Billiabds

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 731, 2 August 1929, Page 14

Billiabds

SETTING UP POSITION FOR A DROP CANNON

By

RISO LEVI

Author of ••Billiards: The Strokca the Game/* and "Billiards For ‘ the Million/* C Copyright} Whenever the red ball is badly situated the capable player schemes to bring it into play as soon as possible. When it is in some bad position well above the centre pocket it seldom takes more than two or three in-offs from the white to set up portion for a drop cannon, and frequently this desirable position can be set uu by a single in-off. y Diagram 0 shows a location of the bails which is typical of constantly occurring positions. The player is in hand, and the only stroke to play i s a ccntre-pocket iu-off. I have watched numerous ordinary players—two of them are particular friends of mine—make a mess, time after time, of a good position like this—murdering it. I always call it. They invariably play the in-off with the idea of bringing the ball down the table for another centre-pocket stroke Occasionally they succeed in dointhis, although they could not tell you before playing the stroke into which centre pocket the next in-off is going to be. More often than not, how-

ever, they fail to bring the ball far enough down the table, for another centre-pocket stroke, and thus the next stroke generally has to be a toppocket in-off. And even if they are successful at this, the resultant position is often very bad. When the red is well placed for centre-pocket play, it is_ always quite a good game to make a series of strokes off this ball, firstly because each counts three points, and secondly because if the object ball after one of these strokes comes into position for a centre-pocket pot, instead of for an in-off, good position can still be maintained by means of this pot. No good player, however, tries to make a series of in-offs from the white, when it is quite an easy matter to set up pcsition for a simple cannon by means of an in-off. In the position shown on the diagram it is the simplest of strokes to play the in-off with the strength which will send the object white to the vicinity of the top cushion. No very exact strength is necessary to obtain this result, for it matters not whether the ball travels right up to the cushion, and comes to rest there, whether it stops six inches or even a foot short of it, or whether it reaches the cushion and rebounds a few inches from it. Also, it is not necessary for the ball to travel up the table exactly as indicated by the intersected line on the diagram, for the 23in line of the D gives a great latitude as to how it may travel in order for position to be set up for a simple ball-to-ball cannon. Thousands of ordinary players must, have seen this simple positional stroke played times out of mind by better players thau themselves, and yet they never attempt to copy it. Why? It is the same in my own billiards room. I have set up the position for one or two of my friends who play a poor game—though they bring off most excellent strokes every now and then—and they have playsd the iu-off quite correctly when I have told them what to do, but when a day or two later, or even on the same day, this kind of position crops up in a game they are playing, these same men seem to forget all about it.

Diagram 10 illustrates a stroke for the fairly capable player. Here, again, the red is badly situated, but the object white is in position for a toppocket in-off. It is not at all difficult to set up position for a centre-pocket stroke by means of this top-pocket in-off, but first-class players almost invariably play the in-off illustrated on the diagram in order to set up position for a drop cannon. This stroke, however, requires good handling, a 3 there is no great amount of latitude for error in strength as regards getting the position played for. Still, the run of the object hall has cot to be gauged just to an inch or two, because the cue ball can be spotted anywhere on a 23in line for the next stroke. I commend this stroke to players who have travelled as far as a 50 01 80 break. Next Article: “Setting Up Position For a Drop Cannon.”—ll.