BILLIARD HANDICAPS

THERE are perhaps few offices which ensure a greater amount of trouble, and are yet more thankless, than that of handicapper. In the first place, the greatest success possible is, to be found fault with by every one in the handicap without exception. We would at this, the commencement of the billiard season, throw out the following suggestions.

First, that in any large future handicap, whether any money be added or not, each player should subscribe a fixed sum, say £5 or £10. Secondly, that the players should handicap themselves in the following manner:— Each player should make a handicap which, according to the best of his ability, is a fair one, and without letting any one know what it is.

Then let each player, on a certain fixed day, send up his handicap to an umpire, who will take an average of the whole lot, this average to form the handicap.

Of course at starting some limit must be determined on. For instance, let it be mutually agreed that Roberts and Cook start at scratch, and, supposing the handicap to be among the best players, and to be one of 500 up, let the limit of the points conceded be 250.

Now, to avoid being invidious, we will suppose a fictitious player, whom we will call Mr. Smith, and we will suppose that he is one about whom opinions differ. Some think him a very fine player, and say that 150 points in 500 is amply sufficient; others again regard him as what in billiard language is called "a rank duffer," and accordingly give him the limit of points—viz., 250.

Suppose, therefore, opinion thus divided in a handicap of eight players, of which he is one; he himself and three others handicap him at 250, while the other four players handicap, him at 150.

Now by adding all these eight handicaps together, and dividing by eight, we get the exact number of points that he will receive to be 200, which is, as it should be, a medium between two extreme opinions.

One great advantage that this system of handicapping would possess over the ordinary one, would be, that the players could scarcely find fault with the handicap, and certainly the public would not complain.

Again, there would be no necessity to publish each of the eight handicaps with the name of the player who made it. The eight could be published, each player would recognise his own, and have to guess at the authorship of the other seven. We think the suggestion well worthy of consideration, and should be very glad to have the opinion of the players themselves on the subject.

We think, too, that if each player were, as we have said, to pay some sum of money into the handicap, it would do much to improve the handicap.

There is a vast difference in playing simply for a prize, and in playing for a sum of money actually staked out of pocket. Were each player to feel that some of his own money is depending on his play, it would do much towards rendering a billiard tournament more like a series of money matches than exhibition matches.

It may be urged by some against the system of making a handicap as we have suggested, that it would be unpleasant for a man to handicap himself, and that were his handicap known he would run the risk of being called either conceited or rapacious.

It would be for the players themselves to decide how much, these feelings would affect them, and should it be found that any such feeling existed, the remedy is exceedingly simple. Let each player —and we are supposing, simply for argument's sake, that there are eight, though of course the same system would hold good for any number—handicap all except himself, and let the average of the handicap thus formed be taken. By adding each player's numbers together and dividing by seven, we should have the result of the collected wisdom of all the players as to what number of points each one should receive.

One strange feature among modern billiard players is that the difficulty of handicapping them consists not so much in not giving them enough, but in giving them too many points, and thereby hurting their vanity. This certainly shows a healthy tone of feeling, and one that can be easily accounted for.

Suppose two professional runners, who are exactly equal, were handicapped, the one to give the other a start of 50 yards in the mile, the receiver of the start would not for one moment object, because he would know the race would be a certainty, and that he could win every time they ran. If, on the contrary, two professional billiard players, who are known to be exactly equal, were handicapped the one to give the other 50 points in a game of 500 up, it is by no means certain that the receiver of points would win. The element of chance enters so largely into billiards that it is really only in a long series of games that a number of points like 50 tells at all.

Suppose Taylor were to give Cook, or Cook Taylor, 70 points in 100, the odds are not 10 to 1 for one game; but suppose either were to give the other these points for a series of games, the best say of 21, the odds would be 50 to 1.

In fact, in a handicap among first-class players, the difference of a few points, such as 20 or 30, barely affects the issue of the handicap, but nevertheless considerably affects the standing of the players in the estimation of the public.

It is a curious feature in the publication of the weights, if we may so call it, at billiards, that the anxiety of two rival players to see the handicap is, to see not which has got most, but which has got least.