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"A Spectacular but Difficult Cannon"

We now pass to a stroke which has a family likeness to the one dealt with at the beginning of this chapter. The general purport of the shot is the same, but this is a more difficult example. As the balls lie, see Fig. 64, you must play the screw cannon with side-a good deal of right-hand side. You strike the red almost dead full and screw straight back to the top cushion, then the powerful right-hand side takes full effect, spinning your ball away to make the cannon as shown in the diagram. As your ball is so close to the red as well as the top cushion, you will find that your carefully-chalked cue will need all the handling you can give it, to get the screw, side, and power you want to make the cannon and bring the red round into position. This is a good stroke to practice, but not over-much. It is nice to be able to do it, and very useful indeed when a similar position occurs during a game. But your break-building capacity will be more improved by a thorough knowledge of the steady, plain-ball shots dealt with in my two preceding diagrams ; for which reason I want to warn you against putting in too much time on spectacular efforts like the cannon now under review.