The Billiards Quarterly Review received a letter from a well-known Amateur which included, "Could we have an article on Top-of-the-Table and how to get there?" In a word - yes - though the subject cannot be satisfactorily covered at one go.
Over the years the Top-of-the-table game has been considered by most experts to be beyond the scope of all but the most gifted of amateur players. Donkey's years ago Mannock described spot-end play as being, "Deep as unfathomable waters." He also claimed that the future of the game lay in red-ball play and that top-of-the-table was a mere fashion that would soon die out, that red-ball play was, "Simple and sound," and was definitely the way forwards for Billiards. Well, apart from George Gray, he couldn't have been more wrong in his forecast. Though all the great champions could play the red till the cows came home none of them did so very often. Joe Davis, on hundred-break amateurs and the spot-end, "I much doubt whether it will pay them to go further than utilising a short spell at the top by way of a change from open, all-round play." Tom Newman, "This phase of Billiards is more of a refinement than a necessity - - and in the vast majority of cases it will be a mistake, and a costly one, to make a decided move in the direction of the top-of-the-table game." Riso Levi, "Very few amateurs - if - any, and not all professionals, are sufficiently good at top-of-the-table play to depend on it for the bulk of their scoring - -they lose many a game that they might have won easily enough by sticking to a simpler game." In more modern times, Norman Dagley tells how his mentor Reg Wright, warned him against the top-of-the-table in his early Championship matches. Dagley has said that he never saw any stroke that Wright did not know and yet he relates how Wright would say to him, "Now don't go messing about up there" (meaning the spot end). What a good thing that Norman didn't stick to that particular piece of advice. Many more sources could be quoted. Two exceptions to the general advice come to mind. Richard Holt, for many years editor of, "The Billiard Player," though no great player himself was a shrewd observer of the game and in article after article exhorted the amateur player to try and make a few at the top, whilst the other and more notable exception was that greatest of all players Walter Lindrum. He points out the pitfalls but reckoned that once a player had got to the regular 50 break stage then he should make for the top. He devotes a deal of his book to the spot-end game. It is certainly true that players capable of a century at the spot-end with only, say, a couple of shots from hand have never been common, but neither have players who could time after time go the limit of the red. Players reading this article should ask themselves when was the last time they went the limit in competitive play. In short, excellence at either branch of the game is quite rare and as regards difficulty, the long-loser when the red ball is some 6 or 7 inches below the middle spot is as difficult as anything at the spot-end considered simply as a scoring shot.
It is pretty obvious to anyone who has regularly played the Mini-Prix and has seen a reasonable amount of Professional Billiards over the last couple of years that top-of-the-table play is far more common than it was. More and more players are capable of 30's and 40's there and the younger players virtually play nowhere else, all other aspects of the game seeming to be a necessary evil on the way to the top-of-the-table. I could name two quite successful professionals who, I feel do not know - or play - the all-round/red ball game any better, if as well as I do myself, but who would beat me virtually every time over a longish game by virtue of their far superior ability at the spot end.
The reason for this general increase in ability in spot-end play is, in my opinion, largely due to two reasons. The first is that a number of very young players (in Billiards terms) have shown that hundred breaks at the spot-end can be made to look a sight easier than shelling peas. Russell, Gilchrist, Sethi immediately come to mind. Whilst Norman Dagley in his thirties was described by Richard Holt as a, "Mere babe in arms," (in Billiard terms) Russell was approaching the 500 break mark by top-of-the-table billiards before he was 19. Certainly, all the players mentioned are highly talented, but the myth of the long apprenticeship has been totally exploded. The second reason is that so many players, and especially young ones are much better potters than an earlier generation of players. The key to successful spot-end Billiards is, and always has been, potting plus a reasonably refined touch which most players could develop. Players nowadays can fairly easily acquire a good cue-action at an early age, more is known about the technique of cueing and potting, and there are superb examples of how to do it to be seen regularly on T.V. It is no exaggeration to say that any young player with a modicum of natural ability and a bit of intelligence, should automatically become a good potter if he has the will and the motivation.
There are two methods of keeping the balls under control at the top-of-the-table. The important word is method. The player must know what he is trying to do and what is to be his method of play, and here we have one of the great secrets of success at the spot end - knowledge. The strokes themselves are often very simple, the great difficulty that so many writers have insisted upon lies in the player knowing how he would like the balls for the continuation and how he should get them there. In playing the red ball a well-played losing hazard automatically results in good position without the player having to do much thinking. At the spot-end strokes of childish simplicity demand a deal of thought. Maybe the speed of play of a Russell or a Sethi demonstrates speed of thought as much as speed of action. Returning to method there are two - Postman's knock and Floating white. Both are fairly easy to describe, but perhaps the best way to learn how it is done is to spend as much time as possible watching players who are very good at it, carefully observing their methods and then putting in as much practice as is reasonably possible. I would particularly recommend Norman Dagley, Robby Foldvari, Mike Russell, Peter Gilchrist, and Ian Williamson though there are others.
