Including myself in the observation—perhaps unjustly —for the purpose of disarming criticism, the fact is that the critics of billiards are notoriously incompetent as players, and as a rule the worse the player the greater the critic. There is nothing personal intended in this, and perhaps, for all I know, the same circumstance, to even a more aggravated extent, applies in other pursuits. I have at least one qualification for writing about amateur billiards, in the estimate of other people, and that is that for years past, in handicaps, I have been in the position of back-marker, and, possibly from fortune, I have succeeded in winning more than a few prizes.
Now I confess I did feel annoyed the other week when in a sporting paper I read the so frequently repeated assertion that the gulf between the professional and amateur at billiards was greater than at any other sport.
This is not the case so far as the method of play is concerned, for thousands of amateurs play exactly the game favoured by professionals, and the difference in the scoring and averages is due principally to two causes, viz.: (1) the amateur seldom plays more than five hundred up; (2) the amateur does not practise to any extent.
Notwithstanding this, the difference between professional and amateur play at billiards is nothing like so marked as it is at such a game as Association football, where no amateur side has had a look in at premier honours since professionalism was legalised.
There is no doubt, too, that professionals usually play under more suitable surroundings than amateurs. People seem to imagine that it is impossible for an amateur to be put off his game by remarks on the stroke, wandering in the line of sight, the rustling of papers, etc., whereas these distractions have just the same effect on him as they would have on a tip-top professional. Total concentration is one of the chief essentials to the making of three-figure breaks.
Amateurs are improving generally. A large section of club players, instead of being content to knock the balls about for amusement, so-called, have gone in for a serious study of the theory of the game, and have insisted upon their right to play under conditions somewhat approximating to those which are conceded the ring of professionals. All this has happened within the last few years, and as a consequence we have many club amateurs, though still confined to short trials, making their hundred breaks every week, although short of anything like real practice at that.
There is not the slightest doubt that the standard of amateur play has improved from 20 to 30 per cent, during the past ten years, and that professional form has not expanded to anything like the same extent during the same time. That the first-class amateur player is no more than a match for the second-class professional in a long game is due to the causes I have attempted to detail. Put the professionals to play hundreds up, and they play very much like amateurs; put the amateurs to play ten thousands up and they soon adopt professional form. In no other games— cricket, golf, and chess, for example—is this difference in the length of the game made, and in those games the amateur is very nearly the equal of the professional.
It is a sign of the times that the amateur billiard player is waking up to his deficiencies, which have been thrust upon him, and it would not surprise me if within a couple of decades we should have a well-fought match between the two sections of players. It is certain, even now, that the knowledge of the theory of the game is superior among amateurs of the best class.