NOVELTY IN BILLIARDS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16726, 5 December 1914, Page 6

NOVELTY IN BILLIARDS.

The billiard season opens on Monday with the start of the Burroughes and Watts tournament, and the conditions have been so altered that the matches will be something of a novelty. Previously the heats have been MOO up extending over a week. This time they will be only 4000, and there will be two games a week. There will also be only one session, with a brief interval. This means that there will be no play at night. By these changes it is hoped to create a fresh interest and bring about an improvement in the attendances. Six players make up the competition and the handicap has just, been announced. As was expected, H. W. Stevenson, George Gray and T. Reece have been placed on the scratch mark. The two young men, T. Newman and W. Smith have each been given 300 start, and E. Diggle gets 500. It would appear that Newman and Smith have been rather harshly* treated. A year ago, when Newman was successful without dropping a point, he received 2000 in 9000. The start' he has now been allotted is equivalent to 675 in 9000, so he has been penalised 1325 for his victory of a year ago. Newman was, of course, expected to bo pulled back, but hardly to that extent. If this is the correct placing of Newman the authorities were bound to put his rival Smith on the same mark, for tho latter was the only man to beat Newman last season, and he accomplished this feat tliree times. That Diggle, who has so long been up to the championship level, should have been given so many as 500 is surprising, and, if he would shako off the indifference which often attacks him, there is none who would havo a better chance of winning the tournament. In these short games, however, it is possible for anything to happen, and the player who make*? the best start will be hard to overtake. For Stevenson, Reece and Gray, it can be said that they are only a s;ood break behind their opponents. They can clear off the whole of their -arrears in the first hour or so of a heat. In the circumstances the winner may well come from tho backmark, and at the moment George Gray, with all the endless possibilities of his red ball play is favourite.