Billiards for Women
AFTER the excitement of our most successful Billiards Week at the Solent Cliffs Hotel, Bournemouth, I am settling down to steady practice for important contests in the near future.
It is a very old saying that "practice makes perfect," and I often think that we women scarcely realise with what force this applies to billiard playing. Men do; I have just been told of a man, a capable amateur, who has designs on the Amateur Championship. He is so far from realising his ambition at present that he has to be content with a win or two in the preliminary games, and may not achieve even that.
But he is young and enthusiastic, and this gives an idea of how thoroughly he practises. Not being satisfied with his command of strokes demanding cue-power in combination with maximum side effects, he set himself to practise the shot shown in my first diagram. The stroke, the bottom-pocket in-off played from hand, is only a certainty for the few players who have worked hard to master it. Bent on gaining this proficiency, the amateur in question practised this one stroke for an hour every day, sticking to it methodically until he can now reckon the shot as certain for him as an ordinary half-ball might be.
The shot, of course, is played with powerful left-hand side on the cueball, which has to be struck low.
Ball-to-ball contact has to be judged very exactly to avoid the kiss, and at the same time ensure a contact thick enough to take your ball to the pocket.
Practice must be kept up We all know those playing directions, but how many of us could stick to that one shot for an hour every day, until we made a certainty of it? That is the big question— the continuity of practice. Speaking for myself, I know what this means in my own play. It sometimes happens that other interests take me away from billiards long enough to interrupt regular practice. My game invariably suffers in consequence.
I lose touch, lack that precision which is so vital, and find myself playing appreciably below my real form. Worse still, such interruptions mean that I have to pick up what I have lost before I can hope to make fresh headway.
Such "harking back" is more serious than may be thought, particularly with those who make breaks better than twenty or so with fair frequency.
My second shot on Diagram 1 shows a positional cannon which cannot be mastered too thoroughly.
It is a stroke I have practised this very day, so I am not preaching what I do not practise. A glance at my diagram shows that the correct shot is a half-run-through cannon oft red, played at strength to leave the balls together below the middle pocket. The thickish contact on red to give the required direction to that ball is easy, but it is not so easy to play with the exact strength necessary to bring red back for ideal position.
My second diagram presents another shot well worth practising.
On the lie of the balls, with the cueball in hand, the cannon is too "wide" to be played with side.
I prefer to force the shot, hitting white hard enough to double that ball in and out of baulk for position at the spot end. Cannon full on red to take that ball towards the left top pocket. This, I find, is the most reliable way of dealing with a shot I often see my playing friends look twice at.