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Chapter 19. THREE-BALL CONTROL

By three-ball control I mean that correct handling of all three balls in cannon play to which I referred at the end of my last chapter. It is admittedly a difficult thing to do. When seen to perfection, it shows you Tom Newman at his best, as there can be no doubt that his magical control of all three balls in cannon play is the strongest feature of his wonderful billiards. In this respect he is indisputably the greatest player the game has ever seen; and I write thus without the slightest wish to disparage his all-round ability. Tom Newman is a great master of any department of the game, but he is supremely great at three-ball control; and I want you to appreciate what you are asking yourself to do when you take up something which is the speciality of such an accomplished artist.

But I am going to ask you to work with a telescope where Newman works with a microscope. There is scarcely an amateur now playing who is advanced enough to make it worth his while to attempt to build his breaks after the manner of Newman's close work at the head of the table. I shall offer you something more open and generally feasible in three-ball control.

A Screw Cannon

Figure 61 illustrates a typical stroke, and an extremely useful one, as it is a good specimen of those "gathering" cannons which are so positionally invaluable. In this instance, the "gathering" effect is produced by driving the first object-ball round the table, thus utilizing that knowledge of the angles to which I referred in my last chapter. The stroke is a screw cannon, played rather full on the red without any side. As it is a very exact shot, I want you to place the balls carefully in accordance with the following measurements: Cue-ball, 14 1/2 inches from the side cushion and 33 1/4 inches from the bottom cushion; red ball, 9 inches from the side cushion and 39 1/2 inches from the bottom cushion; second object-ball, 2 1/2 inches from the side cushion and 21 1/2 inches from the bottom cushion. Having placed the balls as above, just bear in mind my previous hints on the best method whereby you can impart screw to your ball.

Above all, keep your cue-butt well down when playing this cannon, as the element of pokiness, sure to come in if you raise your cue-butt, will tend to make your ball jump, and to prevent the requisite power of cue-delivery demanded by the distance the red has to travel to reach its positional objective. The lines in this diagram are particularly instructive in showing the after-position of all three balls. You will notice that the continuous line indicating the path of the red stops nicely clear of the side cushion; that the dotted line showing the direction of the cue-ball runs on after the cannon is made until it nearly reaches the bottom cushion; and that the cannon is completed off the side cushion in such a way that the second object-ball, struck fully and gently, trickles towards the baulk-cushion until it is practically in line with the cue-ball. This leaves the balls well together in lovely position, but it does not follow that you will invariably leave them exactly as my diagram shows, or even that you need do so.

The general direction of the red, the right strength, and cannoning full on the white off the cushion, are the positional factors in the problem. The result is always likely to vary a little in detail, but the leave should be distinctly usable unless the fates are unkind enough to leave the balls badly covered. I mention this to prevent you from slaving away to leave all three balls to a fraction of an inch after making this cannon - that is neither possible nor necessary-you can always pass your screw cannon as quite good in every way if it leaves you a reasonably feasible cannon to continue your break with.

A Cannon Usually Wrongly Played

We now come to a less complicated, but most lucrative, aspect of three-ball control. This is illustrated by the simple cannon shown in Fig. 62. The cue-ball is in hand, and with the red and white in the position shown, amateurs usually play a cannon direct from white to red, playing to drop nicely on the red to leave that ball favourably placed near the middle pocket, which sometimes happens. This is not a good shot, it is too positionally unsound. Even if you do happen to cannon just right on the red, where is the white going?

By playing the cannon in this way, the most you can expect is a very problematical leave off the red; whereas by playing it correctly you retain control of all three balls. The right stroke is the simple cannon off the side cushion shown in my diagram. No side is required on your ball. You place your ball in the "D", to make the angle shown, play slowly and not too full on the red, send your ball against the side cushion, and complete the cannon fully on the white. This leaves the red in splendid break-building position. If it is far enough up the table, you can go in-off it. If it does not offer the loser, you can pot it in the middle pocket to leave the familiar cross-loser off the spotted red. And when your ball returns to hand, you have the white offering an easy hazard into the left middle pocket if you happen to want it.

This simple exposition of the true meaning of three-ball control is highly instructive, the more so as a few trial shots will show you that, after a little practice, it is just as easy to make this cannon correctly as it is to mishandle it by playing it direct from white to red. The principle of the shot is capable of almost indefinite extension, especially when considered in conjunction with the use of side, or side combined with screw or top, on the cue-ball. But before you experiment with these complications, I want you to extract the last atom of scoring efficiency from the plain-ball type we are dealing with. You can easily set-up many slight variations of it, all playable from baulk, and if you weld these into your game, your billiard improvement is likely to be more marked than you may suspect, simply because these cannons are so frequently met with in actual play.

Value of Three-Ball Control

Figure 63 shows another cannon which is continually played wrongly through ignorance of the correct principle of three-ball control. The cue-ball is in hand, and the red and the white are where they are so frequently seen that I should say the leave occurs more than once in every average hundred-up. Then, even in the case of some who make a forty or fifty break occasionally, it is the general rule to play a slowish cannon with the idea of dropping gently "behind" the white and trickling that ball into position near the middle pocket, while the red is sent towards the centre of the table.

Such a cannon is played as fine as it can be taken, and is much more likely to spoil position than it is to leave anything. If played very slowly, some sort of cover may be expected to result-if played too hard the white runs safe well past the middle pocket. Try it, play this cannon half a dozen times in succession in the ordinary way, and see how often you leave anything like good position. Then play it properly, as shown in my diagram, and note the difference. Play without any top or side on your ball, relying on smooth cueing to give you as much run-through effect as is necessary to cannon full on the white, while sending the red up the table and back again as shown by the continuous line in my diagram. About a three-quarter run-through on the red is the shot you want, not the finish "scratch" usually seen, and you must play with free confidence instead of the sluggish restraint seen in the mistaken "slow one".

The full contact with the white when the cannon is completed will stop your ball almost in the position occupied by the white, while sending that ball against the side cushion to rebound well clear of the pocket. Meanwhile the red returns as shown, and you have a little cannon facing you, which you can do anything you like with in a positional sense, it is so full of opportunity. Variations of this cannon are frequently playable when the object-balls are closer together than in the example I have shown, and also when the angle differs materially, perhaps so greatly that you may have to use screw to make your cannon. In every case, however, the principle of driving the first ball against the cushion to return into cannon position is the one thing to remember; and you must bear in mind that this calls for a thickish contact with that ball, accompanied by sufficient freedom of stroke to bring the first ball back off the cushion as far as you desire.

A Spectacular but Difficult Cannon

We now pass to a stroke which has a family likeness to the one dealt with at the beginning of this chapter. The general purport of the shot is the same, but this is a more difficult example. As the balls lie, see Fig.64, you must play the screw cannon with side-a good deal of right-hand side. You strike the red almost dead full and screw straight back to the top cushion, then the powerful right-hand side takes full effect, spinning your ball away to make the cannon as shown in the diagram. As your ball is so close to the red as well as the top cushion, you will find that your carefully-chalked cue will need all the handling you can give it, to get the screw, side, and power you want to make the cannon and bring the red round into position. This is a good stroke to practise, but not over-much.

It is nice to be able to do it, and very useful indeed when a similar position occurs during a game. But your break-building capacity will be more improved by a thorough knowledge of the steady, plain-ball shots dealt with in my two preceding diagrams; for which reason I want to warn you against putting in too much time on spectacular efforts like the cannon now under review.

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