A Few Cue Tips

• When lifting the cue butt aim full with running side and fine with check side for the half-ball contacts.
• A mis-cue may result from too heavy chalking—in other words from a clogged and dirty tip. "Chalk lightly and often" is the best system.
• There is one cue "tip" that ought to be printed every month, although it has more to do with the butt than the tip. It is: "Swing the cue."
• If the three balls are in line slightly caterwise to a cushion a kiss cannon is as easy as though they were at right angles with the cushion. The only difference is that the contact must be less full.
• When the red is over a middle pocket don't pot it until you have noticed where the white is. It may be easy to play the white towards the billiard spot and the potting shot should then leave the red on the spot with the cue ball a little below.
• In spotting for jennies ignore the side cushion and take the angle as though for a half-ball cannon on to a ball at the mouth of the desired pocket. Aim finer than the edge to allow for the carry-in of the ball and play with plenty of side and very slowly.
• As a rule the mental query: "Full or fine?" is to be answered "Full," because fullish strokes send the balls along together instead of separating them. But fine strokes —and especially gentle fine strokes—are often extremely valuable when position is disturbed as little as possible in this way.
• The reason why a run-through with side into a corner pocket, when the object ball is against the cushion, and the cue ball a little away from it, is successful, although the aim is taken dead centre, is that, although the cue ball encounters the cushion before reaching the pocket, it cannot get away from it so long as the spin continues to act.
• There is only one way of making breaks regularly and that is never to play off a ball without having forecasted, approximately, where the strength and contact that are being applied will leave it and never to pot a ball without having forecasted approximately where the strength and contact that are being applied will leave the cue ball. This can easily be cultivated into a habit.
• There is no difficulty about potting if the right contact is made, and the right contact is at the commencement of a line bisecting the object ball and running to the centre of the pocket. Keep the eye on this point, without looking at the pocket, and aim twice as far from the centre of the ball, viewed from where you are getting down to the stroke, as the point of actual contact should be.
• The one thing in successful billiards that is infinitely more important than anything else is cue swing, and the invariable rule is (1) that the cue shall be merely balanced within the thumb and finger or fingers, without being actually held there; (2) that it point along, or parallel with, the intended line of travel of the cue ball; and (3) that it be brought back and sent through the ball an equal distance and without prod or jerk. Try sending the ball up and down the table in this way and then try some near run-throughs.