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Chapter 10. BILLIARD KNOWLEDGE

To Do or Not to Do

The average amateur really wants to know two things about his billiards; first, what he can do; secondly, what he cannot do. Perhaps my meaning would be better expressed if I said that it will pay the average amateur if he knows what it will profit him to attempt, and what he had better leave alone. This does not apply exclusively, or even mainly, to individual strokes. As regards these, I think that a bold policy is the best. The man who lacks enterprise when the run of the balls is difficult, will lose much pleasure and many games. Scoring sequences are more the kind of thing I have in mind at the moment, and after my cautionary remarks concerning spot-end play in my last chapter, I think I may as well continue in a similar vein as regards close-cannons, by which I mean those runs of nursery cannons so often seen in conjunction with top-of-the-table billiards when a first-rate professional is at work.

Nursery Cannons

Figure 35 shows a lovely close-cannon position. Tom Newman, Claude Falkiner, Tom Reece, or Harry Stevenson could tap the balls along the top cushion until the warning voice of the marker told them that twenty consecutive ball-to-ball cannons had been played, and that a cushion must be utilized before twenty-five cannons are totalled. In fact, from the ideal position shown in my diagram, almost any professional could make a respectable run of close cannons, and there are a fair number of mateurs who could help themselves to several consecutive cannons before losing position. But I have never seen an amateur who can play to leave nursery cannon position with any approach to certainty. Newman and Falkiner are the greatest adepts at this now playing, with Tom Reece not so far behind them. Consequently, from your point of view, you cannot expect to get nursery cannon position unless the balls run luckily for you. And when they do favour you, if you want to "nurse them", you need exceptional touch, and a lot of time in which to practise close cannons only. Then you might acquire the knack of keeping the two object-balls always in front of your cue, working prettily along lines indicated by the dots in my diagram. But is it worth your while to trouble about this? I very much doubt it, the more so as the Championship has been won before now by a player who did not make a single run of nursery cannons while winning his title.

If you have a table of your own and are very keen on close cannon play, you might indulge your fancy without doing much harm, but even under these conditions it is long odds that you will make bigger breaks and more of them by sticking to the open game.

Recognize Your Limitations

The man I am particularly anxious to warn, however, is the amateur who makes occasional forty or fifty-breaks, and when he is fortunate enough to have the balls left for nursery cannons, thinks he will "try to make a few". He may make two or three, then he leaves the balls covered and safe, or so awkwardly placed that he has to play a nasty shot to get out of trouble. Perhaps the best thing that can happen to him is for the cue-ball to be left touching one of the others, in which case the balls are spotted and he can play open billiards. All this can be avoided if players will only recognize their limitations, and if they have enough billiard knowledge to say to themselves: "These close cannons are not my strong suit, I mean to open the game up without losing a stroke". Quite a good decision, and if it is made when the balls lie as shown in Fig. 35, it is the easiest thing in the world to cannon and leave the red "easy" over the facing top pocket, either for a winner or a loser, the latter for preference, as, after scoring it, you have the advantage of playing from hand.

Alternative Strokes

Just pause for a moment and dissect the alternatives outlined in my preceding paragraph. If you succumb to the temptation to try your unskilled best at the close cannons, you are sure to get into trouble before you have made enough cannons to carry your break any distance worth mentioning. But if you tap the red along nicely and leave an easy in-off, you should be able to make that to leave another of the same kind from hand, which you can make to leave another red loser, and so you continue your familiar open game, with the white always handy for a cannon when you want it. This is far better billiards than temporizing with nursery cannons when you know little or nothing about these delicate strokes, and by frankly realizing this you will keep out of a "trap" which has brought many a nice break to a premature end. I know an amateur, a very nice player, who could tap off ten or a dozen cannons from the position shown in Fig. 35. He also "collects a few" at the top-of-the-table in good style as far as he goes. Yet he is beaten twice out of three times by friends who make their forty and fifty breaks by steady hazard striking, and who never try to play close cannons or the spot-end game, because they know they cannot do so. He came to me for advice on the matter, and after watching his play, I told him, "You are always trying to do more than you can do in a positional sense. If you had to play billiards for a living, and put in some hours of steady practice every day for a year at least, you would be able to do what you now try to do."

