BILLIARDS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 21, 23 November 1910, Page 7

BILLIARDS.

Red Losing Hazards. With that chief exponent of the los-ing-hazard game, the eighteen year-old Australian youth, George Gray, about to engage in a series of matches throughout Great Britain, it i* only reasonable to expect some uncommon performances in this direction, and a consequent desire on the part of our amateur players to follow his lead, remarks an expert in the “London Daily Telegraph.” There are few billiardists, surely, who have failed to hear of the really remarkable scoring front the coloured ball young Gray has achieved in Australia during the past two years. Breaks of 400 and 500 points almost entirely compiled by his particular agency were events of minor importance to him. His fairly frequent _COO’s, and an occasional 700, were the stepping-stones in k the formation of a new page in billiard history. This received its finishing touches when the mammoth break of 830 points, all but five points of which were scored by hazards from the red ball, came to pass last year. There were sceptics at Home here (including the writer) who mistrusted the message that the cables brought. It seemed too big a score, too heavy a strain on one of Gray’s immature age. There were rumours, also, of an enlarged baulk area, a circumstance wholly without foundation, but one which, hall it been as alleged, must have materially lessened the magnitude of a very painstaking and, evidently, most accurately delivered chain of strokes. In Justice to Gray, it should lie stated that he received no such ulterior assistance in the making of a world's record break. To dispel any lingering doubts which may still remain in the atmosphere of the far-reaching billiard world. Gray lias come to the hub of it to prove his worth among the cream of the talent. This bold and confident step will, as I have pointed out, send the pendulum of billiard-playing fancies away from the top-of-tlie-table extreme, where it lias mostly stood these past ten years, to the opposite side, and where it was placed in the days of the so-called spot-barred game which prevailed when the prolific spot-stroke held sway.

A red-ball break, by which term a more or loss prolonged succession of losing hazards from the red ball is meant, is at once a pleasing spectacle to those within easy sight of the table, and a trying achievement, as soon as it goes beyond moderate lengtlis, to the player. Having to play from about the same position out of baulk, stroke after stroke, and utilise the same set of muscles in what may fairly be described as a very similar set of shots, the losing hazard operator will find himself more

tired after a lengthy attack upon th® coloured ball than if he had scored double the amount of points by the more customary open, all-round play. The very effort of walking from point to point around the table between the strokes gives the necessary relief to the continual tax made upon the legs and back. Variety is ever charming, and in its own particular way, most restful. Anything to relieve the stress of monotony is the keynote in most things, and much so in billiards as in other matters of our daily lives. Without a doubt a special kind of training, and not less so the dogged phlegmatic temperament, is a rare factor in connection with long sequences of losing hazard strokes. Nine times out of ten it i.s fatigue that causes the failure. The eye or body is tired, the hand, as the controlling power for the shot, does not follow its given direction, aiid the object-ball is taken too fully or too thinly, and the score, if made, leaves the object ball in unfavourable scoring ground, or. as is most likely, the opposing player is called to the table. There are parts of the table to be avoided, ‘'dead ground." as it were, whiili put the red ball out of reasonable scoring latitudes, as apart from its being left inside the baulk line. These are approximately set forth by curving lints drawn against the top and side cushions on Diagram 1. Briefly, the player’s aim is to bring the coloured ball shot after shot to the centre of the table, and, preferably, to a point some 18in. directly below the middle spot. This position admits of an optional losing hazard at either of the centre pockets. But like all the very best things possible, it is seldom realised. You may start off upon a losing hazard expedition with the red ball so placed, and never again get it there, or even directly in the middle line of the table, despite the fact that all things are possible in the unending variety of this, the most complex of all games. This is my own experience, and one duly confirmed by a close vigil kept for many years now upon the play of the leading practitioners. The red ball in almost every stroke is sent up. to the top cushion, to come straight back at single strength, or at double strength through baulk: but in the case of a long and short ‘"jenny." and file very occasional slow, thin hazard, it comes squarely off the side-cushion or runs diagonally on Hie doth. These references are confined to the middle pocket, which are decidedly more simple than those aimed at the top pockets, which are not so certain to be made nor replace the red ball well for the succeeding shot. Without a doubt, the ideal of the pronounced losing hazard player, such as Gray now is and our own Melbourne Inman formerly was, is as lengthy a sequence of middle-pocket hazards as can be played, with the top-pocket “long losers” merely fitted in to regain contact with the middles. That is the theory of the red ball “break," and, like all theory, it needs the best of practice to keep at all in touch with it. The general amateur idea of playing up to one pocket is totally: sound. When the red ball lies at the sides of the table, whether it be by the top or middle pockets, the player should frame his stroke so as to send it into the centre of the table. The idea is to keep it out towards the middle, when it lies there by full shots for the middle pockets, and half-ball drives for the toppockets, that send it around the upper half of the table. And of all the strokes possible, the run-through at tlie middles is easily the safest and best when a connection is opened with the centrepockets. This shot will, unless I am greatly mistaken, be more in favour with amateurs in a few months’ time than, is now the case. The lessons in losing hazards which the youthful Australian will furnish this billiard season will set a premium upon the run through at Mie middle pockets. Upon the second diagram, the two strokes given indicate the nature of the run-through shots mentioned. To those who never play the foHow-through, unless actually compelled to do so, their apparently daring character will no doubt compel a close scrutiny. They only serve to show how vastly a different game is played by the professional experts and the skilled amateurs than that known to and rendered by the average every-day player, who deals it Jittlic else than quarter to half as strikings for almost every cannon oi losing hazard. The “hundred-break” nier control and steer the object-ball, in ad dition to making the actual scoring stroke, which is only considered to la

wne-half (a slightly larger half, maybe) of the event; the ordinary "hundredupper” barely realises more than the necessity of the score. In this last sentence there is the reason of the wide gulf fixed between the good and the moderate billiadist. It can be seen and traced during the eour-e of a professional three or four hundred “break,” wherein the maker has probably fewer difficult shots to treat with than the modest twenty or thirty effort of the every day amateur. That common remark, "Why, there wasn’t any shot that I couldn't ‘have made myself!” Very true, too; but where would the balls usually have been “left” had the amateur tended to them, instead of the professional?

The middle-pocket run-through losing hazards are invariably played with the reverse or cheek “side.” It serves to carry the eue-'ball through the objectball at a much flatter angle than plainball, to say nothing of running “side,” will do. The cue-ball also loses speed by reason of the thick three-quarters to eeven-eights ball contact and the grinding action of the cheek “side” upon the cloth; and, as most players will recognise, the slower the entry of a ball to the jaws of a poeket, the greater the probability of its dropping into the netting. By setting the aim for the near “shoulder” of the poeket, the pulling out effects of the “side” guide it to where the aperture is widest, or, at any rate, easiest of access, namely, inside the further “shoulder.” The ball can do little more than drop as it strikes these at its slowing-down pace. From the further point of view of position this run-through check “side” losing hazard at the middle pockets is the game to play at every central placing of the red ball between the ideal spot (18in., roughly, below the middle spot), right down almost to the face of the baulk-line. The precision with which the red ball is driven almost straight up to the top cushion and back, time after time, for another middle pocket-hazard can barely be realised. This is the stroke which will he found to be the mainstay of young George Gray's truly remarkable losing hazard performances, which enable him to rank as the maker of the world’s record break of 830 points. All but five points of this were made by red-ball losing hazards, and the very great majority of the cheek “side” run-throughs in the middle pockets.