A Few Cue Tips
- Always use the same weight and balance of cue, width of
cue tip, and make of ball. It is impossible to chop and
change about in these particulars without injury to your
play.
- Never let the cue go until you have made sure of your
aim and know exactly what you are trying to do.
- Put the red ball on a chalk mark 24 inches above the
centre baulk spot in the centre line of the table and play
alternately into each middle pocket from a baulk corner
spot. Practice nothing else until you can bring the red
back to the chalk mark several times in succession.
- It is unsafe to play half-ball on to the white when it is a
few inches above the centre of the table and near the centre
line. To avoid losing the white in this position play a
quarter of an inch thicker than half-ball with proportionately
finer spotting.
- Always play what seems under strength in screwing,
what seems too full in run throughs, and what seems too
fine in fine contacts, and when playing fast and fine on to
a ball quite near a pocket, play finer still to compensate
for the extra force.
- Try to avoid letting the cue tip stand dead still just before
the stroke. There should be some movement even
though it amounts to little more than a tremor.
- When playing slowly with side up the table, or diagonally
towards the top, the aim for running side must be
fuller than with central striking and for check side finer,
or the stroke will be missed.
- It is almost impossible to locate a point of aim on the
object ball for an almost straight run-through. The best
thing to do is to notice that the cue is pointed almost, but
not perfectly, straight, and this will usually bring off the
stroke.
- The safest way to make the jump, or steeplechase,
stroke is to lay the cue flat on the table, but if the rail of
the table interferes the aim should be on to the cloth one
inch behind the cue ball.*
- The way in which professionals and good amateurs get
so much side upon a very gently-struck ball is by hitting
it as near its horizontal circumference as possible with a
nice swing back to the cue and a little accentuation of the
final forward swing. A mere poke is of no use whatever.
- If there were no such thing as side, screw, or top in billiards
very good breaks could still be made by the judicious
use of varying contacts and strengths. Indeed, if a
learner were forbidden to strike otherwise than centrally
during the first three months he would not have subsequent
cause to regret it.
- The nearer and gentler the stroke the shorter should both
the bridge and the cue swing be.
- In aiming fuller or finer than half-ball the feet must be
adjusted as well as the body. The same position of the
feet cannot be right in all three cases.