The Burroughes and Watts' Tournament

H. W. Stevenson v. M. Inman

Inman Eclipses All His Previous Performances

As an example of what 'may be achieved by dint of strong application, backed by force of character, nothing better than the object-lesson provided by Melbourne Inman in last week's instalment of the big professional tournament has occurred in the world of billiards for many a season past. He was expected to provide a hard week's work for his opponent, H. W. Stevenson, one of the grandest players that has yet graced the game, with a start of one-fourth the points, to be exact 2,250 in 9,000 up. Still, the scratch man was generally regarded in the light of a potential winner before a ball had been struck, and not the less so when, in the opening chapter of what must be a memorable match, he scored 750 in his own inimitable style, the while Inman had to rest content with a bare 87. Put ever so far behind his proper handicap quota it certainly looked as though Inman had nothing left but to fight a losing battle with as good grace as was possible. That he would go under, if such was to be, with his colours nailed masthead high, all who know anything of his temperament were assured. But it seemed expecting too much of him to come through a winner. A bad beginning against a prolific scoring backmarker of Stevenson's stamp is seldom, or never, outlived in a keen game which both are out to win.

That burst of Stevenson's on the opening afternoon, however, marked the top-note of his doings the whole week long. Never again did he exercise such a control over the balls, nor pile up the points as he did then.

Still, he was holding the winning card fairly tenaciously during the second and third chapters, although the exchanges were of a rather poverty-stricken kind. If Inman was not getting along particularly fast himself, he was seeing to it that the scratch man was not allowed any more favourable openings than were forced out of him. He showed that the Rimington-Wilson provisions concerning safety play and fouls do not make the game faster or more attractive than the broader and more reasonable Billiard Association rulings. Inman kept the scratch player, who was always willing and eager to get on, in a quiescent scoring state. And the form on both sides dropped by degrees to much below their usual standard. The weather had something to do with this, also. The sudden thaw affected the running of the balls, and the heavy conditions handicapped Stevenson more, perhaps, than his opponent.

The first to develop an understanding with the pace of the table was Inman. It came to pass in the fourth chapter, and may be said to have lasted until he struck the winning stroke. When least expected he turned on a break of 222, made by haphazard and even slapdash play. He gave the balls "plenty of stick," as the saying goes, and fairly threshed them into obeying his behests. It was a break "of sorts," not containing a really lucky stroke, but remarkable for the kind behaviour of the ivories, as they stopped favourably for him after many a meteoric career, kissings and collisions with the protruding pocket "shoulders." Yet that much-needed 222 went to swell Inman's account. What is more, curious as it may seem to those who read of, and doubly so to those who saw, the disjointed effort, that break served to turn the whole current of the game by putting the maker into most effectual touch with his work.

Right on top of the 222 there followed another, a bigger and an incomparably better, break from Inman's cue. He was making up his leeway with a vengeance, as this time his score-peg moved bit by bit, on and on, until it had covered the limits of 303 points. Here was a revolution in the scoring, if you like! And Stevenson could make no effective reply.

So for the first time since the game opened Inman had a pull on the handicap. There was stern fighting through the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth chapters. But the scratch man could not decrease the intervening gap that now stood between the scores to any appreciable extent. He was not favoured in any way. His work was up-hill all the time. And gradually Inman began to secure an ominous leadership. Never throwing anything away, always keeping the game as tight as possible - double-baulk after double-baulk, and well-planned safety tactics - closed the scoring door to Stevenson, who, when two-thirds of the game was over, had drifted to 900 behind his handicap points, while Inman's deficiency only amounted to 200.

Once again, if it were needed, the leader had shown his proficiency at losing hazards off the red ball. At one time so strongly was he going that he threatened to displace the record - his own, by the way - of 300 points from the red ball. He slapped his ball in the top pockets with a sequence of long losing hazards, which fairly took the fancy of the crowd, and he scored 219 by alternate middle and top pocket hazards, varied by an occasional winner. Again, in the middle, two strokes from the end, he unintentionally made a six-shot when playing one of these winners.

The storm of applause greeting his daring "screw in off the spot" at the next stroke was something to be remembered. It presaged the end, however, of a rare feat.

