A Few Cue Tips
- There is only one rule in position pocket play. It is:
Never make a losing hazard before you have decided where
you wish the object ball to stop, and never make a winning
hazard before you have decided where you wish the cue ball
to stop.
- To correct and improve your aim and manner of addressing
and striking the ball, practise winning hazards in
preference to losing hazards and cannons. Whenever you
intentionally pot a ball your aim has been practically true,
whereas you can score losing hazard or cannons with very
imperfect aiming.
- When the balls are out of position don't attempt miracles
or a scattering shot. Rely rather upon the next stroke or
safety play. For instance, when the red and white are
near the spot, but not favourably placed for the winner-cannon
movement, make a gentle cannon, guiding one of
the balls to the side cushion and the other for a gentle
losing hazard into the pocket. The ensuing drop cannon
from baulk should restore the position.
- Play as many strokes as possible with dead central
striking, reserving side and other compensations for position
purposes. Practise these compensations by placing the
object ball in a given position and making it travel in a
number of different directions while the cue ball always
pursues the same direction, and vice-versa.
- Reserve force for exceptional occasions. Substitute fuller
contact for force in screwing and slow side for forcing whenever
position can be gained of retained in that way.
- A gentle swing of the cue sends the cue ball two lengths
of the table, or, if the object ball is struck nearly full on
the journey, makes that ball complete the distance. Why,
therefore, when playing, use greater strength in order to
cover even lesser distances?
- The next time you see professionals play, spend a few
minutes without watching the balls at all. Watch how the
cue is held, how the feet are positioned, how the body is
aligned, how the ball is addressed, and how the swing and
stroke are delivered. Choose, preferably, for this purpose
the professional whose style seems to you to be the most
easy and graceful.
- When aiming from some distance up the table a quarter-ball
losing hazard or cannon can be converted into a halfball
by playing a slow stroke with plenty of check side.
Down the table the side must be reversed, but the aim is
still half-ball.
- A point that cannot be too carefully remembered in
billiard playing is that the cue ball (when there is no miscue)
always travels exactly in the direction in which the
cue is pointing at the moment of contact, whether such
contact be central, high, side, or bottom. Consequently,
when side is employed, if the cue is not moved bodily and
then swung parallel to the central line, the ball will travel
on a different course from that intended. When the cue is
properly aligned for side strokes it is as easy to aim at an
object ball with side on the cue ball as it is to make a plain
stroke, and all that is needed is the confidence that comes
with success.