5.—"A point that puzzles me very much in billiards is the different appearance of half-ball and other shots at different parts of the table. For instance, I always feel undecided when playing across the table into a corner pocket, as the angle when the object ball is below mine always looks finer than it really is, whereas with my ball below it always looks wider?"
You are quite right, and we are glad that you have asked the question.
The best plan is to ignore the pocket opening as the immediate objective and judge the angle as between the object ball and an imaginary spot only a foot away in a direct line towards the pocket. It will then be found that, as in cannon play with the object balls only a foot apart, the angle can be easily judged under any placing of the balls. The same expedient can be adopted in what are called short-legged strokes, when the object ball is near to the cue ball and the latter has a considerable way to travel. The spot only a foot away is easily located, and the cue ball, if properly struck as regards rotation and cue swing, will pass over that spot and the score will be made. Try it.
6.—"What is the correct distance from the butt end to hold the cue?"
Place the ball on the centre spot of baulk and the left foot beneath the cushion rail. Next make your bridge nine inches behind ball and bring cue up against ball. The upper part of your arm should now be horizontal and the forearm vertical. If the forearm is not vertical the hand should be adjusted to make it so, still leaving the cue touching the ball.
7.—"In describing Gray's red ball strokes you say that he never resorts to forcers or screws into the middle pocket. But how would he do without them in the event of the red ball being too high for the fine cutting stroke and too wide for the top pocket in-off?"
The position you name is one that Gray, or any really good player, never leaves. It ensues when direction and strength are alike faulty, or when one of the two is conspicuously so. Watch carefully the strokes in the next professional match that you attend and we think that you will wait in vain for a forcer or screw shot from hand into a middle pocket. If, however, such a shot did chance to be made you would observe an interesting thing, namely, that the immediate shot would be purposely rendered still more difficult by wider placing, in order to avoid commerce with the top or bottom pocket on the part of the object ball and to ensure its final location somewhere near the central line of the table nicely out of baulk.
8.—"I am a comparative beginner at billiards as you will gather when I say that on striking the cue ball I do not always know which side to put on. Can you give beginners like myself any hint in this direction?"
No side, top, or bottom should be employed unless some distinctly useful purpose is to be served thereby. Although there are some shots that cannot be achieved at all by central striking, the great proportion require no side or other compensation whatever. Indeed, a question ever in the mind should be "Can I do what I want to do with a plain stroke?" The three kinds of side are pocket side, cushion side, and deflecting side, and for these—whether singly or in combination— either running or check side is used as the exigencies of the case require. Pocket side causes a ball to enter a pocket more easily from its most open shoulder, because the ball is spinning around its vertical axis and runs on the shoulder as regards its sides as it does on the bed of the table as regards its top and bottom. You can soon ascertain on which side to strike the ball for pocket side by a few experiments. Place a ball against a cushion a foot from a corner pocket and aim gently at the shoulder well outside the pocket. If you play with check side the ball will not enter the pocket, but with running side it will do so easily. This is also illustrated in a regular stroke usually wrongly played by "amateurs, namely, the top pocket cross in-off when a finer than the check side in-off to the more open pocket is asked for. This should always be played with running or pocket side, and the same applies to the run-through shots into the same pocket. The attempt to run through with check side might be disastrous. Cushion side is really of three kinds, for there is a" clinging "side (partaking of the deflecting nature) as well as a running and a retarding side where cushions are concerned. But in the ordinary acceptance of the term cushion sides are the running side which makes the spinning ball take a wider angle and proceed at a quicker pace after cushion contact, and the check side which makes it take an acuter angle and proceed at a slower (hence the term "check ") pace. In the same stroke the two classes of side are frequently combined. Thus check side inside a ball near a cushion becomes running side as soon as the cushion is reached.
Deflecting side is the run-off of a ball with or against the nap of the cloth, and which, instead of being a hindrance, is of enormous assistance in scientific play, as it largely increases the number of the half-ball aims. Those long range slow three-quarter run-through in-offs up the table by professionals are all made with check side aimed half-ball, whilst the quarter-ball contact can be obtained with the same aim by the use of running side, which is also as useful in avoiding the kiss with quarter-ball cannons when the object ball lies near a side cushion as is the three-quarter run-through cannon with check side when the play is behind the object ball as it lies a foot or so away from the cushion.
9.—"Can you kindly explain how it is that the balls do not kiss in some of those near run-throughs into pockets when it looks as though they must do so? I find no difficulty in making the shot, but have never to this day understood how the kiss is avoided?"
You overlook the driving effect of the cue ball on the object ball, which latter has time to get well away whilst the cue ball is recovering from the temporary shock of the impact.
Sometimes, when the cue ball is very near the object ball and the object ball very near the pocket, the kiss would take place, but it can even then be prevented by getting a little drag on the cue ball, which must, of course, be struck with a very lightly-held cue. Most of these little run-through in-offs should be very slowly played, as they then leave another certain losing hazard from hand off the same ball