What is mare enticing, more fascinating to players and onlookers alike, than a good keen game of billiards, where two players are well handicapped and playing the strict rigour of the game. Yet of the millions upon millions of "hundreds" and "two hundreds" up played in the course of a year, the percentage coming under the category is very small indeed. And why? Because the methods employed hitherto of bringing two players "together", have been of the happy-go-lucky nondescript character, which depend on mere accident or incident for any success achieved.
For example, "A" and "B" - strangers to each other - are in their hotel billiard-room enjoying an after-dinner cigar. Both are ardent and enthusiastic knights of the cue - each hoping that the other will ask him to join in a game. The all-important subject is eventually broached between them, followed by a mutual exchange of their break-making dimensions with a view of so adjusting things as to make the game a fair test of skill. "A" remarks he can make an occasional "twenty" while "B" retorts that now and again he is guilty of a "thirty" or so. "Well, you will have to give me a few," says "A". "B" does so, and gets a hiding. They play the next game level, and once more "B" goes under. They have a third game, in which "B" receives a small start and a bigger beating than ever. The latter feels a little sore, and doubtless conjures up visions of a " billiard sharp", and in his mind thinks "A" is one of the fraternity. As it happens, "A" is as straight as a gun-barrel, but detecting a little frigidity in the manner of "B" after the third game, puts him down as a bad sport. And all the unpleasantness originated by an attempt to make a good and interesting game of billiards from a mutual exchange of their break-building capacity. Even among friends who may be presumed to know each other's play fairly well, the difficulty of deciding whether one of them should receive points, and how many, is greater than is popularly supposed. Tom suggests that Dick should give him 30. Unselfish Dick replies "I will give you 40 if you like" - which number is finally accepted in the "well, does it matter anyway" spirit. Though both Tom and Dick take sufficient interest in billiards to appreciate the value of good play, there is no great keenness to win the game itself, and in the end the result does not afford either of them a true reflex of each other's ability. How different if Tom and Dick had had their handicap cards marked!
They probably enjoyed their game as it was, but the keenness and zest, without which no trial of competitive skill is really enjoyable, would have been lacking. So much for private games; let us turn to club and hotel room handicaps, and we find the system of handicapping even more haphazard. And this, too, when the uninitiated in such matters might reasonably look for a systematic method which gives every one of the entrants a chance for the sports. Usually a rough handicap is drawn up by someone who is presumed to know the form of most of the entrants. Allowed to go through in practically its original state, it may be that the handicap would work out very well, though this is not at all certain, but there is the Handicapping 'Committee waiting for it with large and sharp pruning knives. Their "dignity" would suffer if the originally framed "marks" were allowed to stand. So they proceed to cut and carve it about, and, as frequently happens, do the chopping at both ends, with nary a thought given to the central position of the edifice.
The result is disastrous for the lowest man and also for the extreme back-markers. The one receives 150 start when he should be getting 200, and the other is set to owe 100 when his ability is perhaps only equal to owing 40 or 50. That is one reason why five out of every six handicaps are won by men who are handicapped between scratch and 100. It says much for the fascination of billiards that year by year it becomes increasingly popular, despite the purely guess-work methods in vogue in bringing two players together. Yet the game will gain immeasurably in popularity by the general adoption of the scheme of handicapping originated by Mr. George H. Nelson, a Chartered Accountant in the City, and " fathered" by the Billiards Control Club, because it will impart an interest and zest to purely friendly games that has been hitherto lacking.
Every player in a handicap, and every player in an ordinary game, should have an equal chance, and this is what Mr. Nelson's scheme is designed to obtain. As a keen golfer, the originator of the new scheme has gone to that grand outdoor game for the basis of the new system of handicapping at billiards.
He remarks rather pertinently that what is practicable in the one game should also be in the other.
His main point is that every billiard-player should have an official handicap : and that, as in golf, this handicap should be fixed in the first instance by the player returning a certain number of cards from which his general form may be gauged. For instance, a player plays say five separate hundreds (the minimum fixed before a player can qualify for a handicap), and visits the table 100 times, then his average would be five.
The "scratch" mark player is fixed by Mr. Nelson at 8, for reasons which will bear the closest inspection. This player will give points to all players with lower handicaps, and is owed points by all players averaging over 8 up to 15 - the latter figure being taken as representing the general form of the very best amateur players. The table of odds which we publish along with the B.C.C. Cards for the taking of averages, is based originally on the averages. To cite a simple illustration : a player whose handicap is five (one who makes 100 in twenty visits to the table) gives the "two" handicap man, who takes fifty innings to score the 100, 60 points in a hundred up. Presuming each of these two men plays according to his handicap - and it would surprise a good many people how closely billiard players stick to their average on a given number of visits to the table - when each has been to the table nineteen times the scores will be 98-95 in favour of the "two" man, and it is impossible to get any nearer than that. The same principle applies all down the table of odds. The "9" man you will note begins to owe as well as give points to all with a lower average than "8", and this process continues to the end, the "15" man both owing and giving 87 points start to the "1" player, but merely owing the 87 to the scratch or "8" handicap man. Although fractional averages are not shown on the table - their absence is explained by a desire not to complicate matters unduly - the same principle governs those, and may be ascertained readily enough by a simple form of calculation.
