In book after book dealing with billiards the ordinary amateur is advised to leave the top-of-the-table game severely alone. It is pointed out that he cannot hope to excel at it; that it is far too difficult; that it requires a lifetime's practice and application; and that by attempting it he merely leaves the red over a top corner pocket and opens up a good all-round game for his opponent. The purpose of this article is to show that the cannon-pot or pot-cannon game at the top of the table is by no means the abstruse and unattainable art or science that it is represented to be, although it is true that the movements require great care and accuracy if the right direction is to be given to the balls, and if covers and too free running are to be prevented.
Two prime essentials are the ability to make very gentle screws and to pot with side. These essentials belong—although not to the same extent—to the all-round game. Another indispensable condition is extremely light cueing. But apart from these executant points the great thing is to know what to do with the various positions that arise, and it can be said at once that the whole thing—including the close rail and other cannons that have to be worked in from time to time—is comparatively simple. There is a clearly-definable course to follow, and there are certain pitfalls that must be carefully avoided.
The first thing to practise is the spot stroke, and here is the way to play it. Place the red ball on the spot and the cue ball eight or nine inches behind it in a direct line with the centre of the pocket. Make (for preference) the bouclée or ring bridge and shorten the hold of the cue. These precautions are to ensure that the cue point shall not be dipped in making the screw-back stroke. Now send the cue right through the under portion of the cue ball with only sufficient strength to bring it back, after potting the red, to its original position.
It will probably be a little to the right or left of that position, and another screw-back would drive the red on to one or other of the pocket shoulders.
If the direct line is to the lower shoulder the aim is a quarter of an inch wide of the centre of the red on the required side, and the cue must be held heavily so as to stun or deaden the run of the cue ball, which should come to rest, after impact, in a spot position.
If the direct line is to the upper shoulder a different stroke is called for, and it is, perhaps, the prettiest, as well as one of the most useful, in the game of billiards. Again, the contact has to be just off the centre of the red, but, as running side has now to be employed, the aim must be dead centre in order to preserve the cue alignment. Added to side there must be plenty of top, and if, in addition, the cue delivery be accurate, light, and free, the performer will see the red drop in the pocket and the cue ball glide gracefully from off two cushions to take up a useful spot attack post. The same stroke is played when the two balls are in line with the top shoulder even though the red may not be on the spot, and it is, with its necessary modification of aim as the line becomes less direct, a quite essential stroke in top-of-table play.
Here, then, are three of the five main spot strokes accounted for, and the remaining two have as close relation to each other as the shoulder-line strokes. The cue ball, let it be imagined, has come to rest so that the direct line through the red is more below the bottom or above the top shoulder than in the previous two instances. In the former case the aim is midway between the centre and edge of the red, and a very gentle plain stroke leaves the cue ball all right. In the latter case the aim is again midway between the centre and edge of the red, but the cue must be held less lightly, and the run of the cue ball checked in this way as it rebounds from the top cushion to take up its spot position on the other side.
The only further spot strokes are the half-ball and finer pots—the latter with side, and sometimes one side of the spot may be chosen for the cue ball's stopping place and sometimes the other, check or running side being employed in these cases at discretion.
From the foregoing will be gathered—when the position lends itself to top-of-the-table play —what are the basic principles upon which the cueman who would like to run up fifty without returning to baulk must rely. They are mainly that he must alternate gentle cannons with pots made at proper strength; that he must make the cannons in such a way as to avoid covers and so leave the cue ball in position for the red; and that he must put down the red with such contact and with such use of side (if required) that the cue ball will be steered to or stopped at the required angle for again downing the red (if the preceding pot was not from the spot) or for a position-leaving cannon.