BILLIARDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 707, 5 July 1929, Page 8

BILLIARDS

i PLAYING FOR POSITION

By

RISO LEVI

Author of - Billiards: The Strokes of the Game.'* and “Hilliards For the JUillion £ Copyright J The easiest strokes are often the shots which require playing with the most care, if good position for tin ensiling stroke is to he set up by them. Several of niv billiards-playin friends make their fifties and sixth quite frequently and two or three «» t them seldom play on my table with out exceeding the century once or twice in the course of the evening - play. Two others, however, play jiy • the ordinary game of thousands of no n all over the country, and when either of these men have a hundred up on my ; table I watch their play with interest, just to notice how, time after time, j they murder an excellent position by playing some shot without, as it aij ways seems to me, the slightest | thought of what the next stroke is I going to be. One of these friends of mine is passionately fond of billiards, but though he has played regularly, summer and winter, for the last 30 years i or more, he will never he any better than he is today, nor has he ever been any more proficient at the game than he is now. Every now and then he brings off some exceptionally good shots, often some difficult all-round or | up-and-down-the-table cannon that would do credit to some high-class player, but he generally plays simple positional strokes about as badly as it is possible to play them. Ordinary players who generally choose an opponent of about the same calibre as themselves have no great chance of learning positional play. But men who regularly have as an opponent a cueman who is far in advance of them, or who frequently watch two very capable amateurs at the table, ought certainly to be able to bring into their own game any number of positional strokes which re quire no power of execution or extremely good cueing, but or!y a little thought of how they should be played before striking the cue ball.

This friend of mine is, however, no solitary or exceptional case. There are tens of thousands of players ■who are exactly like him. It is always a mystery to me how men who have played for years, and have frequently w’atcbed good, amateurs at the table, are so often blind to what is so very obvious to others. It would, almost seem that there is a ‘‘billiards sense," and that very many men who play regularly are singularly deficient in It.

Diagram 5 shows position for a simple in-off. By means of a gentie stroke it is quite possible to leave good position for an in-off from the D. When the cue ball, however, is some considerable distance from the object ball, this stroke to leave an inoff often goes wrong. It is so very easy to cause the cue ball to rebound just a little too far from the side cushion to leave any medium-pace in-off from the D for the next stroke, or. on the other hand, to play the stroke just a little too gently to leave any iu-off at all. The ordinary player frequently attempts to bring the object white to the vicinity of the red on the spot in order to have an easy cannon to continue with. In endeavouring to set up this position he, however, takes the risk of placing the object ball in front or nearly in front of the red, and thus having a very bad position for the next stroke. On the diagram, the intersected line indicates how the ball has come to rest a foot or so away from the red. and when as the result of the in-off the ordinary player sets up a position like this he doubtless congratulates himself on having played a mighty good shot. In a way he has. of course, done so. but he has nevertheless played a very unsound stroke, for the cannon 1 which follows the in-off, though a : simple scoring stroke, requires extremely good handling to leave good position to continue with

Diagram 6 illustrates the belter way of playing this in-off. A good-strength stroke sets up position for a drop < unlion, the position which all good rlayers strive to obtain, as soon as the i opportunity for getting it occurs, when the red is on the spot. This i c , of i course, because a drop cannon, if at all well played, leads to further good position and brings the red into play. Should the object white travel more to the middle of the tabfe than as indicated by the intersected line on Diagram 6 position will generally be set up for a top-pocket in-off should no ordinary ball-to-ball cannon be on. | Next Article: ‘‘Two Gathering Strokes.