Previous articles in this series have dealt with middle pocket half-ball play from the two ends of the baulk semi-circle when the red is on what Col. Western terms the "magic spot," 23 inches from the baulk line in the exact centre of the width of the table. This stroke, as has been shown, if accurately made as to aim and strength, guides the cue ball into the chosen middle pocket and brings the red straight back to the same spot after its contact with the top cushion. From any position on an imaginary line drawn from the magic spot to within, say, fifteen inches of a middle pocket, the stroke is still a half-ball one and the red returns straight down the table, although nearer and nearer to its side as the cue is advanced along the baulkline to make the necessary angle.
There are also half-ball placings in the D when the red ball is below the imaginary lines, and there is also one a little above the lines near the middle from which the half-ball stroke can still be made, although to do so in this case side must be imparted to the cue ball. But the real crux of middle-pocket play is reached when the object ball is below or slightly above the imaginary lines before referred to, and at varying positions between the two pockets.
When it is near the baulk line it may be gently guided into a more playable position by a very fine gentle stroke into the pocket that is nearest, and when it is very near the pocket— but not so near as to make potting preferable— the best and safest play is a three-quarter or fuller contact which conducts it back towards the central line of the table by way of the side and top cushion. These latter strokes are, however, made by way of getting out of difficulties that have been created by inaccurate aiming or cueing at the immediately preceding attempts. The great thing is to avoid such gratuitous difficulties, and this can only be achieved by possessing a knowledge—when the half-ball is no longer on as an up-and-down-the table position stroke—of the required aims and strengths for fuller strokes when the object ball is below the line and for finer strokes when it is above the line and towards the pocket.
How, then, is the object ball to be so struck by the cue ball as to bring it back near the central line of the table, and how is the cue ball to be so placed as to ensure the in-off?
There is only one way and that is to apply to these varying positions the "eye-training" rule that was laid down in the last lesson for instances in which the object ball is on the magic spot and the cue ball at varying and evenly-graded positions along one-half of the baulk line within the D and along the same distance beyond it. It is a question, really, of what professional players call "dividing the ball." The eye locates the point on the ball's circumference at which the object ball would have to be struck with the cue to drive it in the desired direction, and if the placing of the cue ball when this observation 5s made is found to be also such that aim taken the same distance beyond the intended point of contact as that point is distant from the centre of the ball would be of the right fullness or fineness to ensure the in-off, there is nothing beyond accurate aim, light and straight, cueing, and carefully applied strength to think about. If the cue ball placing is found to be not quite right it must be varied accordingly, and the middle pocket dividing stroke may even have to be given up as impracticable and a pot, or a top pocket in-off, or a cannon substituted. Professionals and other good players are constantly to be seen moving the cue ball about and taking their bearings in this way. They are not in the least doubting their ability to make a score. What they are anxious about is that the stroke, if difficult, should be the lesser of two evils and that in any case it should be what is known as "the game."
To make successfully the required contacts for guiding the object ball in parallel lines or nearly so up and down the table and, at the same time, ensure the immediate score something more than casual aiming and cueing are needed, even if the exact point at which to aim is thoroughly understood. It is just as possible to aim correctly but to cue imperfectly as it is to cue properly and err in the aim. Professionals take no risks of this kind. They may seem to be aiming and cueing with an ease and almost an abandon that would appear to amount almost to carelessness but if a glance be taken at their eyes instead of at their cues it will be seen that they are in deadly earnest all the time. And anent this a remark may be made that is not fanciful but represents a physiological fact. Successful billiard players develop exceptionally fine eyes, as anyone with the least claim to observation must have remarked, and this is simply a natural result of the development of the particular brain cells that vibrate the most readily to the images that are the most impressively received by them.