DAVIS COULD NOT CONCEDE BIG HANDICAPS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 21

DAVIS COULD NOT CONCEDE BIG HANDICAPS.

There is a limit even to Joe Davis* snooker wizardry. The Gold Cup handicap, which he has hitherto won each season, will, not be his this time. Two opponents, the elder Smith and young Brown, have beaten him. And this notwithstanding the fact that the champion has put up a new snooker record. He has just beaten his own previous best, which was a world rccard, of 136 points in one break, by compiling 137. This *s not far short of a snooker "possible," which assumes that a black, and nothing less valuable, is taken with each of the reds potted, and that the record-Tjreaker takes every red. Davis points out that, on his present absurd handicap—he has to give players of first-class professional prestige up to live or six blacks each game—he must be right on tfie very peak of his snooker form all the time to have any chance at all, and that, if the opponent gets a few reds, there are not enough left to enable him to overtake on the long handicap. Moreover, with 30 or 40 start, a player up, against Joe can sit on the splice, if one may borrow a cricket term, and almost prevent the possibility of being overtaken. But Joe is not a bit disgruntled. He a thoroughly good sportsman, and realises that it 'is time somebody else had a turn at the Gold Cup.