The Game of Billiards
A word of explanation is perhaps in order. My pieces are entitled as being with John Barrie, Whilst I may not have quoted overmuch from that late fine player, my articles are meant to convey the essence of what he believed about the game as conveyed to me in letters, documents and conversation. Not only Barrie; I draw heavily on the vast knowledge of Karnehm, and on impressions I have gained from hours of watching and talking to such players as Russell, Dagley, Beetham. I like to think that my writing would gain the approval of those great players though they may have put it in a different way.
In my last article, I tried to make the point about practice, I asked the question, "hat is it for, why do players practice?"other than just for the enjoyment though a highly important reason in itself. I would suggest that the most important reason for practice lies in attempting to reach a stage of not needing to think about technique when playing in a match, thus being able to concentrate totally on the task in hand. Let me illustrate the point with some examples which are analogous to billiards.
What snooker enthusiasts will ever forget a stroke played by Steven Hendry in the final of the 1992 World Snooker Championship? Hendry, trailing Jimmy White by five frames, and having potted the last red in the 24th frame, had left the cue ball tight on the lower jaw of the left middle pocket (looking at the table from the TV position) A straight blue, though on, would not have been particularly easy, but Hendry, with almost no hesitation, took the brown from its spot at dead strength so as to leave position for the yellow which lay towards the bottom cushion. He then proceeded to clear the colours to the pink, taking his break to 64, won the frame reducing the arrears to four, when failure at the brown would almost certainly have resulted in a six frame lead for White. The stroke was of such difficulty that many good players would miss it more often than not, even in no-pressure practice conditions. What was in Hendry's mind at that moment? I would guess nothing save total concentration on the point of the brown he had to strike.
He certainly wouldn't have been thinking about anything to do with how he was actually going to strike the cue ball. He had total confidence that, if he could concentrate on selecting the correct place for the cue ball to strike the brown ball, then his technique would do the job for him. As an aside, it would be interesting to know what was in White's mind at that moment!
All players who have passed the novice stage know that, anything, whether in the head or in the playing environment that distracts the player's attention from the task in hand, is likely to have a negative effect on performance. All players know how difficult it is to prevent those irritating little thoughts from creeping in when the stroke demands 100% concentration. "I'll leave him on if I miss" "If 1 can get this cannon then I'll have the red on and make some". The better able a player to keep his mind clear of any extraneous thought and especially those which are concerned with technique (I must keep my head down on this one!) then the more likely he is to produce a robot-like, automatic performance. However, being able to produce as automatic performance as is individually possible may not always be as desirable as it may seem. It all depends on how good a player's automatic performance is. It is quite automatic for some players to leap upwards like a jack-in-the-box as they play their shots. Some players almost hit the light shade with their cue at the finish of a long loser, many players draw the cue sharply backwards after striking the ball when playing a screw stroke.
But this is not the automatic, unthinking, end-product we have in mind, We are considering the kind of automatic play produced by a Steven Hendry or a Mike Russell when under pressure, and it is a very different kettle of fish. Note that there is a difference between that brain activity called thinking and that which we call concentration.
There are strong implications in all of this with regard to practising the game. Let me make one or two comparisons with other activities. Or, to quote the late Chairman Mao, "The longest journey begins with but a single step".
Most of us will have watched some of the recent Ryder Cup and marvelled at the accuracy and power of the great golfers involved. Such players have, of course, spent hours on the practice ground building up the swing, checking the alignment, coaches guide the arms into position, the swing is held motionless in various parts, all this is aimed at internalising the feel and movements of the hips, the shoulders, the legs, as the swing is made. The player aims at developing and maintaining a smooth repeating action that will do the job as near as possible to 100% efficiency when the pressure is on, when he knows that there are many millions of TV watchers. The billiard player is, unfortunately, never likely to be watched by millions on TV, but he should, like the golfer, spend a great deal of time checking the basics, working on his strokes and positional play, thinking about what he is doing. When a child is learning to read he is taught about letters and the sounds that they make. He learns to build words, to recognise words. Reading The Sun in about ten minutes flat, or taking in the football results in less time than it would take Gazza to sink a pint of Newcastle Brown is the end product. Knocking up a century—Gilchrist fashion—in about five minutes (wouldn't it be nice) is an end product.