So called from the distinctive, "Click, click," as the cueball kisses back from the object white in making the cannon when that white is tight up against the top cushion and directly behind the spot. The method was developed largely by John Roberts and has been used down the years by all the great players. Basically a cannon followed by a pot red to leave a similar cannon from the other side of the table.
Success lies in cueball control of the simple pot. There is some margin of error. If the cue ball strays below the ideal position then it is possible to play either a run-through or a thin cannon to leave the pot and still keep the object white pinned on the top cushion.
I have heard Norman Dagley stress the importance of getting the cueball, "Well down the table," so gaining what margin may be gained. There is in fact a fair margin of error.
The highest class of spot-end play is that in which the player takes two pots to each cannon thus building the break more quickly. When playing the pot red following the cannon the player should know whether he is playing to leave a cannon or another pot red, it is very poor Billiards just to play the pot hoping that if the cannon is not nicely on then a pot red will be. This kind of unmethodical play is one of the reasons why many players do not score more at the spot-end than they do and should do.
Postman's Knock then, may be considered as the classical top-of-the-table method. Pot, cannon, now-and-again a cross-loser taking the red to the middle pocket to be potted and back again to the top. The player clearly needs a good touch and to be a good potter, able to use whatever side, screw, etc is necessary to control the cueball. But above all he needs to use his brains to develop his eye to the point where the shot to be played and the method of playing it is instantly recognisable. The player should be uncompromising preferring to fail at the correct shot rather than fail because of awful position resulting from playing the wrong shot. As regards practice, clearly a player has to be able to actually play the positions, but I do not think that a constant repetition of the scoring strokes is necessarily the best practice, after all, the top-of-the-table cannon when in good position is a simple enough stroke. Better by far is working to attain mastery over cueball position from the simple pot reds under varying playing conditions. But this kind of practice demands a degree of dedication that not all players are prepared to give, Above all never practice in an haphazard or aimless way. Set yourself a goal for each session and be quite clear what the goal is, if a player does not know what he is trying to achieve by practice then he may as well not bother. Mental preparation and being in the right frame of mind is very important otherwise a man might find himself practicing his mistakes and getting quite good at doing the wrong things. It is possible to go into virtually any Club in the land at almost any time of day and see young players with snooker balls all over the table and potting them in any old fashion; these players have almost no idea of what they are trying to do. Practice is an art in itself and demands much thought, especially for those who are not naturally over-talented. Practice is another name for learning and the books that have been written on the learning process would cover mile upon mile of library shelving. But I am digressing, the psychology of learning is not the subject of this article and yet has a lot to do with it. Norman Dagley
The best exponent of Postman's Knock of recent years has been Norman Dagley who admits to preferring this method to that of the floating white. In the third session of the Amateur Championship Final of 1980 Norman scored 1209 points in 5 visits to the table -52, 506, 0, 299, and 352. As official B.& S.C.C. recorder I saw every stroke. Virtually all the points in this wonderful performance were scored by Postman's Knock and in the 506 I do not think he went to hand from the cross-in-off more than a dozen or so times. This break ended at a relatively easy pot from the spot after he had potted at least a hundred or more similar shots. Terry Griffiths, Snooker Champion that year, was at that session. Speaking to him afterwards he said, "I wish I could pot from the black spot like that." I thought he was joking, I didn't think that Griffiths had much to learn from anyone about potting from the spot But he wasn't joking and convinced me that he did think he could learn a lot from Dagley's play. Norman has said that when on form he finds Postman's Knock fairly easy, he also makes the point that, when breaking down, if the opponent's white is tight up against the top cushion then it is unlikely that a great deal will be left on. One could practice for a lifetime and not reach his standard of excellence, but I think that quite average players these days can legitimately aspire to fifty breaks at the spot end in something like Norman's style if they can discipline themselves to use their brains - that is the really hard part. A volume could be written on the variations of Postman's Knock top-of-the-table. I have just touched on the subject and I hope that some of what I have written may be useful to some players. Top-of-the-Table will be continued in the next issue of the Billiards Quarterly Review with an overview of the Floating White game.