RULES OF BILLIARDS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 24, 30 January 1928, Page 17

RULES OF BILLIARDS

A REVISION DESIRED i SUGGESTIONS BY AMATEURS There is •» growing feeling among English amateur billiard players that the rules of the game are unsatisfactory. They may suit professionals, but may not necessarily be good for amateurs (writes H. 8., In the Melbourne . ''Argus"). If there were a consensus of opinion upon what modifications tehould be made, the task of the Billiard jConneil, which is now requested to do »11 sorts of contradictory things, would be relatively easy; but except in the sense of "whatever is, is wrong," there is no unanimity among the complainv ants. One iconoclast would have tho ■cores of all strokes levelled down to tone. You pot the white, say; you get eoe. By a miracle of luck or dexterity you make a cannon, pocket the red, pocket the white, and go in off the red; ■till you get but one. Misses and coups this reformer would have declared fouls, with the balls spotted for the opponent. Yet he makes some concessions to human frailty, and so in the tovcjit of a player having a double-baulk left he would not have him penalised if he failed to strike either of the object balls. As for potting the white he would take the sting out of these .. .tactics by having the rule so altered that the potted white, instead of being "dead" as it is now, would be very much alive, for it would' be taken out of the pocket, placed on the centre of the "D" line, ,and in that position itf .would be declared immune from the attack of the potter, supposing that he were in hand. Then to encourage all-- . round play he would allow a sequence pi live shots of a kind only. ' Another amateur ssks the council to inform him why a player should make three for scoring off the red and only Itwofor scoring off the white. Tasked Joha Boberts that question many years ■go, and he replied: "Because the red is a privileged ball. If you pot the red - it comes up again if yon put the white down.it stays down." "But that refers to whnier»,"jl said./ "Why should you get three for going In off the red and ' only two when you go in off the white!" "When you go in off the red," said Bobjerts, with an air of finality, "you go in off the privileged ball, and, of course, you get more for doing so than if you went in off the white." With due re? spect to Boberts, however, for his explanation, it explained nothing. Perhaps the reason for the differentiation between white and red scoring will never be known, but I may hazard a conjecture which does not offend ■ th« probabilities. English billiards was intended to be a three-ball game, just as the .cannon game is a . three-ball game. Rut in the early days, when tho pockets were very large and potting therefore very easy, there was always a -danger of an unenterprising player frequently converting it into a twoball game by putting th« white down. Thus the ancient legislators wisely made white-ball play unattractive compared with red-ball play, If the white, was pocketed if was off the table until the. striker broke down, and when this happened his opponent had the advantage jof not being.compelled to play from a fixed position. It may be noted, however, that in the event of a double baulk the advantage of not having to play from a fixed position would disappear. ,: „:■;- /:...,;■:. Another amateur who is-; in. favour of revising, the rules probably had this in mind When he suggested to the council that if the white was potted it should''be placed on the centre'spot of the table and the non-striker should; then play on; further, that baulk should be no protection;"; Is othejr words, 7i& would abolish the protective quality of the baulk line altogether, and, inciientally, hfewouTd, in so doing, make *wo-ball billiards impossible" This critic does not se why the spot stroke should be limited to one, and many .will agree with him. Indeed, wh»: limit the spot stroke play at allT Certainly it should not-be limited for amateurs, .and. it is tho point of view of the amateur that > I am considering. Another and rather cynical critic thinks that if the Billiards Control Club is s* keen. np6n "tinkering" with the roles it should let cannons and hazards all count three. "That," he maliciously ■ays, "would enable our amateur games to bo finished more quickly, which would give pleasure io all." What one might have expected amateur players to state as their chief grievance is the limitation of hazards to ft score of 75, winners to count in the sequence as well as losers. They say nothing about that at all. Yet it is the losing hazard that amateurs in the first xank have come to rely on mainly for their scoring during the last 25 years. Silence on this point, therefore, is surprising. The limitation of hazards should improve the quality of amateur scoring, though it would certainly re jttuce its quantity, but limitations should have been brought about indirectly, so to speak* Granted that both for the amateur and professional the hatard has become too easy. Close up the "D" an inch or more, hazard sequences will be thus curtailed and there will be no necessity to hobble the game by arbitralily limiting them. Another restriction which should be removed is that which •ays th.at only a single spot stroke shall be made. If this shot, or any other shot is fair, it seems to be illogical to limit it at all; but if the spot strike had become too easy, as it undoubtedly had before it was barred, then instead of barring it and thereby depriving the game of a picturesque feature, the bilJiartt spot'should have been moved half an inch or so nearer the'top cushion. That simple expedient would have made overgrown spot stroke breaks impossible. The nursery cannon, which has been played ad nauseam of late years, undoubtedly needs dealing with severely ,The best way of doing this would be to draw a bank line all round the table and limit the number of consecutive fcannone that could be played in baulk. s'hat would be no experiment, but an approved expedient which has been adopted with the happiest results both is the United States and in Europe.