THOUSAND-BREAK BILLIARDS
Cushion-first Cannons
WHEN you have taken the balls from No. 37 to No. 39, and contrived to leave the balls Well after your drop-cannon, you will appreciate the force of my earlier remarks concerning this class of stroke. In No. 37, of course, you had no option, but you can see how very much better it is to get spot-end position as in the diagram, where the red-winner movement obviates the drop-cannon. Another route to the head of the table is indicated in Diagram 40, where red is near or against side cushion with white in the direction of the centre of the table at the angle shown. This shot has many variations in presentation.
With the cue-ball in hand as in Diagram 40, you can spend a profitable time judging where to place your ball for these cannons wherever you can arrange them.
Remember that you would not play a cannon of this type if a loser were offered from hand off white. Otherwise the shot is always good, and can be manipulated with advantage instead of forcing a direct cannon on occasion. There is no such alternative in No. 40, but you will discover it as you experiment with the general class of cannon before us.
Red Over the Pocket
When playing these strokes, hit the cushion first with no side on your ball. I know these cannons can be made by using side, but I wish you to be thoroughly familiar with their range as plain-ball shots.
The extent of this may surprise you, but you will see the cause if you reflect that, in effect, you are playing a plain-ball shot off red in diagram from the point where your ball hits the cushion first as shown by the dotted line. This opens a greater scoring prospect than appears probable until you become familiar with it. Positionally, it is exceptionally sound because the objective of those cannons is to trickle red slowly along the side cushion towards the top pocket, at the same time tapping the white in the general direction of the spot. This movement cannot be guaranteed to give spot-end position, but may take you to it.
I introduced it as an indicative route to top-of-the-table play, and do not intend to press it beyond this. But it is an absolute means of directing red into favourable position and improving the lie of white.
"Cover" Cannons
Although you will find the masse your mainstay at overcoming close quarter covers, you must always be prepared to cope with the situation when the balls present a shot no masse could deal with. This takes you into a fresh aspect of cushion first cannon play, and in Diagram 41 I show an elementary example of the kind of shot you are always likely to want. All three balls are in line and almost touching, and with the cue-ball lying outside the other two the masse is ruled out because you cannot get at your ball to play the shot. The one-cushion cannon, as in the diagram, solves the problem readily enough, and is by no means a difficult shot. A possible touch on the top cushion immediately before contact with the object-balls will condone some error here, but when the cushion cannot be relied upon to assist in this way then shots of the general type shown in the diagram need very careful handling, especially when your ball has to travel a fair distance to the cushion and back again.
No Side You should devote a fair amount of time to cover cannons of the type we are discussing. Move the balls away from the cushion as in diagram, make the shot more difficult than the cannon target presented in No.
41. Vary your practice scheme to gain a knowledge of shots beyond masse capacity. Play them pinball to the limit, never employing an atom of side if you can plot an angle for the cushion first cannon without it. After you have practised sufficiently to get a dependable knowledge of these shots treat them in future like this. Wait until they occur in the course of your practice break-building at the spot-end, you will leave plenty of them as you are training your ball-control, and play them perfectly as they occur in this manner. Should you miss one, stop, replace the balls, and do not quit the shot until you have made it correctly three times in succession. Then you will remember it when you want it in actual play.
Think for Yourself
I want you to realize that as regards Diagrams 41 and 42 I am asking you to treat them as concentrated instruction. It would be quite easy to fill a couple of chapters with related diagrams, amounting in effect to very little more than the same shot over and over again.
Because I am not doing this, please do not regard it as of no account.
Quite the contrary; it is of great consequence. But it is of far more importance that you should be coached to think for yourself, to work out strokes which branch off naturally from the same root-shot.
Therefore do not begin to rest content when you have made the shots in Diagrams 41 and 42. You might do that in five minutes without improving your game appreciably.
But if you regard these shots as a starting-point, and see how many more you can make which answer the same general description, you embark on a task which will fill many profitable hours, and enable you to score with confidence from many leaves where everything seems lost