Apart from the plain central ball stroke probably no greater aids to all-round break-making present themselves in billiards then the gentle screw and the slow stroke with side. It is only the advanced player who realizes the amount of cue ball deflection that is to; be gained in this way.
A gentle screw is essentially a position stroke and it can be played with such sensitive regard to strength and angle that the desired grouping and positioning can be obtained almost as though the ball or balls were taken up by the hand and re-deposited where desired.
To a player accustomed to apply this sort of treatment the spectacle afforded by anyone who slogs at a near cannon or pocket, substituting stun and force for low and gentle cueing is almost as painful as the spectacle of a man who is seen beating a tiny child. Somehow, the majority of everyday amateurs seem to have got hold of the idea that screwing and force are practically inseparable, whereas screwing, in its true genius, is a substitute for force.
Let a very familiar example be here given. The striker's ball is in hand, the red ball is on the billiard spot, and the opponent's ball is an inch or two above the baulk line a few inches wide of an end spot of the D. To ensure perfect position there is nothing to be done beyond making gentle contact at a point which will guide the white to the middle pocket position and the cue ball into the corner baulk pocket. Obviously the nearer the cue ball is placed to the object ball the simpler and surer must be the stroke and the better the resultant position. Yet many players would elect to place their ball a couple of feet away and substitute mere force with problematical score or leave for the gentle screw that could hardly go wrong.
Or all three balls might be in the neighbourhood of the billiard spot, with the cue ball badly placed for such Docket or cannon play as would be likely to assist in a break.
With or without the assistance of a cushion a gentle screw might here be managed in such a way as to make contact almost fractionally exact on both the object balls and leave them precisely where required and the cue ball itself in a commanding position.
To the ball-flogger, this nicety of treatment does not appeal. A dozen or two of yards have to be traversed by that unhappy triplet of balls before they come to rest and if the cue ball and the red should, at the end of it all, be found beneath cushions and the white in some other safe position, the striker, as likely as not, may throw up his head in disgust—with the balls, of course.
Much of the same class of remark will apply to slow side strokes as substitutes for forcing strokes. There are numerous familiar and frequent positionings of the balls in which an up-table slow stroke with side simply cannot go wrong, if the rule of aiming fuller or finer than ordinary to allow for nap divergence be observed. Two common examples may suffice. The red is on the spot and the cue ball on the lower instead of upper shoulder of the middle pocket. Many strikers play the forcer for anything and everything beyond the natural angle, just as they aim fine for anything and everything within it. The result of forcing a stroke from the middle pocket to the billiard pocket may be all right, or, if badly played, it may be all wrong.
It may leave an in-off into either of the top or either of the middle pockets according to the contact or strength or both. Or it may leave the red well above the pyramid spot or even beneath the top cushion. It is difficult to make it go so far wrong, because, the pathway of the red being over the central spots, there is a margin for strength all the way between a point two feet out of baulk and the pyramid spot.
Nevertheless, when all is said, a ball heavily struck travels quickly and even a liberal safety zone may soon be passed.
Now let us examine the claims of the slow side stroke.
Aim is taken nearly full on the red, a gentle stroke is played, and the red is brought down almost at absolute will to any convenient point above or below the dead centre of the table.
The other example that occurs to mind is the drop cushion cannon for gaining a top of table gathering of the balls when the cue ball is in hand and the object and cannon balls are in a line half-way down a side cushion a couple of feet apart and a few inches away from the cushion. This is a slow check side stroke and the edge of the object ball is aimed at in order that the contact may be a three-quarter run-through. No one has yet enjoyed billiards to the full who has not felt that sensation of satisfaction and completeness— which never quite forsakes even the seasoned player—which is occasioned by the gentle advance of the cue ball from baulk, by its firm shouldering-off of the object ball, by its pretty dart forward after contact with the cushion, and by its plump, driving impact upon the cannon ball, which now, with itself, takes an unerring bee-line in the good direction towards which the object ball has already led the way.