Suppose, for example, your average is 2.50, in other words, 2½, and you wish to ascertain how many start the "4" average man should give you in 100 up. You simply multiply your average by the "4" man's number of visits to the table. The difference between the multiplication and 100 is your start. Thus : the "4" man has to make twenty-five visits to serve 100. Twenty-five multiplied by your average (2-J) would give 62^ leaving the difference between the latter figure and a hundred, 37^ which would be your start if single points could be cut in two on the marking board. But as this is, of course, not possible, your start would be either 37 or 38, according to whatever figure you and your opponent mutually agreed upon. Under the haphazard and purely guesswork method - if method it can be called - of handicapping hitherto in vogue, the limit man probably never enjoyed his game one little bit, for the simple reason that he was never by any chance allowed a real "sporting" opportunity of winning. Eighty in a 100 up. which would probably have been his proper mark, had 20 lobbed off it because the greater figures looked too fearsome to the man away back at scratch or thereabouts. A careful study of the handicap table inserted here will reveal the incontrovertible fact that with the Billiard Control scheme of handicapping, the limit player will stand as pood a chance of winning as any of the others on the list.
In their attempt to produce order out of chaos in the most important department of the world's greatest indoor game, the Billiards Control Club are confronted with a severe task. Little can be accomplished without the hearty cooperation of amateur players throughout the world, and, one might add, the active assistance of those in charge of billiard rooms whether public or private. Let us impress upon the amateur billiard players of the country that there is only one reliable means of gauging the real ability of a billiard player. It i« to take his average of scoring on the lines laid down in Mr. Nelson's scheme. One shudders to think what would become of golf if systematic handicapping in that game were abolished. The spectacle of two players going to play a match wrangling on the question, "How shall we play?" would be anything but edifying in "ye ancient game". "A" might say, "Oh, I don't know, I usually beat "C". "B" retorts, "That is nothing to go by, D usually beats me. How do C and D play?" "Well", says A, "shall I give you 6 or 8 strokes?" "All right", comes the answer from B, "let us make it 6". It requires no great powers of perception to predict that most of the pleasure of golf would depart if relative merit was to be arrived at in this manner. "A" cares little whether he wins or loses by three or four holes, inasmuch as neither he nor B. know, within two or three strokes, what their relative positions should be. This happy-go-lucky mood does not make for that keenness which gives an indefinable relish and enjoyment to a game of golf. Approximately, that is exactly what happens every day in Billiards. The games are enjoyable enough in their way, but they lack that feeling of keenness and delight which gives every competitive sport or pastime an extra relish. Personally, we should like to hear of every billiard player taking a deep interest in his scoring average. It is the only reliable guide to improvement in your own case, and implies the knowledge of what your rivals and opponents are capable of. Mistakes may be made by reason of the average test on games which one has played "above his form."But there are exceptions to every rule. In the main the average is the thing to go by at billiards, just as at golf, to throw a light on an otherwise hopeless, and, at times, a somewhat ignoble position.
It may be that there are differences of opinion, regarding minor details of the new scheme, but most people will agree that the principle is sound and eminently practical, and designed to raise the scientific and fascinating game of billiards to a higher level than ever. That is, of course, provided amateur players of all degrees lend their active cooperation and assistance towards the universal adoption of the scheme aforesaid by the Billiards Control Club. The Executive Council of the B.C.C. have already accomplished much valuable work - by inaugurating the system at their own club, where it has been taken up enthusiastically by the hundreds of members, and prevailing upon the leading West End clubs to help the thing along by lending their active cooperation. But that is not enough. A system which is stamped with the hall mark of merit should be supported by every club, institute, private and public billiard room in the country, nay, throughout the whole English-speaking world. And we believe, in time, the gradual process of development will cause the new handicapping scheme to be as stringently observed as is the code of rules governing the actual playing of the game.
We have already indicated the immense benefit which the system will impart to purely friendly games between individuals, but to clubs and institutes running handicaps in other competitions, it will simply be invaluable. As we write, we have before us the programme of a club handicap comprising over 400 entrants. Under the haphazard system in vogue for so many years, several days would be necessary to frame the handicap and even then all the care and judgment in the world would not prevent a good many competitors from being "rung in", as the term is understood in billiard circles. But suppose every one of these 400 odd entrants had his official handicap an average awarded the handicap could be framed in a few minutes.