Take the case of the concert pianist. The physical act of playing the piano has very little to do with music and everything to do with training the arm, hand, and finger muscles to make certain movements at certain speeds. This is achieved by highly methodical slow practice during which the player concentrates on never making a wrong movement or using a wrong finger, eventually reaching the stage where the muscle memory is internalised to such an extent that the piece can be played without any thought whatever to the technique and all the attention can be given to the interpretation—not a mile away from what a very good billiard player is doing [so that's why I can't play the piano—ed. ] I have known pianists who have over-learned much of their repertoire that they can actually play pieces whilst at the same time reading a newspaper or a book placed on the music stand. Jack Karnehm tells the tale of how his father took him to see Lindrum. Karnehm senior was a friend of the great Walter, and Jack, though only a boy, remembers quite clearly, "We sat on the front row. Lindrum was making a run of cannons and when he got to where we were he looked up at my father and exchanged greetings with him whilst at the same time making a series of rocker cannons". Those are of course extreme examples of supreme ability, ability beyond the scope of all but a few individuals to whom the desire to excel is of an importance greater than life itself.
It is not necessary to be a golfer or a pianist to experience the power of habit, how strongly a physical act can be internalised and carried out without any thought at all. There is an activity which involves a fairly high level of skill, is combined with some danger, and yet millions of people do it quite safely whilst engaging in conversation, having arguments, listening to the radio, making phone calls. I have even seen people do it whilst shaving, I am referring, of course, to driving a motor car. To realise just how automatic an activity driving is, try sometime braking with your left foot—but don't try it on the motorway or anywhere near another vehicle.
The points of all this in relation to billiards is that all the thinking should be done on the practice table and all the concentrating on the match table.
Let me give a couple of examples to illustrate this point. Diagram 1 shows a typical position for practising the red ball game. A player has spent ten minutes or so on single ball practice, he feels that he is cueing well, striking the ball sweetly, and goes on to the red ball. He sets up the position, takes his stance, keeps his head still, strikes smoothly. He quite correctly makes the run-through stroke, but misses as shown although keeping the red ball very nicely to the centre line of the table. Now he must think. He could spot in the same place and take the red ball more nearer to the half-ball contact, but this would cut the red over to the right-hand side of the table with a consequent possible loss of position. Instead he spots the cue ball rather more to the right, plays the run-through once more, keeps the red up and down the centre and scores the in-off. It will not take any reasonably intelligent player very long to be able to see the required angle and spot his ball correctly. He will be able to do this in match conditions quite automatically without having to go through the process involved.
This is all fairly obvious.
But take the case of diagram 2. The same player feels that he is playing the red ball quite well, the run-through into the middle pocket is flowing smoothly, and the long losers are swinging into the top pockets. He decides to spend a half-hour or so at the spot end. He sets up the "floating white" position shown. He has seen Russell playing this stroke time-after-time. He has seen Karnehm's tape, he might even have read one or two article in the old Billiards Quarterly Review. He begins to get himself properly set up and plays the stroke. More often than not he cuts the red ball below the pocket where, although he can score an easy enough in-off, he cannot make the pot which was his intention. He has played something like as indicated in diagram 3.
Something has gone wrong. It is at this point that he stops thinking. He will set up the position and try again—same result. Then usually he will try to compensate by using a bit of check side, or running side, or whatever. When he was playing the red ball it was perfectly obvious that the problem was incorrect spotting. The problem with the top-of-the-table position is exactly the same thing—incorrect spotting. The player should place the cue ball somewhere towards the position marked "a" (diagram 3) and experiment until, by playing a plain ball shot he can get correct position every time He should mark the position of the white balls and play the stroke until it is as automatic as playing the run-through in-off. Obviously, when attempting top end play in a match, a player does not have the freedom to spot the cue ball where he pleases, but what he does have (or should have) is a reference point, an internalised realisation of where he would ideally like to have the cue ball. When he plays his position perfectly all will be well. When the cue ball is not quite in the correct position he will have a firm memory of how the stroke is played from the ideal position and make an adjustment to his striking and contact—adjustments which will, of course, have been practised. Furthermore, if there has been sufficient slow and quite deliberate practise combined with an intelligent use of the grey matter, then the day will come when the player will do it without any conscious thought whatever, devoting the whole of his attention to what he is actually doing without bothering himself as to how he is going to do it. The point of my argument is that practice must be purposeful. It must be quite slow in the initial stages gradually building up to a quicker tempo.
It must be methodical and aimed at taking the player to the stage where he can concentrate on the pattern of the break and how he wishes to score without any conscious thought as to the technique of the matter.
Let me finish with a quote or two: — "When I'm at the top I draw an imaginary line across the table and I try to get the white [cue ball] just below that line when I pot the red"—Mike Russell "It's not how long you practise that counts, but what you practise"—Mike Russell "You have to mark the balls and keep playing the shot until you get it right every time. It's the only way." —Jack Karnehm "Get a bit of chalk and mark the positions of the balls and keep at it 'till you get really good at the shot. You can adjust similar shots in relation to the position that you've got so good at"—John Barrie.