A Few Cue Tips

• If not behind the stroke, alter the position of the feet rather than of the body.
• Keep the cue hand near to the body. It is only very short people that need to keep it farther away.
• Perhaps you cannot even play the cue ball straight to and fro along the baulk line. If not, practise this one movement until you can.
• Don't be contented with just scoring hazards. Try to get the dead centre of the pocket every time. The best players always do this.
• A half-ball throw-off, if the stroke be not fast, can still be obtained by a slightly thicker than half-ball contact, but not by a slightly thinner one. The moral is obvious.
• As soon as you have decided the angle and got it in your eye, let the cue go with the necessary strength and compensation. Further preliminary movements are superfluous.
• It is quite easy to avoid kisses or any undesirable direction of the object ball if, previously to making the intended stroke, the eye follows the line that it must necessarily take.
• When the balls are so placed that either a pocket or cannon may result, ignore the alternative contingency and play definitely for one or the other. Otherwise both may be missed—and deservedly.
• When a cushion cannon requires side, remember that it is better to vary the amount of side rather than to alter the position of the cue ball if that is already right for the intended run of the first object ball.
• In screw strokes remember that, when near, thicker contact produces more throw-off than increased strength, but that at more than a short distance there must be certain increased strength in addition to the thicker contact.
• Get a piece of wood one inch and a shade more high. Place the spot of the white ball against the top of this piece of wood; remove the wood, and you have the centre of the ball indicated. Its apparent lowness will surprise you.
• When an angle—which is the case in some positions on the board—looks wider or narrower than it really is, take the angle for a short distance only towards the pocket or other objective. This will at once put the matter right.
• Only let the centre of the cue tip be more than one inch from the table at near range or in masse strokes. Dead central striking, wherever the necessary" way "can be got on the ball with it, is by far the most effective stroke.
• In making very fine shots be particularly sure that you have the centre of the cue ball between the eyes instead of sideways to them. The dead straight pointing of the cue nearly an inch wide of the edge of the object ball is also extremely important.