To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
May I congratulate the BILLIARD PLAYER on maintaining such a remarkably high standard. Surely there is no other agency doing so much for the furtherance of billiards.
Particularly interesting in the November issue were the views of "Senex" on the subject of flukes.
In more than two decades of amateur match playing I have met lots of red-hot flukes; many of them almost as "aggrannoying" as "Senex's" 30 per cent. lucky opponent. Admittedly, in league matches, handicaps, etc., such fellows are always a source of danger, and "not nice to meet." But to deprive them of their flukes would be just too bad. Billiards would be so much less attractive, and the result would be so much less patronage. Another point worth noting is that the flukes of to-day very often become the actual strokes of the game to-morrow. Why!
Flukes are the spices of the billiard cake we don't like to see the other fellow enjoying, but very nice and acceptable when on our own plate.
I once met in a handicap final a fluker who lived up to his reputation.
By a series of "asthmatical" shots he got within sight of game, but I kept pegging on to "score and win"; went for a snick cannon, missed it, but the red luckily went into a corner pocket for game.
I mention that incident to show that even one fluke can admirably compensate if it comes at the right time.
One more reason why flukes should not be barred is that the "Believe it or not competition" in the BILLIARD PLAYER would no longer be able to print those monthly "stunners" we readers so much appreciate.
So here's my vote for flukes.
Perhaps I shall need a few to help pull me through the next round of our handicap.
TOM TAYLOR, (Twice Champion, Tees-side Billiards League).
Eston Institute, Eston, Middlesbrough, Yorks.
To the Editor, BILLIARD PLAYER.
Whatever the type of game or player "flukes" are an inevitable accompaniment. Football, and similar field games, have their fluke goals, clearances, passes; cricket its fluke hits, and so on, ad lib. Why single out the game of billiards for penalising something which is, after all, beyond the particular player's control? Admitted that some apparently get more flukes than others. "Apparently," because a shot need not be a scoring one to be a fluke. A first class safety leave, or a leave which is the prime factor leading to a fair sized break on one's next visit to the "green cloth," may be the outcome of a fluke.
With regard to the suggestion of disallowing flukes, surely the onus of deciding the point would be too "terrible for words," unless it was placed on the striker—an optimistic hope If left to a referee, he would inevitably fall foul of both players.
Imagine Alex. James finding the net with an intended pass and the referee disallowing the goal? Or Jack Hobbs with an intended cover point drive snicking the ball through the slips for four and the umpire signalling "no score"! Or again, Fred Perry having a net-cord winner ruled out! Great or lowly players in all spheres of sport must all experience these things, which are, by their very freakish nature, quite beyond their control.
A point which seems to have escaped "Senex," but is of the greatest significance, is that "every fluke is a shot." The trouble is that most flukes are obtained without the strikers quite remembering how they executed them. While, therefore, broadly speaking, flukes must be counted among the unknown elements, do they not prove the infinite possibilities of the game of billiards? Has any player never tried to repeat, or emulate, some fluke stroke or other? Cannot something be learnt by so doing? Most assuredly, yes. I have known a novice try a cannon and get it in quite a different way to that he anticipated, but which, nevertheless, was really the only reasonable way to have attempted it. Verily, an object lesson sent him from the unknown!
Finally, it must be patent to all who have the welfare of the game at heart that by barring flukes the game would lose a lot of its popular appeal among the hundred-uppers. Very few of us enjoy fluking, but its mysterious flavour relieves it, and it can only be irritating if one has not the "strength" to smile, set his jaws, and mentally promise his opponent a huge break "next visit." That "next visit" may well commence with an outrageous fluke! So where are we?
J. A. BROOKING.
38, Avoca Road, Upper Tooting, S.W. 17.
The above letters are all we have room to publish concerning this important question this month. If other readers hold different ideas, we would welcome their views.—Editor.