Since George Gray came to this country there have been much comment and correspondence in newspapers and magazines of a kind that does not strike us as being beneficial to the game or likely to prove advantageous to its followers. We refer more particularly to the belittlement of certain special phases of billiards which have, nevertheless, their essential part in the delightful course of all-round play. Thus whilst English writers have had much to say in depreciation of what they term "the Gray stroke" Australian billiard journalists, feeling that something to which their continent has given birth has not been quite fairly criticized over here, have retaliated by characterizing the top of the table game, as exploited by Stevenson and other great English players, as also restricted and monotonous.
As a matter of fact, neither the red ball losing hazard sequence nor the top-of-the-table winner-cannon movement is in its essence monotonous, although the more nearly it approaches perfection in the handling the more satiating does it become. It is when Gray loses the middle pocket position and has to go out for long losers or raking forcers that his play becomes exciting, and it is when Stevenson fails to get quite low enough with the cue ball at the top of the table, and exchanges the intended pot for the cannon with fullish contact that leads to rail play that the same thing happens.
Should top of the table specialists ever succeed in doing what Stevenson in his book says that no man living is able to do, namely, keep up two pots to one cannon for an indefinite period, there would be as much clamour amongst the ill-informed for the barring of the present top of the table game as there has been for the barring of the Gray stroke and as there previously was—and successfully—for the barring of the spot stroke.
But what we have chiefly in our minds is that billiards, rightly considered, is a mosaic and that its fulness is only to be appreciated after perfection, as nearly as may be, of all its parts. The amateur billiard player, who depends for his practice upon "knocking the balls about," or, almost worst still, upon games in which all the old and crude deficiencies come up again and again, is tragically wrong in his methods. The only safe way to the frequent compiling of hundred breaks—which might be done by thousands of players where it is now only done by scores — is the mastering of the phases of the game in their detail.
For weeks on end, for example, nothing whatever should be attempted beyond placing the red ball two feet out of baulk up the centre of the table and endeavouring to maintain the middle pocket sequence that has been perfected by Gray. It would even be well, in the initial stages of this practice, to regard the break as ended as soon even as recourse had to be made to the top corner pockets. The really great thing at the outset is to get so familiar with the contact and strength required to do the middle pocket business that presently, whether in a game or otherwise, it will seem impossible to do otherwise than score as continuously as may be required from this bed-rock position, after which recovery strokes into the top pockets, or strokes leading to a cannon, can be taken in their turn.
Take as an illustration the set-up position in the break contest by amateurs that is arousing such keen interest daily at the close of the afternoon session at the Soho Square Salon. The white is on the centre spot, the red is on the spot, and the cue ball is in a line with the top left pocket. The white ball on the centre spot, be it noted, is a lurking danger, but it is one that can be very easily avoided by a player who has sedulously cultivated the middle-pocket loser, as the red ball sequence can, with a little care, be continued indefinitely, without collision, on either side of it.
Two other main phases of the game are drop cannons and the top of the table play to which these lead; and here again the player who desires to excel should give continuous weeks of practice to this one thing. Let him put the red ball on the spot, the white well above the middle pocket and away from the side cushion, and cannon on to the red as gently as he knows how, until he succeeds in getting the white behind the spot, the red near a corner pocket and his own nicely behind it nearly every time. He may have to play half-ball on the white, or a little finer or fuller in order to leave it behind the spot and the red where he wants it, but at length the mystery will unlock itself and the secret be his for ever.
At the Holborn Hall on the 11th of this month, and later on at St. George's Hall, Liverpool, and at Caxton Hall, Westminster, there will be a rubber of three great billiard contests that will go down in billiard history and that may well be termed: "The Meeting of the Methods." The methods are the bed-rock losing hazard play of Gray—and the steady reliance upon which by Inman in his earlier efforts have done so much for that now eminent all-round player— and the presentation in fascinating style by Stevenson of billiards in its complete and multitudinous phases.
Each session should be a delight and an education to amateur players of every degree, alike of crudity and of efficiency, who, if they are wise enough to note not only the course of the balls, but also the body positioning, the cue movements, and even the eyes of the executants, will receive, in exchange for the admission charge, not only two hours of delightful entertainment, but also a lesson in billiards in its solid foundation and in its highest flights of a kind that no amount of payment could obtain elsewhere.