A Few Cue Tips

• It is really less difficult to make a good double or single baulk than to make an all-round cannon. The thing to do is first to decide over which baulk pocket to leave the red.
• The stroke now becomes a doubling pool shot and the only thing left to do is to apply to the cue ball the amount of top or side that is necessary to carry this ball also below the line.
• Quite spectacular shots can be made almost with certainty by quite moderate players and one of them at least is distinctly useful in a game. The red is, say, on the end of the baulk line and the cue ball somewhere in the top quarter of the table on the same side. A hard, straight stroke with top is almost sure to land the cue ball with a rush into the baulk pocket and the probability is that the red will be left up the table in good position. A little pocket side helps the stroke.
• In billiards the body position is all important. Watch a good player and you will note that he frequently, when the stroke is critical, shifts the position of the body rather than of the cue. Take a very fine cut, for example. It is useless to expect to get this stroke with certainty if the body is in the position for a half-ball stroke. If the body is not shifted the butt of the cue must be brought nearer to, or further from, the body, and this sort of thing quickly ruins the delivery.
• Much more important to billiard playing than any question of transmitted side is transmitted force, and in every stroke must be remembered that elementary principle in dynamics that what one colliding body gains in momentum the other loses, and vice-versa. With fuller than half-ball contact the object ball gains and the cue ball loses, whilst with finer than half-ball contact the object ball travels less after contact and the cue ball more.
• All indifferent position players would double their average breaks by rigorous observance of the following essential rule: Make no stroke when playing for a cannon or in-off without first considering what direction the ball aimed at is likely to take, and attempt no pot without first considering what direction the cue ball will follow. When the mind and eye have become trained in this way decent breaks will become usual and habitual and object balls will rarely be lost or left safe.
• With the object balls a few inches apart, one on each side of the spot, and the cue ball in hand, two courses are open. One is a full screw cannon stunning the cue ball against the ball aimed at and bringing the latter back from the bottom cushion and the other—not easy—is a fine slow clip on the red and a gentle drop back on to the white from the top cushion. Try each way a score of times and judge by the result which stroke suits you best and leaves the most.
• To realize the wrong and right manner of aligning the cue when applying side place the cue ball on the centre baulk spot and align the cue with the baulk line. Now move the cue point round a little, without shifting it bodily and parallel with the baulk line, and it will be seen at once that the ball if struck would travel wide of the end of the baulk line. Therefore the way to play side is always to look over the centre of the cue ball but to place the whole of the cue parallel with the intended line of travel of the ball.