Billiards for Women
Former Lady Amateur Champion, 1932-33-34
I CANNOT express how pleased I am to hear that all Trade influence has been removed from the Women's Billiards Association, and that it has been affiliated to the B.A. and C.C.—this is the one thing that Women's Billiards has always needed to put it on the map, and I am sure that it will now progress by leaps and bounds.
Women's Professional Championship I have received a charming letter from the Chairman of the W.D.A. inviting me to play in the Women's Professional Championship, an invitation which I have been very happy to accept.
Now that all our little differences are over, we can all work together for the good of Women's Billiards.
First Six-day Match
On December 31, Miss Ruth Harrison, the Women's Professional Champion and I are beginning a week's match, two sessions a day, at Thurston's. This is the first time in the history of billiards that a six-day match has been arranged between two women players, which shows that our sex are really coming into their own in the billiards world.
The question of start I left entirely to Miss Harrison, as she is the professional champion, and she has offered me 2,500 points.
I, personally, am very much looking forward to the game, as I have not had the pleasure of playing Miss Harrison since the very first Women's Amateur Championship, 1931, when she defeated me in the semi-final.
Useful Hints
Diagram 1 shows a position where I have noticed so many women—and men—take the wrong shot and attempt to pot the red, which is a very difficult stroke to score and leave the cue-ball for the cross loser off the spot. The more paying shot is the "feather" in-off red into the middle pocket played very fine to leave red in place for another middle-pocket loser. This stroke is painfully clear in my mind at the moment, having recently missed it at the end of a break of 116 during an important match! It is a very necessary move in the game, and with a little practice should become fairly easy to score with certainty.
When Not to Cannon
Another positional problem is shown in Diagram 2. Many people play the cannon driving the white up to the red by striking the first object ball fairly full. The better game, however, is to take the long jenny off the white, playing it smartly to bring the white into the middle of the table where you can soon jockey it into position for a drop cannon.
The drop cannon, difficult as it may be, is preferable to most cannons from hand in a break-building sense. My advice, therefore, is to set about obtaining reliable position as soon as possible, without wasting a shot.