In billiards "things are not always what they seem." It is quite possible for the better player to lose, and even to be subjected to extremely hard treatment. Take, for example, the arbitrary stoppage of a break under the instalment system. Play may have been going badly against the better player, but, towards the end of a session in which time conditions are punctually observed, he may suddenly find his form and feel capable of doing almost anything.
He is a long way behind his points and is in the middle of a break with lots of scoring possibilities mentally limned before him. Presently he will have a nice little run of close cannons, then some winner-cannon "fives" at the top of the table, next a spell of middle-pocket red losers, and so on. Suddenly the referee calls the. scores in conjunction with the players' names, and the striker stops disappointed.
He feels certain that he could have added a hundred or two to that break now, but feels almost equally sure that when he tries to take up the break "cold" at the next session he will only be able to keep his opponent off for comparatively a few strokes.
Or the situation may be reversed. The player is in his best mood and has rattled up his 750 points in two or three innings. When he has thus made his quotum for the session the play stops automatically, although he may be within a few points of his previous record and within ten of the first 300 of his life; or he might even feel like adding another 500 and winning a £100 prize. But he must stop, and when, some hours later, or next day, he takes up his cue again, everything seems changed. While the break was on he had felt like a being transformed.
Every time he struck the cue ball he had several shots ahead marked out as clearly in his mind as though inscribed upon a map. He not only thought that he could do all that he wanted; he knew that he could. Touch perfect, judgment accurate, nerves cool, and a general sense of bodily and intellectual fitness.
Re-starting in the evening or next day the position left upon the table looks a different one altogether, taken in cold blood. That last stroke had not been a perfect one, but the player had not been keeping the exact score in mind and had no idea that he was so close upon his points. Otherwise he would have made his leaving-off position more secure. In the heat of the break the next stroke—say, a rather trying slow position shot—would have been executed to a certainty, but on resuming the proposition appears risky and the various belongings to it do not group themselves as is their manner in a break. So the shot may be missed altogether, or position rendered worse, or safety may be decided upon.
Assuming that our readers agree with us that there is a hardship here, the question arises whether a general understanding could be arrived at in the billiard world that no game, match, or session is to terminate with an unfinished break. Objections naturally rise to the mind, and the first, and principal, of these is that in a long match the whole contest might be over in a session, or even a day, short of the scheduled time, whilst in single day matches of two sessions practically nothing might be left for the evening.
We fully admit these possibilities and they would have to be reckoned with in any decision that was arrived at on the subject.
But we suggest that such a contingency would only be of comparatively rare occurrence and that the advantages to be gained outweigh this anticipated difficulty. For, after all, is the difficulty an insuperable one, and has it not, or something very like it, already been successfully dealt with?
In June, 1909, John Roberts played W. Cook 20,000 up, Cook receiving 8,000. The conditions were that each player was to score as many points as he could each session in exactly two hours, and in the middle of the Friday afternoon of the second week Roberts, having made his 20,000, was 2,380 points ahead. It was decided to go on and the final scores for 48 hours' play were: Roberts 23,509 (or an average of nearly 500 per hour); W. Cook 19,411.
Judging by actual precedent, therefore, there would seem to be no particular reason why, in professional matches, a non-interrupted break system with an otherwise strict time limit should not be adopted, and the play continued, as it was at Lisle Street, throughout the stipulated number of sessions. We believe that it was John Roberts himself who was the originator of the present instalment system, and it was also John Roberts who, on the occasion referred to, adopted the time limit and demonstrated its efficacy.
There would, by the way, be a further potential advantage in connection with a time limit system, allied to the nonstop break idea. Drawn matches and protracted or extra sessions would be events unknown, as the match would go to the best scorer after due handicapping during the time allotted.
The Billiard Monthly has already, on more than one occasion, urged that all games of billiards should be decided by time, with the reservation that the second player to open should be the last to strike and be allowed to finish.
We hope to devote our next article under the heading "Things that matter in billiards" to this suggested reform and to set forth certain advantages that we think would arise from the universal adoption of the time system.