By way of a diversion, the first hour and a quarter of the ninth chapter ran all in favour of Stevenson. Without doing anything at all sensational, he yet wiped off some four or five hundred of his arrears, while the leader was travelling very slowly indeed.

Then Inman stepped in to give a more finished exhibition of positional billiards and confident striking than the writer can ever associate with his name. By good open scoring, varied now and again with some carefully-executed passages of top-of-the-table work, he held the table until the interval. All his usual mannerisms, his quaint contortions, and the apprehensive squirmings with which he generally follows the progress of his ball on some delicate or uncertain mission, were entirely absent. He was too absorbed in his game to think of or to display them.

And he had collected the fine total of 399 (unfinished) when the time came to suspend hostilities. This effort restored and added to his advantage on the handicap. Taking up the threads of this break in the evening, Inman added another 85 points, making its full dimension 484. But he travelled none too smoothly in doing so, a fluke, and another screwing-in off the spot after the white had been lost alone keeping him going so long. Had he been allowed to go on in the afternoon there is no telling to what length he might now have gone, so well was he playing. It is no exaggeration to write that to that stage he played the billiards of his life in compiling the 399.

Unfortunately for Inman this break of 484, although the biggest of his career, will not take rank as record. It simply cannot, for the plain reason that it was made under illegitimate rules, which the Rimington-Wilson adaptations are, nothing more and nothing less. It is a simple matter, too, to show how they affected, and actually put Inman in the way of, this big break. The preceding stroke by Stevenson was an attempt at a steeplechase loser into the right top pocket over the object white, which lay right in the jaws. Stevenson jumped his ball off the table. The rules of billiards - these are the Billiard Association Rules - stipulate that the penalty for such a procedure - Stevenson hit a ball - is the loss of two points and the other player is allowed the option of following on from the position in which the balls are left or of breaking the balls or deputing his opponent to do so. But the extraordinary Rimington-Wilson text concerning such and all foul strokes is that the two object balls are put up on the table - the white on the centre spot, the red on the billiard spot, and the player against whom the foul has been committed goes on from the D, and it was in this way Inman commenced his splendid break of 484, a feat which speaks all the more loudly in his favour, as the elegant Burroughes and Watts table on which it was compiled is one of the most difficult "standards" ever erected. From every point of view excepting the unfortunate provisions exercised by an exploitation of Mr. Rimington-Wilson's far-fetched ideas as regards safety and foul strokes, the break is most creditable to all concerned. It earned Inman a richly-deserved £25, generously given to him by Messrs. Burroughes and Watts.

That 484 was followed by some determined play by Stevenson. It was all to no purpose, however, as Inman seemed brimful of breaks, and he at once rolled up a 204. He was within 15 of his handicap points in a very few innings, when he made a mistake that cost him more points than he cared to lose. Stevenson seized upon this opportunity to put together 335, 90, and 46 in successive innings before the leader gained his proportionate number. For all that he had achieved, Inman was only 1,307 points - not enough to say that he was yet quite safe from defeat - to the good when the last day's proceedings were entered upon. Once again, though, he played grandly, and quite outpointing his opponent in the afternoon, when he showed that there was nothing of a flash-in-the-pan about his previous scoring. Stevenson made one last bid to reach his man in a promising effort, verging on a couple of hundred. But the leader was in much too strong form, and recognising the fact, the scratch man did not unduly exert himself towards the inevitable ending - it was of no use.

SYNOPSIS OF THE PLAY

HEAT VIII
H. W. Stevenson (scratch) v. M. Inman (rec 2,250)

MONDAY AFTERNOON, December 31

MONDAY EVENING

TUESDAY AFTERNOON, January 1

TUESDAY EVENING

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, January 2

WEDNESDAY EVENING

THURSDAY AFTERNOON, January 3

THURSDAY EVENING

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, January 4

FRIDAY EVENING

SATURDAY AFTERNOON, January 5

SATURDAY EVENING

FULL SCORES

COMPLETE AVERAGES FOR THE HEAT

COMPLETE AVERAGES TO DATE

TABLE OF RESULTS TO DATE