Billiards Playing Conditions

By Author: Elias Stonewall
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Billiards Playing Conditions

It is no use trying to play billiards—" on a cloth untrue, with a twisted cue, and elliptical billiard balls," as W. S. Gilbert has it. Billiards is essentially a game of precision, and to play it at all well you must have the right implements to play with. A cue of your own is not a luxury, it is as much a necessity as his own clubs are to a golfer.

Of late years, Willie Smith has set the fashion for a heavy cue tipped with a brass ferrule. His cue weighs 18 oz. John Roberts said: "As regards the weight of a cue, I think 15 oz. to 16 oz. is heavy enough for anyone.

The length of a cue should be from 4 feet 8 inches to 4 feet 9 inches." Tom Newman uses a 17-oz. cue measuring 4 feet 10 inches in length, and as Smith's is heavier still, it is evident that the best of modern billiardists favor distinctly heavier cues than were used by the old past master of the game.

Weight and Length of Cue

I advise my readers to be up to date as regards using a cue of useful weight. The reason is mainly this—as I shall tell you again ...
... later on, one of the principal things in billiard playing is to " let the weight of the cue do the work." Therefore, provided it does not feel clumsy and awkward in your hand, you should select a cue which is heavy rather than light. Then the " weight of the cue " will do all the " work " you want it to perform; there is a lot more in this than you may think.

Newman and Smith do not play with seventeen and eighteen ounce cues for no particular reason. They know that the weight, properly placed in the cue and correctly applied by the player, equals cue-power, and I advise you to keep this in mind when you are selecting a cue for your own use. Another point in favor of a fairly heavy cue is that, if it is made as it should be, it will have enough wood in it to be stiff. And the stiffer a billiard cue is the better it is. A cue which shakes and quivers as it strikes a ball is good for but one thing—to lend to the man you want to beat.

Which reminds me that when you get a cue of your own, it is not clever to lend it. A bad player may spoil it, a good player may keep it if it is a first-class cue which suits his play—lending cues is about ten times more risky than lending books—don't do it! Pick a cue with a fair-sized tip, have it fitted with
a brass ferrule, and polish it with a dry cloth, plain paper, or constant play, the latter preferred. If you are in the habit of sandpapering the woodwork of your cue, buy a cheap one, the cheaper the better, because it will only be fit for firewood before long, and it is a mistake to pay too much to keep the home
fires burning. In any other case, pay enough for your cue to get one of the best from a firm of standing and reputation.

Balls, Ivory and Composition

As regards balls, there is no getting away from the fact that ivory balls are the only kind officially recognized for the championships, which makes them the standard ball for billiards. For this reason, all the strokes in my book have been played with ivory balls of equal size and weight. At the same time, I fully realize that composition balls are used to a much greater extent than the ivories are, and I think the day is not far distant when some make of composition ball will demand official recognition. There is nothing else for it, as far as I can see.

Ivory balls really worth playing with are an expensive luxury, and a set of ivories fit for first-class play is worth a fancy price. The fact of the matter is that ivory suitable for billiard ball manufacture must be getting more and more scarce every year, while the demand is at least as great as ever. A time must come, and I think it will arrive sooner than many people think, when the law of supply and demand will bring composition balls on the table for championship billiards.

The question is one for the Billiards Association and Control Council, and I should like to hint that the makers of composition balls would assist their own interests if they conducted exhaustive experiments to produce a ball which comes off at as near the ivory angle as possible, and is less apt to pick up dirt than composition balls usually are. --- Edited by Elias Stonewall for http://contentdesk.com. More articles on billiards and pool available at Content Desk!