tailor's pipeclay or a white crayon pencil when marking your lines. Ordinary white chalk is apt to leave a permanent trace and should not be used. The same is true to a lesser extent as regards marking spots on the table to register the position of a ball. It is better to make a light cross with a crayon pencil and to spot your ball on the centre of this than to make a dot with ordinary white chalk.

Never Hurry, but Don't Waste Time

When working out the theory and practice of potting a ball you will find it rather slow work, especially at first. Never mind, you can quicken up as you gain proficiency, which you will never do if you are in a hurry. This is true of all billiards playing. It is both clever and effective to play in quick first-sight style if you are built that way. But do not allow this to hasten you out of your natural pace.

Always take as much time as you feel you really need to do yourself justice when playing any stroke, but never hesitate and waste time. This is asking to "be caught in two minds", which is as bad in billiards as it is in anything else. The golden rule is that, provided you are never in even the semblance of a hurry, the quicker you play the better your game.

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