There seems to be an opinion—although it is not easy to locate or clearly to define—that exhibition matches of billiards are not appreciated by the public to the same extent as those to which a money issue is known or believed to be attached. If this opinion be well-founded two points of considerable importance are therein involved. The first is that the public goes to billiard matches with the hope of witnessing an ordeal out of which one player will emerge triumphant and enriched and the other crestfallen and impoverished, and the second is that professional billiardists will not give of their best when playing against each other when there is no money stake at issue. In other words, that spectators do not go to billiard matches solely to enjoy, and profit by, professional play, and that professionals do not enter upon them with a view of giving the best possible expositions of their art, but rather as a means of engineering certain outside factors such as bets and stakes. The same idea is even extended to amateur circles, although not, as we hope and believe, in very many cases. Yet we have known not a few instances in which amateurs, on occasion, decline to play even friendly games unless there is a stake— however small—at issue, and there are numbers of them who, rather than divide the cost of the "table," instead of playing for it, prefer not to play at all.
This attitude of mind on the part of the amateur is, to our way of thinking, inconceivable. The amateur in any sport or pastime who does not love the game for its own sake is existing under a misnomer. The very word "amateur," in its derivation, means "lover of," and of all the games that are played by amateurs, billiards is the most enthusiastically "loved" for its own sake.
Leaving that point apart, however, and returning to professional billiards, we confess to being at the present moment in a state of considerable mystification as to how the real or supposed money matches between professionals stand and what is their raison d'etre. We had imagined in our innocence that when stakes were deposited in a "genuine money match," and one of the players beat the other, the money of the loser, or of his backer, went into the pocket of the winner. That, however, does not appear to be the case, and it seems that not only do billiard professionals rarely stake their own money, but that, when they win, their backer's stakes, together with those of the other side, go into the pocket of the backer.
Our information on this point is gathered from the evidence of T. Reece in an action in regard to winnings that was brought against him by a former partner, and from which he successfully emerged. In reply to questions by the plaintiff's solicitor (Mr. Judson), Reece said:— "I never play for my own money unless it is an extraordinarily good thing."
Mr. Judson: Did you think this match in 1908 was a good thing?—It was a certainty.
Had you any means of getting hold of £250 in two months?—I could have got thousands by asking people to back me.
What would they get?—They would have got the winnings if I won.
You might have lost?—If I had lost I would have paid.
Could you have paid back £150 in two months?—I might have done.
Do you really suggest that Oldfield ran all this risk for nothing?—I understood he was doing it as a friend.
Do you find many friends who will do this?—Oh, yes.
Thousands.
This really carries the point farther than we have done.
Not only does the backer take the winners, but the unsuccessful player is expected to find the losings. So where do we stand? If the professional has, in the last event, to find the losings, but cannot touch the winnings, why does not every player back himself with his own money and thus get rid entirely of the useless third party? We suspect, however that the case may have, unconsciously, been a little over-stated by Reece, if the report is correctly given in the newspapers, or that, in the final resort, the custom, as described, applies to himself alone and not to professionals generally. For, taken as it appears on the surface, it is a little too absurd.
But our immediate object in penning these lines is to inquire whether, no matter what are their exact nature as to risk, these "money matches," as they are called, are worth while. Why cannot the backer—real or nominal— be left out of the affair altogether? To this the objection may be raised that all professionals could not afford to find their own stakes, and that most of them would not care to do so if they could, unless, as Reece puts it, they had an "extraordinarily good thing on." In passing, it may be suggested that for one player to have an extraordinarily good thing on signifies that his opponent has an extraordinarily misplaced opinion of himself, and that this opinion would be apt to be modified if it was his own money that the player was risking. The other consideration—that of the ability of all professionals to find the required stakes— is the only really serious one, and here a suggestion may be made which commends itself to us, however little it may do to others. Why should not all professional matches be fought on the basis of the winner taking a certain proportion of the entrance money? It seems to us that this arrangement would automatically settle all the points that are at issue. If it be true that professionals and spectators alike need the stimulus of money risk, here would be the risk as an ever-present factor, and if it were desired to make each individual session instinct with zest and grim determination, the percentage of the takings might be the guerdon of the player who first reached his points during that particular session.