181.—"Have one hundred points ever been made in five minutes, or is this impossible? It means something approaching two points per second."
Stevenson is credited with having done this on several occasions, and he was timed on one occasion for 20¼ minutes, during which time he scared 392, although he had twice to use the long rest. Roberts has exceeded 1,000 points in 60 minutes, which is also phenomenal.
182.—"Engaging for the first time in a game of snooker pool and being asked to break I, much to my surprise, set the room in a roar by going for the pack and scattering the reds. What was there so greatly amusing in this, and why should not the pack be broken up?"
Where snooker players are equally balanced and equally bad it does not greatly matter what is done with the pack, but if the player following you had been really good the conditions would have favoured a useful break, as nearly all the pockets would be surrounded by reds asking to be put down. The correct opening move now is a glancing stroke on the side of the pack disturbing it as little as possible and bringing the cue ball back to baulk. Formerly the cue ball was played gently on to the top cushion and back to the base of the pyramid.
This fine contact and retreat to a distance is one of the best safety moves in snooker and is quite easy to do. It is far better than attempting almost impossible scores with the probability of leaving a good game on for the opponent.
183.—"Whilst watching young Taylor in the preliminary tournament at Soho Square, I could not help wondering whether the crouching attitude, which brings the chin right on to the cue, is really necessary in order to ensure correct aim. The gentleman who was seated next to me said that he believed that there was a great deal in it and that it was really a question of sighting along the barrel of a gun or firing practically at random. What is your opinion as to this?"
Roberts and others have made their breaks of many hundreds whilst retaining an easy and natural position, and we do not see why other players should not do the same. The crouching methods imported into horse-racing from America have not added elegance to the art of equestrianship, and the new motor-cycle crouch is a thing to shudder at and abhor. The result to professionals who specialize in this way may seem to justify the means employed, although we are not sure that statistics would, in the long run, prove anything conclusive in their favour. But to amateurs, whether in billiard playing, horse-racing, or motor-cycle riding, we should certainly say; Avoid the crouch.
184.—"I should like you to explain in The Billiard Monthly how a masse stroke is made."
A masse shot is played with the cue held vertically. Some players leave the hand on the front of the cue in making the stroke and others shift it round with the knuckles at the back. It is really better to take a lesson from a professional in the masse stroke, and a half-guinea paid for this purpose would not be money thrown away. But if the stroke is to be acquired by one's-self the first essential is not to be afraid of it, but to treat it as an ordinary stroke with the player horizontal instead of the cue. Everything then proceeds in the usual fashion, screw, side and top included. The best masse bridge is made as follows: Keep the four fingers and the thumb apart and press the two middle fingers vertically on the table or cushion. Now tuck the forefinger beneath the thumb and the result is a perfect bridge, and the only thing to remember is to press firmly with the two fingers on the cloth and impart a nice, free, easy motion to the cue instead of a convulsive prod or jerk.
185.—"In the billiard room I frequent they have a rule which I think wrong, and I would be glad if you would kindly settle the point and insert same in your next issue. In playing at snooker, if a player pots the last red ball and goes in-off with the same stroke they allow the next player to take his choice of the coloured balls, and after potting the one he chooses he takes the rest in their order as usual. This seems to me wrong. I think the next player ought to commence with the yellow ball even if he is snookered from it."
The next player must take the yellow. The choice of coloured ball belongs only to a player who has just properly potted the red, and in the case described the red was potted, but penalized, and, as there is no red left for the next player, there is no sequence of red and coloured for him to make and he must commence to take the coloured balls in their order.
186.—"Is it possible to send the cue straight through the ball when side is being employed? I always try to do this, but have not yet succeeded, and I notice that some really great players seem to give the cue a sideways deflection after making the stroke."
The cue should always be delivered perfectly straight, and this point has, perhaps, as much to do with success in billiards as any other that can be mentioned. It is difficult to do always, but the right place for the cue to stop is in the line of the stroke and to this there is no exception. Even when, in forcing and in close-cueing strokes, the cue has to be sent up after contact this should still be done in the exact line of stroke and everything in the nature of a flourish avoided. Gray, and now young Taylor, carry the correct idea to an extreme which is, to our mind, absurd, as they make a separate carry-on action with the cue to satisfy themselves that they have not deviated in any way. This sort of thing, however, belongs to the class-room and the student days, and becomes a mere mannerism apart from it.
When the stroke is made it is made and nothing that can be done alters it.
187.—"There are two strokes that always seem to beat me in the matter of keeping the object ball in play. When screwing into a corner pocket with the object ball below mine the object doubles laterally across the table and rests in baulk, and when playing a long forcer into a baulk pocket off a ball below the baulk line such ball invariably returns to baulk. How am I to prevent this?"
In the first case play more fully and less strongly. The doubling will then be straighter across the table and the middle pocket in-off should be left. The other stroke is concerned, amongst other things, with the fastness of the table.
On a match table the object ball should come out of baulk again, but on a rather slower table fuller contact, imparting more pace to the object ball, or rather lower cueing imparting less pace must be adopted.