A Few Cue Tips

• A common piece of bad play is to spot in baulk for a halfball long-range loser into a coiner pocket without first noting whether the contact will drive the object ball towards the middle of the table after leaving the top cushion or towards the side. If the latter, the placing of the cue ball in baulk should, of course, be wider than half-ball, a little extra force being employed in the stroke.
• A stroke to know and to understand is the kiss stroke with the object ball against a cushion. With full contact the cue ball comes straight back; with half-ball contact it takes a right angle; and with aim mid-way between edge and centre it returns half-way between right angle and straight back. It can be played with confidence and nearly always comes off, besides generally leaving decent position.
• When a cannon ball or pocket is a little wide of the halfball angle some players (so-called) invariably force the stroke. By applying slow running side up the table and slow check side down the table and aiming fuller than halfball in the one case and finer in the other the shot can be made with ease and certainty and good position provided.
• Although half-ball shots are good it is a great mistake to play half-ball as a matter of course simply because it is on. Decide first where the object ball is to be directed and then make contact as required with the necessary strength, and, if necessary, compensation. This is the invariable rule in playing losing hazards and players who neglect to do this can never hope to make real breaks.
• It is an excellent plan, at stated intervals, to revert to single ball practice, in order to make sure that the aim is correct, and that the cue ball can be driven accurately towards a given point on a cushion with and without side.
• There are fixed positions on the table at which accuracy of aim can be tested with a single ball. These include along the baulk line and up and down the table over the spots, as well as diagonal and all-round strokes landing the ball into a given pocket or to a given point.
• A great advantage of regular single ball practice is that it begets confidence in a game in this class of stroke, as, for instance, when balls have to be disturbed in baulk, or cannons made by first striking a cushion, or a covered ball reached, or even scored with, when playing at snooker pool.
• And all the time the aim is being improved, because, on the same table, if kept at an even temperature, the angles are always the same, and whenever a plain stroke varies in its results there is positive proof that the fault is in the aim.
• An excellent test stroke, and one also useful in a game, when the red is over a bottom pocket and the striker's ball is in hand with the white not nicely playable, is a dead central aim at the middle spot with the cue ball half way between two of the baulk spots. This should land the cue ball in the bottom corner pocket every time, and a slight variation of the cue ball's position should bring it at will a little wide of either of the pocket shoulders when the red happens to be there.