Fixed and exact billiards would seem to be an ideal that is not likely to be achieved. Tables, cues, and balls vary enormously, much to the discomfiture and sometimes almost to the despair of the earnest follower of the game. Cushions have many degrees of speed and resiliency; pockets are of varying shapes and measurements; there is no absolute standard as to cue length, weight, or girth; and balls may be made of ivory, bonzoline, crystalate, or even of some unnameable fourth substance. Forced suddenly to play on a much slower or faster table than normal, an amateur (and equally a professional) finds himself for a considerable time quite at sea; and the same thing occurs when composition balls are exchanged for the familiar ivories, or vice versa.
As we have said, these differences exist, and we suppose that they always will exist, and they are not solely accounted for by the exigencies of competition amongst manufacturers.
Players themselves are partly responsible. There are advocates of the fast and also of the slower table; of the light and of the heavy cue; of the ivory and of the composition ball. That being so, billiards has to be taken as it has been, as it is, and as it will, in all probability, continue to be - namely, as a game in which the player has to consider his playing media and conditions, pretty much as the golfer on unfamiliar links and the cricketer on a dead or fast wicket has equally to do.
These remarks and this article are suggested by the exceptional set of surroundings that is at the present moment surrounding two young players who are contesting at the Holborn Hall as this issue goes to press, in the first of a series of encounters that will probably become as notable in billiard history during the next generation as that great match still is in which the elder John Roberts and William Cook first met as the respective champions of vigorous and gentle play—when what was termed "power of cue" was first pitted against that scientific non-disturbance of the balls which rendered "power of cue" practically unnecessary.
Since the great Roberts-Cook match billiards has practically been transformed. Breaks of 200 or 300 at the most have been placed in an almost negligible category by the frequency of breaks made by all-round play and three times the size, and players have specialized on given strokes with such mammoth-break results that the strokes in question have been limited to a hundredth part of their possible productive value. At the present moment the question before the billiard world is a two-fold one. Is the repeated losing hazard off a single ball essentially a composition ball stroke and, therefore, not one that seriously affects champion billiards, or is it a specialized stroke equally affecting the ivory ball and one that should, consequently, be limited, as the consecutive winning hazard or the consecutive close cannon has been? The opinion of The Billiard Monthly on both these points has been frequently expressed during the past three or four years and it may—perhaps usefully—be set out here in the existing topical circumstances. Our view has always been (1) that the continuous red losing hazard is as easy with ivory balls as with composition balls, and (2) that there should either be no limit whatever to any genuine stroke in billiards or that winning or losing hazards and close cannons should be limited to a sequence in each case of 25 strokes. When 25 consecutive winning hazards have been made the balls should be spotted; when 25 consecutive direct cannons have been made a cushion should intervene; and when 25 consecutive losing hazards have been made off one ball a cannon, a losing hazard off the other ball, or a winning hazard, should intervene. To our mind this course would be feasible and strictly logical, whereas the existing practical extinction of the much more difficult winning hazard in favour of the unlimited losing hazard is both illogical and absurd.
Perhaps we may also be permitted here to set forth once again our reasons for declaring that the continuous losing hazard is no more difficult with ivory balls than it is with composition balls. We would even go farther and postulate what may be regarded as the somewhat daring suggestion that the stroke is really easier with ivories than with any other existent class of ball. We do not say that Gray will win his match with Newman. These lines are being penned just as that match is opening; but whatever should happen at the Holborn Hall in the course of the fortnight would not affect our argument. We do not know what are Gray's methods of practice. He may have to play himself into the new order of things, as most professionals do, without considering much the fixed scientific principles that are involved, or he may take these principles into consideration and so shorten the duration of the transition period. But of one thing we make no doubt. After he has given to ivory the attention that he gave to crystalate in the days of his 2,000 break, and the attention that he has given to bonzoline during the times of his 1,000 breaks, he will be just as likely again to record runs of 1,000 and 2,000 dimensions. And the reason is this. The backbone of the middle-pocket loser is the run-through stroke, and short run-through strokes are infinitely more difficult with composition balls than they are with ivory on account of the greater and less certain throw-off.
This additional throw-off may be useful in the longer range shots for indifferent players, but it presents slight advantage to the losing-hazard expert, who, if he fails to keep the ivory half-ball range available, when playing from hand, must be playing badly—as he would himself be the first to admit.
We are aware that, as opposed to this general view there may be cited the supposed greater accuracy of composition balls, but that point—even if existent—does not appear to us to touch the question. Players whose losing hazard striking product runs into hundreds at a time are not likely to submit to the use of ivory balls that are untrue to the extent of a hair's breadth in their running. They have only to call for another set.