Why does a hazard with or off the red ball at billiards count three and a cannon or a hazard with or off the white ball two? What was the origin of this scale and why was it adopted? Is there any better reason why red should count three than there is why white should count three? Indeed, in the opinion of one writer to The Billiard Monthly the game would be fairer under modern conditions if the reward for hazards with or off the white were reversed.
Writing to The Billiard Monthly in December, 1912, George Clarke, head marker of the Junior Carlton Club:
"I have a suggestion to make that I think is worth consideration, as it appeals to the amateur style of play. As the ruling of the game stands now, the winning hazard is barred practically; the cannons are limited; and they are talking of checking the losing hazards. If they do, then the whole of the game is penalized. Now for my suggestion.
Instead of the red ball counting 3, let the white ball count 3 and the red ball 2—that is all. If a player is good at losers he naturally will play on the highest scoring ball, which would then be the white, and he cannot regain position by potting that ball as he could at present do with the red when his strength was faulty. The white should be the highest counting, not the red. The white is penalized, if potted, by remaining dead. The red in such a case is spotted. Therefore the red ball should be regarded as the minor."
We regard this suggestion as being quite as good as any that have yet been put forward so far as the alteration of scoring values is concerned. Another proposal, which may be placed alongside of it for the purpose of comparison is that recently made by J. P. Mannock, the well-known cueist and writer on the game, and practically tried in the course of a short game under his auspices by Inman and Reece. Mannock would allot one point to losing hazards, two to cannons, and three to winning hazards, the red ball in none of these cases having any special scoring significance.
The object of each proposed alteration of existing scoring conditions that has come up in recent years has been, of course, the limitation of the consecutive red loser as exploited by George Gray, and there is no doubt that either of the suggestions described above would have, to a degree, the desired effect. Gray would be hampered in his breakbuilding if he could not profitably pot the red and if, on the other hand, a losing hazard only returned him three he would have little inducement to continue his present methods. But it seems clear to us that as soon as Gray discovered that by cultivating the too of the table game he could score fixe by means of successive pots and cannons as quickly as he could score one by means of a hazard he would specialize to a greater extent than has yet been attempted on the winnercannon movement and rarely go to baulk at all. This would mean an almost equal restriction in the variety of the game to that of the present interminable loser, until at last a table measuring only a yard down from the top cushion would answer most of the requirements of the game.
Nor is the other suggestion reversing the scoring values of the red and white balls for all purposes impossible of criticism.
It is true that neither ball could be profitably potted where the white was the principal objective, but there would, even if the white ball were potted for position purposes, still be the red to go at, and the difference would be not less sure, but merely less fruitful, scoring. There is also the point to be considered that a player like Gray, when intent on his one-ball sequences, does not, as a matter of fact, often pot the red after he has once got his position. We have frequently seen him go through a session without potting the. red once, and if this were done with the while the conditions for the time being would remain unchanged.
But the main objection that we would suggest to both these propositions and to all propositions that seek to shift scoring values as between ball and ball is that the public would not be at all likely readily to accept such an alteration.
People dislike very much to have long-established customs interfered with. Whether the existing practice is quite the most logical that could be devised does not greatly matter to them. It has served its purpose, they say, from the earliest records of the game and can go on very well as it is. Furthermore, they would have to change their whole plan of attack and defence, and break-building methods that had become instinctive with them would have to be changed and adapted to the new order. Under the Mannock system the losing hazard player would be guiding the white for a drop cannon instead of another pocket position, and under the Clarke system he would be trying some method of getting on to the white instead of exploiting the red from its fixed position on the spot.
Allowing that there is anything in our contentions—and we think that there is—what alternative remains? It must be one that (1) prevents any tedious sequence; (2) that interferes as little as possible with existing rules, and (3) that causes as little change as possible in existing breakbuilding methods. Such an alternative has several times been put forward by The Billiard Monthly, and we contend that it is still the best that has yet been suggested. It is: "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."
When, in a past generation, Peall made long sequences by means of the red winner, everyone practised the red winner, and thousands of amateurs became fairly proficient at it. The same thing has occurred with the red loser under the initiative of Gray, and losing hazard play was never before on the same scale of excellence amongst amateurs as
it is to-day. But the red winner has been barred as a scoring force, and, if it were not for snooker pool, potting as an art would be practically dead to-day in amateur ranks.
The reason why top-of-the-table play figures so little in the amateur game, even in championships, is that there is no inducement to cultivate the consecutive red winner, which is the foundation and also the backbone of top-of-the-table play. So long as an amateur can make his cannon so as to leave the easy pot, and his pot so as to leave the easy cannon, he can go on. But the moment he has to forsake the cannon for the pot, both his knowledge and his courage fail and he breaks up the position.
With a sequence of twenty-five of any class of genuine identical strokes permitted there would be no scope for tedious and protracted repetition; the game would become an all-round one in every sense of the word; and the standard of amateur play would, within a very short time, be found to be enormously enhanced.