It will be remembered that the last article brought us to the top of the table, although it did not state how the balls are to be got there, and if the game of two ordinary amateurs be watched it will be found that the desired grouping for top-of-the-table play is rarely gained by them, unless it just happens, in the flow of events, to come about. And yet there are constant positions in the course of a hundred up in which it is as easy to get the three balls in playable positions at the spot as it is to leave them anywhere else.
Here is one of them. The red ball is near a middle pocket; the white is in easy in-off position near the other middle pocket; and the player's ball is in hand. The obvious thing to do under these circumstances after taking an imaginary line from behind the spot down through the white ball is to play off the white just fine enough and gently enough to send it to the middle of the top cushion. For the next stroke—the potting of the red—the procedure has to be reversed. The point where the cue ball should strike the top cushion has to be located and the red ball has then to be potted with the degree of contact, with or without running side, that is required for the intended course of the white, the speed of which must at the same time be so regulated as to leave it in a lateral position a foot or so below the red.
In another favourable position—although it may not look like it to the uninitiated—the cue ball is over a top pocket, the red is on the spot, and the white ball is against the cushion behind it. The cross in-off is here gently made so as to leave the pot into the middle pocket, which in turn should leave the cue ball in the desired relation to the other two.
What is called the "ideal" spot position is not always to be gained in the first two shots, and it will frequently be found that neither the short cannon nor the pot into the corner pocket is reasonably promising. This constantly occurs even with the best professionals, who, it will be noticed, turn at once in such cases to a losing hazard, in making which they take care to leave either a drop cannon or an easy position for further strategic losing hazard play.
But their object all the time is to get back to the top of the table, although they take care not to be in a hurry to do so. They know that they are scoring all the time, but until they can get the required drop cannon exactly as they want it they leave the cannon game alone.
The most favoured drop cannon positions, it may here be noted, are two in number. One is with the object balls about equidistant from the D and the spot in half-ball position, and the other is with one of them towards the top of a side cushion. Both these strokes—which are amongst those most frequently played by professionals and which are equally within the power of any decent player—are called gathering strokes and their value cannot be over-rated. There are a dozen other ways of gathering the balls in the neighbourhood of the spot, but they need not be enumerated and will quickly be discovered by those who learn to think first of what is going to happen to the cue ball when they are potting, and to the object ball or balls when they are playing an in-off or a cannon.
One of the chief things to be done is to make a white loser followed by a pot, and another is to make a loser in such a way as to shape a drop cannon leading to the spot. This drop cannon needs carefully handling as it may ask for a full contact with the second ball or for a finer contact on one or other of its sides if the best positional results are to be obtained.
A very common error to be avoided is the playing of a direct cannon from hand when the object balls are fairly near together in the upper half of the table and no cushion or cushions intervene to break the run of the balls.
The frequent result of such play is to leave the cue ball above the object balls and scatter instead of gathering them.
On the other hand, as already indicated, there are very useful drop cannon positions in which the object balls are fairly near together and in which intervening cushion or cushions reduce the travel of the object balls. This position is towards a top corner of the table and the second object ball has to be played upon direct, or from off the top cushion, or from both the side and the top cushion according to the positional requirements of the stroke.
The moral effect upon a player of having always a definite and set positional object in view, such as that of attaining the top of the table, is enormous. It steadies him and, in a sense, forces him into the right sort of play. He is always asking himself the question: "How can I get the white behind the spot and the red on the spot by pocket play?" or "how can I, by means of a few losing hazards, shape up a drop cannon that will leave all three balls in the desired, or some easily adjustable, positions?"