To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
A correspondent wrote you suggesting a "dark-white" ball instead of the spot ball.
I consider this an excellent suggestion.
I don't know how other players of long standing like playing with the spot ball, or whether it is a rare idiosyncrasy, but I find I can never play as well with it as I can with a plain ball, particularly in potting strokes—or in other strokes requiring accurate sighting—the spot having a tendency to put me off. I also think it does not run so truly as the plain one.
My suggestion is white and cream colour. What do the professionals think about it?
J. DAKIN
"Selworthy," 1b, Cottenham Park Road, West Wimbledon, S.W. 20.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
"BELIEVE IT OR NOT, BUT IT'S TRUE."
Venue: Queen Victoria Hotel, Rushden, Northants. Billiard-room.
Date: January 30, 1933.
Game: Billiards, 15 exact up.
Players: Walter Lindrum (highest break, 3,262) v. Howarth Nuttall (highest break, 31).
Result: Lindrum "bursted," and lost.
Stake: Drinks round, costing 10s.
Game Report: Nuttall opened with a miss in baulk. Lindrum got the screw in-off red, and added a further 9, bringing his score to 13, and then played for safety by giving 3 miss. Nuttall followed with a 3 miss, bringing Lindrum's total to 16 — 1 over the mark.
Boast: The world's champion at billiards has been beaten, on level terms, by a novice.
H. NUTTALL.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
The following two Martinmas incidents may interest and amuse your readers:—
MARTINMAS, 1933.
Four farmer lads, on their annual holiday, came to our office door:— "A fower hand at billiards, maister, for 'afe 'our."
After obtaining four cues a discussion followed at the table which lasted some two minutes—no sign of play commencing.
Eventually one of the lads came to the office:— "Maister, there's fower on us leyking; don't we want another set of balls?"
MARTINMAS, 1934.
Two of the lads from the "broad acres" playing billiards.
One leaves the other a double baulk. This youth addresses his ball, and is evidently intending playing direct on the balls in baulk.
His opponent:—"Ey, tha mon shoot up t'board, them's in baulk."
His opponent did so.
Picking up his ball he walked to the spot end and from the billiard spot played "up t'board."
The Billiard Hall, E. HALL. Goole, Yorks.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
Only a suggestion why I think billiards only gets two small lines.
Billiards, in my opinion, is the most skilful and hardest game we know, and in that I think we have our answer. But I think it would get more publicity if we had county championships and more competitions.
I was the one who introduced Mr. E. Ellwood to the BILLIARD PLAYER, and persuaded him to enter the championship. How do we know what talent we have unless it is brought to the front?
So I suggest bring billiards to the front, give the working lad a chance to compete more and we will have more enthusiasts. Get every name of the foremost four leading players of every town and city and arrange matches locally, there will soon be more aspirants at the game.
W. PARKER, Accrington.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
Of all the many and varied topics relating to the game which are discussed monthly in the BILLIARD PLAYER I very seldom see any mention of a most important and, amongst ordinary amateurs, controversial subject—the correct speed of a table for match play.
A few days ago I played a game with a friend of mine at his club, and remarked how very fast the table was. In fact, I found that keeping the strength of shots down, to give the necessary ball control, had a most cramping effect on my cue-swing; whilst anything approaching a forcing shot gave the object ball a travel which was quite impossible to judge for positional purposes.
At the end of the game my friend claimed that his table was of correct match speed, giving about five-and-a-half "throws," whatever a "throw" unit may consist of. This, according to him, amounted to pitching a ball up the table as fast as possible with the hand, and counting the number of table lengths the ball went.
Several people, including myself, had a go, and sure enough the ball stopped somewhere between the fifth and sixth lengths, but after a bit of practice I found myself able to get nearly seven lengths run.
Naturally the argument had to be abandoned, since my friend was unable to define the exact strength of a "throw," whilst my own playing experience told me that a much more accurate and controlled game could be played on a slower table.
There seems to be a common idea amongst the general run of cuemen that the faster the table the better it is, and it is completely overlooked that a cushion which throws a ball off abnormally fast does not give it a chance to dig into the rubber, and so demonstrate by the angle of departure exactly how much side the ball was carrying.
I have often noticed, when watching first-class billiards at Thurston's, what a really powerful strength is used in making the standard long loser, and the middle-pocket loser from hand. I am sure I have played on public tables on which the same strength would fetch the red into baulk and out again.
In fact, to sum the matter up from my own point of view, there appears to be no particular standard of speed relating to billiards, but I am convinced that professionals play under conditions which are nothing nearly so speedy as a great many billiard fans imagine.
It would, I am sure, be most interesting to hear what a few of my fellow - readers think about this matter, so perhaps our worthy editor will grant us a little space in which other views than mine may be aired. Wishing the BILLIARD PLAYER every success in the new year.
FRANK SHARMAN, Eltham, S.E. 9.