Our recent mention of the undergraduate who could screw from hand direct back into baulk off the spotted red has brought to our notice several strokes decidedly out of the common. One gentleman, an amateur who has never been suspected of any extraordinary ability as a player by those who know him well, spoke about putting the red ball on the table immediately in front of the mouth of the pool basket, and knocking the red into the basket while the cue-ball travelled over the wicker-work and made a cannon on to the object white some distance beyond the basket. This seemed a little ambitious, even to some present who had a fairly extensive acquaintance with trick shots of all types, but on being challenged to make his words good, our amateur promptly put up the balls, and after a trial stroke or two promptly banged the red into the basket, sent the white over the basket, and made the cannon.
Another stroke, which we first saw played by Vasquez, the Spanish Champion, was manipulated in our presence quite recently by a wen known professional on the staff of a firm of billiard table manufacturers. The stroke in question is made when the balls are very nearly touching, and is a screw back into a pocket or to make a cannon as the case may be. The cue-ball is brought back a yard, notwithstanding the balls are so nearly touching that most good cueists could not screw back a inch. Of course, the pique stroke is well within the game of hundreds of players when the balls are in the position described; but it is very mystifying to see the same effect produced by what appears to be an ordinary screw stroke without any undue elevation of the cue butt.
When Vasquez made the stroke he did it with the large cues and balls used in the Continental game, and as far as we are aware, the player to whom we have referred is the only cueman who has exhibited the stroke in public with balls of the regulation size for the English game.
A Plymouth correspondent, states that a friend of his, who is by no means out of the common as an all-round player, makes a very marvellous stroke in the following manner. He places the red ball tight against the side cushion six or eight inches, below the middle pocket, and playing from hand with a tremendous amount of top, side, and force on the cue-ball, hits the red full and make the cue-ball rebound from the cushion an inch or two towards the player and then rush on in the opposite direction and curve into the middle pocket. Our informant states that the player question has made a practical certainty of the stroke, and although we have seen something like it exploited by professionals giving an exhibition of fancy strokes, yet we think it well merits mention in our notes of strokes out of the ordinary.
Several correspondents have written to us about wonderful flukes they have witnessed at some time or other, and although the subject is wonderful strokes played for purposely, yet for the sake of a diversion, we will mention one master fluke, and propose return to this class of "stroke" on another occasion. Perhaps some other correspondents. will be good enough to help us with accounts of wonderful "flukes" they have seen and the result should be quite an entertaining article on the unexpected in billiards and kindred games.
To revert to the fluke now before us, we learn that it was made during a game of cork pool. The red happened to stop on the billiard spot, while the cue-ball rested the middle spot of the "D". Consequently, the player was badly "snookered" for the red and with a view of missing the cork on the centre spot and saving a penalty by striking the red, the player, quite a tyro, raised the butt of his cue and made a vicious dig at the side of the cue-ball with some wild notion of making it swerve past the cork-on to the red. He did it! The ball whizzed past the cork at a terrific rate, just grazed the red, and struck the top cushion such a hefty whack that the ball rebounded right up in the air and dropped on the cork. This meant, of course, that the lucky striker was entitled to all the money which lay scattered over the table, as the result of the descent of the cue-ball, but before he had time to begin to pick up he had to put his hand in his pocket and pay, because the red ball fell wearily into one of the top pockets!