A Few Cue Tips

• Jennies should almost always be played with only sufficient strength to bring the object ball to the middle of the table after one cushion contact.
• Always make fine strokes finer than they look, and thick strokes thicker. Whenever it is possible to miss the object ball and still make the pocket or cannon the finest stroke is on.
• When cue and object ball are near together a central stroke of the cue has the effect of slight screw at a greater distance, whilst top imparted to the cue ball preserves the usual angle.
• In making a short and easy pot into a top corner pocket either leave the cue ball beside the upper shoulder or transversely below the billiard spot. It is easily done with proper strength and just a touch of side.
• Never undertake a stroke that you cannot get well behind.
• Your line of sight must be along or parallel with your cue.
• Use the rest whenever the foregoing essential condition can not be compassed without it.
• Potting with side is as easy as without side if tackled with confidence and with the cue parallel with the line along which the cue ball should run. The books say that it is more difficult, but they are wrong.
• Avoid all rigidity in playing billiards. If you don't feel comfortable everywhere there is something wrong. There should be a feeling of freedom almost amounting to looseness, and a firm stance and bridge are quite consistent with this feeling.
• When the cue ball is a little below the top shoulder for the cross-in-off with the red on the spot, play a trifle fuller rather than finer as this brings the red more into the middle of the table below the middle pocket. The stroke is simpler and surer without check side.
• In potting it is not necessary to look at the pocket. Professionals never do this. They get the angle by a glance at the ball, which takes in the pocket simultaneously. It also reveals automatically the most open part of the pocket, and adjusts the angle thereto—an important point.
• One of the most frequent positions in which the balls are left is also one of the most useful, but is often mismanaged.
• It is when the object balls are a few inches away from a top side cushion and a couple of feet apart. A gentle check side stroke (which becomes running side off the cushion) aimed half-ball and working in to three-quarter ball brings the balls nicely together near the top of the table.
• There are only three profitable methods of practising alone. One is to stick to specific and often-needed shots until they are conquered; another is to put the balls again and again in a favourable position and try to make a thought-out break; and the third is to take the white and spot balls alternately and play a strenuous and serious game with yourself, striving all through to obtain and keep position.