BILLIARDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 797, 18 October 1929, Page 12

BILLIARDS

HOW JOHN ROBFRT* THRILLED SPECTATORS

Sy RISO LEVI Author or •■Billiards.- The ... ■he Came." and * The Million." fCOPIRIGHT) lu my last article I dwelt lack o£ interest in hards, and stated that the reason T attendances at matches and eihihw games were, as a rule, so me» gre because spectators get no thrills .2* watching professionals. The number of men and youths » h -play-’ billiards is infinitely gre . than the number who take an activ' part in football or cricket. Football is an arduous game and a man hast give it up long before he is e . middle-aged, and comparatively men can play cricket when they getting on in years. There is, howevj no age limit to billiards.

Cricket requires a proper ground on which to play, and 22 players for the correct game, and the same applies to football. Cricket is only a summt ■ game, and even football is not an al tbe-year-round game. Cricket again k dependent on weather conditions a n,< so. to a lesser extent, is football’ Billiards requires only two players for a game, and by reason of its beinan indoor pastime is independent o* the weather, and even of dayligh' Indeed, even when it is played in th. daytime artificial light is almost invariably substituted for daylight. Anil vet although there are a million or more people in the kingdom who are interested in billiards, comparativeh few professional games are plavcl t„ full bouses, notwithstanding that the term “full house" when applied to bil liards rarely means a gathering ot more than 200 to 250 people. John Roberts, the greatest player of his time, in addition to being a great cueman, was also a great showman. He had the business acumen to realise that in order to play to full houses as a regular thing, he must give his audience an occasional thrill by bringing off, every now and then, some big spectacular stroke. You may watch Newman or Smith, Joe Davis or Falkiner, for the whole of a session, or for the matter of that for several sessions, without once seeing him play some tremendous screw or some mighty forcing stroke. Our top-notchers of today keep the balls under such perfect control that positions are seldom or never set up for such strokes. And on the very rare occasions on which the balls get out of hand, and any scoring stroke would be a tremendous shot, they either play for safety, or perhaps pot the white and leave a double baulk. JOHN ROBERTS'S METHODS

John Roberts's methods were very different. Occasionally, when he had made a break getting on for 200, and had the balls nicely bunched together, he would play a smashing stroke and send the balls careering round the table. It was as though he said. “Let them go where they like, and I'll show you that I "can score from the leave.” And when he succeeded in bringing off some big stroke after smashing up a splendid position, the applause which he got for it was proof to him of the wisdom of his tactics. I saw Roberts at the table on very numerous occasions, and I have a lively recollection of many great strokes made by him. Fortunately I have not to trust to my memory only concerning these strokes, for I made a sketch of most of them at the time they were made, and I am thus able to refer to them when occasion demands it.

Diagram 21 illustrates one of these strokes. Roberts had scored about 100 and was in hand. The red ba was fully 15 inches out of baulk an not more than a couple of inches f the cushion, and the object white wa* on the brink of the right top pocKe • A REAL THRILLER With the balls thus situated any cannon is a difficult and uncertain stroke, and whether it comes off or no_ the object white must be lost. would present-day professionals « with such a position? Undoubtedly they would pot the white and double baulk. Instead, John Robena played the screw from the red lb the baulk pocket illustrated on t diagram. Nor did the great master old waste any time over the stroke. * " sooner had the ball or balls come * rest —I forget what stroke he h played previous to the big sere* „ than he saw his chance of bring* off a real thriller, and went out for without the slightest hesitation, i £ remember quite well how the cue fairly raced to the pocket, and n great and even excited w r as the f plause which greeted it when it tered it. And I remember, too, n I was thrilled by this wonder stn> ' The perfect play of our present- - profesisonals often induces a f ee * . of somnolescence when you are wat ing them, but you never felt like go to sleep when you were watching Roberts. Next Article: POSITIONAL STROKES