The outstanding lesson of the Gray-Inman match, in which George Gray defeated M. Inman by 16,000 to 7,231 points, is that safety tactics unaccompanied by consistent and continuous scoring on the part of the player who resorts to such methods are of little avail.
Inman relied upon his safety play, which is admittedly of a high order, and thought that he might be able, partly by means of such play and partly by his personality, both to stop and to demoralize the young Australian. But he did neither. Gray scored off many of Inman's safety strokes and put up others of his own.
On the opening day it looked as though Inman was succeeding. But it was all a delusion. Gray was merely gauging the table and the balls and when he had done this the rest of the match was a "procession." But why was not Gray bothered by Inman's personality? Simply because, whilst Gray was at the table, Inman, so far as Gray was concerned, did not exist. Gray's play spells several words and one of them is "absorption." As he was addressing the ball on one occasion something heavy fell down and the spectators started. It is to be doubted whether Gray heard the noise. At any rate it did not interfere with his stroke.
Now one is told that Inman is prepared to challenge Gray level with ivories! He says that he found the crystalates so light that he was afraid to hit them. They are really as heavy as ivories; and Inman himself has never made better breaks than he did off crystalates during his long tour abroad.
Playing against Gray he made few breaks out of the single hundreds. Can it be that instead of Gray being demoralized or instead of the balls being at fault it was Inman who was demoralized? And even if he were, what blame could there be in this forlorn tilt at the mechanically impossible.
The question is being asked: Will Gray be able to make any considerable stand with ivories? In the opinion of The Billiard Monthly ivories, after due practice, will make little difference to Cray's game. He will have to play a shade finer, and with slightly increased strength and to preserve the present direction of the object ball he will have to slightly modify his placings in the D. But to suggest that this, when it has once crystallized into a habit, will reduce hit, present scoring force to the averages of the other professionals during the past season is, in our opinion, to argue without book.
If Gray chooses to renounce composition balls for a period and to specialize in ivories we should expect to see thousand breaks still coming from his cue from the more elastic medium.