His friends made no such mistake. They were content to make sound, open breaks, utilizing the red to the best of their ability, and, as often as not, leaving the balls pretty safe when they left off scoring. He, on the contrary, was always "sticking them up" when he just failed to score through trying to leave the balls as Newman or Falkiner might when operating at the spot-end. I advise you to avoid this sort of thing; know exactly what you cannot do, and open the game up accordingly instead of trying to play "tip-tap" billiards which is invariably quite beyond your skill of cue.

An Open Shot with a Good Sequence

Figure 36 shows you a useful open shot, a working knowledge of which will be worth more to you than anything you are likely to do when all three balls can be covered by a dinner plate. The red is on the billiard spot, the white is 10 3/4 inches from the top cushion and 8 inches from the side cushion. The cue-ball is in hand, and ordinary amateurs invariably play for a cannon off the wrong ball and in the wrong way.

They may make the cannon off the red by placing their ball on the left-hand spot of the "D", and using screw and side to get the cannon off the top and side cushions, a difficult shot which leaves nothing. Alternatively, they may play from somewhere near the centre spot of the "D" to cannon from red to white off the top cushion. This may be reckoned a fairly certain method of making the cannon, but a good leave comes "more by luck than by judgment". The correct shot is made by placing your ball 4 inches from the left spot on the baulk-line, and by playing a plain half-ball off the white to make the cannon via the side and top cushions as shown by the dotted line in my diagram. Strike your ball centrally, and play at the right strength to bring the white back off the top cushion into position below the middle pocket. Your ball will then cannon on the red and leave the excellent position shown in my diagram. Your next shot, if the balls stop exactly as per diagram, will be to pot the red to leave the lucrative cross-loser off the spotted red. This brings the red over the same middle pocket where the white lies handy, and with your ball in hand you have the choice of a simple middle pocket loser off either the white or the red, and what better break-building position can you wish for?

Alternative Leaves

Very possibly, the cannon shown in Fig. 36 may result in leaving in-off the red in the top pocket instead of the red winner I have described. This is quite good, play it and be thankful. The same can be said if you have to pot the red in such a way that you get below that ball to leave your ball on No. 2 line in Fig. 24.

Alternatively, the cannon may leave a pot into the top pocket which may be played to leave a straight pot when the red is spotted. You play this with enough run-through on your ball to leave a cross-loser into the left top pocket, after playing which you have the red over one middle pocket, the white over the other, and the cue-ball in hand. A bad shot will get "behind" the red and send that ball in the direction of baulk when the cannon shown in Fig. 36 is made. This is caused through striking the white a shade too fine, and is a fault you must be careful to avoid, as it ruins position.

Lessons to be Learned

I have analysed the positional possibilities shown in Fig. 36 to make clear that if the cannon is made as it should be, you have several chances, all of them good, of a following shot at the red.

Any of the alternative leaves I have mentioned may be accepted as quite satisfactory. It is a bad mistake to try to play two cushion cannons at long range with the intention of leaving the balls to a fraction of an inch. The right thing is to play in such a way that you are sure to have something useful to go on with unless your strength or direction is at fault to an unpardonable extent. You have every opportunity to prove how true this is by working carefully at the instructive cannon shown in Fig. 36, together with its positional sequences.

If you do this at all thoroughly, you will gain an invaluable insight into the general principles of break-making. You will learn from your own cueing why it is that professional exponents get the balls under control from leaves which look anything but promising, and are away on a break in a manner which is very mystifying until explained. I have taken a good deal of trouble to thrash out the positions given in Fig. 36 very thoroughly in this respect, and if you repay me by taking the trouble to work it out on the table with its positional sequences, I can promise you that your game will improve far more than it will if you dally with nursery cannons and spot-end billiards. When you have played this instructional and lucrative cannon from the measurements I have given until you can handle it to your satisfaction, you will see that you can play variations of it by moving the position of the white and changing the lie of your ball in the "D". By all means try this out as far as you are able by plain-ball striking and a half-ball contact with the white. Beyond this I do not advise you to attempt much in the way of variations, as if you begin to use side and vary your ball-to-ball contacts, you introduce complexities and uncertainties in place of the certainty the cannon always is if played as I direct. The point is that the half-ball contact and plain-ball striking makes correct contact with the second object-ball a sure thing, and thus provides a rare and profitable exception to the general rule that you should concentrate on the position of the first object-ball only when playing cannons.

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