Sir;
I have read with much interest your article (Dec. llth) on the subject of professionals and amateurs.
Whilst fully admitting the wide difference between the two classes of players, I do not think the reason you assign for that difference is the true one.
You justly observe that in cricket and various other sports, the line of difference between amateur and professional play is barely distinguishable, whilst in billiards the two classes are "not in the same street."
In the cricket world the best amateurs are those who have taken to the game almost from their infancy, and that, too, under the guidance of a well-known professional.
A boy goes to Harrow or Eton at, say, ten years of age. If he possesses the least talent for cricket he soon shows it. He is then taken in hand by the elder boys, drafted into the "house" eleven, and coached daily by the professional, till at length he gets into the first eleven—then goes to Oxford or Cambridge, plays for the 'Varsity, and becomes one of the "gentlemen of England."
Now, compare this career with that of an amateur billiard player of the average type. Let us assume that he is a young man from the country, whose kind friends have started him in the City in a merchant's office. He takes a fancy to billiards, meets a friend of similar tastes} and the two adjourn to the nearest table in the middle of the day, whilst their employers fondly imagine they are at dinner. They knock the balls about for an hour or two and return to business. They neither know anything of the rudiments of the game, and have no one to teach them. The marker, finding they are "muffs," probably leaves them to score the game for themselves.
So they go on day after day, picking up a" smattering" of the game just as an Englishman residing abroad might begin to jabber the language without learning its alphabet.
The fact is that billiards, like everything else that is worth learning, requires study as well as practice, and that study should be under the eye and guidance of a competent master.
But going on to another class of amateurs, those who, having mastered the rudiments of the game, can occasionally make breaks of 20 or 30. How is it that these men so seldom improve? I believe the true reason lies in the fact that as a general rule they persistently avoid playing with any one better than themselves. They seem to think that they ought to get their billiards for nothing, and accordingly sit down and wait for a victim whom they can easily beat. They do get their game for nothing, but it is worth to them just what it costs.
They never improve, simply because they see no play from which they can learn anything.
My own belief is that, next to taking lessons, the only way to improve one's play is habitually to play with better players than oneself—to watch every stroke, noticing how your opponent strikes his ball, what strength he plays with, what side, if any, he puts on; and then when a similar stroke occurs in your play to imitate your opponent as nearly as possible.
I myself have played billiards for nearly fifteen years.
Until five years ago I had never made forty off the balls.
I then took a few lessons, and followed out the advice above given, of playing frequently with my superiors.
The result has been that I am now considered by my friends a pretty"warm member," and have made several breaks of between 100 and 150. Let some of your readers try the same plan, and I shall be much surprised if they do not thank me for my advice.—Yours faithfully, AN AMATEUR.