The previous eleven pages of this series have been mainly devoted to object ball direction in middle pocket play, to angle judging in top pocket play, to the pot-cannon movement at the top of the table, and to close cannon work in the same, productive and prolific area. The extreme importance of correct body position, careful sighting, and free and smooth cue action, has also been emphasized. Perhaps the present article may be profitably devoted to a few essential collaterals of billiard play that are too often neglected.
Take, for instance, what may be termed the "snatch" style of stroke, which it is so easy to fall into and so difficult to discard when it has once become a habit. The "snatch" stroke is one in which the cue is brought quickly back and sent forward to the stroke at precisely the same pace. Disaster without end accompanies this habit. Sometimes the cue ball is insufficiently reached by the cue; at other times—and frequently—a miscue results; and almost invariably a wrong direction is imparted to the cue ball.
The backward movement of the cue immediately before the stroke should always be slower than the forward one, just as the backward swing of the golf driver has to be slower than the forward action that sweeps the ball away. As the cue ball is addressed for the last time the eye should note the precise relation of the cue tip to the part of the cue ball that it is intended to strike, and when this essential relationship has been provided for the glance should be smartly transferred to the exact point on or off the object ball which represents the correct point of aim. That point in a plain stroke is always twice as far from the centre of the object ball as the desired point of contact, except when side is being employed. In this latter case the aim must be farther from or nearer to the centre of the object ball according as to whether running or check side is being used. In playing slowly with side, however, on to an object ball well up the table, this adjustment of aim need not be considered, as the influence of the nap of the cloth just about accounts for the difference. When playing with slow side on to an object ball some distance down the table, the aim is much less simple and presents real difficulty. The best plan, therefore, when playing down the table with side is to do so at a fair pace, which means that the nap element will have little or no influence.
Reverting to the question of aim and cue delivery, there is another point that is as important as the steady withdrawal of the cue in the last movement and its crisp and decisive "punch" right into the ball. The point referred to is the absolute necessity of keeping the cue as straight as a line in its final backward and forward motion. Much practice should be devoted by the beginner at billiards to this one simple thing.
If any reader of these lines wants to have an object lesson as to what the preceding paragraph exactly means, let him, if possible, take an early opportunity of watching Falkiner play, and let him during the first ten minutes or quarter-of-an-hour note nothing but Falkiner's cue action. He will see little preliminary addressing of the ball, but he will see the cue carefully withdrawn a few inches in an absolutely straight line from the exact point on the cue ball at which it has been addressed and then stuck decisively right into the ball along the same dead straight line of its course.
There are two great tragedies in billiards. One is that of the player who knows the game well but who cannot wield an inflexibly straight cue, and the other is that of the cueist with a perfect cue action who is constantly, through not troubling to study the theory of the game, making grave positional blunders which an ounce more knowledge or thought would assuredly prevent. Better than either of these is the player who combines perfect cue action with positional vision, and worse—far worse— is the player (of whom the number is legion) who knows little and does even that little badly.
The player who imparts a free and perfectly straight action to his cue and avoids either "snatching" or "jerking"; who gets well down to his stroke with the body and head in such a position that his face is always (even if the rest has to be employed) at right angles with the line of aim; who thinks first what will become of the cue ball when he is potting and of the object ball when he is shaping for a losing hazard or a cannon; who has the courage and nerve to go for the less easy of two strokes when it will, if successfully made, assuredly leave something useful to follow; who strives always—other things being equal—to keep the object balls in front of the cue ball rather than at tangents to it; and who practises strength until its proper application to the immediate problem becomes instinctive, is well on the way to the coveted 100 break.