There are three kinds of billiard players: (a) single shot players, (b) intelligent strivers after position who break down through faulty cueing or contact, and (c) successful break- makers, who ensure, by accurate contact and touch, the desired direction to the object ball or balls and to the ball played with, besides making the immediate shot.
A perfect break is one in which every point scored has been foreseen, arranged for, and successfully brought off. All other breaks or scores are more or less adventitious, although not, in all cases, devoid of merit.
It need scarcely be added that an absolutely perfect break of any length is very rarely made, but the best professionals are always striving after perfection in this matter and are even dissatisfied with themselves if, in the course of an intended continuance of top of the table play, they have to return to baulk in order to recover position that has been temporarily lost.
Between the perfect and the adventitious break there stands the highly meritorious one in which there has been no actual fluke and in which the positions sought have been substantially achieved. It may be that where a drop cannon was expected and would have been preferred a pocket has presented itself as more favourable, but this contingency is really borne in mind, and the desired drop cannon may send the balls together near the spot next stroke.