SKILL AT BILLIARDS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20782, 17 July 1937, Page 16 (Supplement)

SKILL AT BILLIARDS

REQUISITES OF CHAMPIONS Game Which Needs Years of Practice Of all sports, those played on a billiards table are probably the most universally played, and yet for the purpose of competition they are curiously confined to the least number of players. In golf, bowls, tennis and other kindred pastimes, it is not uncommon to meet a new champion every year—sometimes a boy of 16 or similar tender years—and he is designated a “find.” But there is no such thing as a “find” in billiards. The most one can hope for is to discover someone who shows a natural talent for the game, and who, after careful tuition and assiduous practice, may, in about ten years, succeed in compiling a break reaching three figures.

Science and skill are essentials in billiards, and the player must also possess keen sight, and equally keel, judgment. He must possess the faculty for Intense concentration, and be of a cool and even temperament. It is no use trying to punish or hurt a billiard ball because it will not run where you want it to go. A player must be able to handle his cue with sufficient accuracy to strike a ball to within one thirty-second of an inch, and with strength necessary to make it stop to within a few inches of where he requires to make his next shot. Further, he must be familiar with all the various degrees of angles, and be

able to visualise them upon a cushion of the table without any mark on the table to enable him to recognise them; also he must know where to strike the ball in order to use “side,” which will make the angle slightly easier to obtain. In addition to the foregoing he must possess a sense of touch, which, for control and delicacy, is substantially different to that of a “navvy.” Contrast With Snooker A striking illustration of seeking refuge in an easy way is the vogue for snooker, a game in which there are some twenty-two balls on the table, in comparison to the three of billiards. Snooker, if anything, greatly assists the poorer player, and a fine example of this was exemplified when a nOToriously bad “winning hazard” amateur player, who had not Indulged in a game of snooker for nearly thirty years, actually beat Melbourne Inman, ex-world’s billiard champion, in two successive games, the margins being 54 to 48 and 81 to 9, and it may be mentioned that the local amateur was ten years the elder.

The degree of skill required in billiards compared with other games is strikingly illustrated in the career of Jack Hooper, an Auckland boy, and undoubtedly one of the best amateur billiardists the Dominion has produced. He won the championship of

Australia on no less than sixteen occasions, and afterwards turned professional. He won the bowls championship of Auckland in his first season at the game and also won the title of Australasian champion at tennis after a comparatively short experience of the sport. He also won prizes at golf, but never took the latter game seriously. With a fair handicap in his favour it is possible that he could have beaten the world at tennis, bowls or golf, but at billiards, the game at which he spent years of study and practice, Walter Llndrum could have conceded him about 4000 or 5000 up, and beaten him with almost moral certainty. This only goes to show that unless you have a natural gift for billiards it will take years of assiduous practice before one could hope to take part in any tournament.