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"An Awkward Stroke"

The second shot shown in Fig. 55 is an "awkward one," a very nasty shot, and so are all its cousins which present themselves when the object-ball is anywhere just out of baulk and so placed that one of these hazards is the only stroke worth attempting. You might watch professional billiards for a week and never see one of these shots played, simply because professional cue men are well aware of what trouble is in store if they leave such a stroke, and utilize all their command of positional play to avoid so doing.

With amateurs, I fear, this awkward position is all too common except among the best of them. There are many ways of leaving it through mishandling ordinary losing hazards, and when you leave one of these strokes for yourself it will do you a world of good if you pause to think of the bad shot which brought the balls into such an awkward position.

If you can find the time, I strongly advise you to learn these shots when you set them up for yourself through faulty positional play while at practice. This will be more instructive than placing the balls by hand. If you start a bout of red-ball practice with the red nicely over a middle pocket, I do not suppose you will have long to wait before a bad shot leaves the red somewhere near the position of the second shot in Fig. 55. Before you attempt to score, take the hint I have given you to satisfy yourself as to the reason why you have brought the red into such a wicked position. This will show you the cause of your fault, the difficult stroke you have to make is the effect of it. To make the shot, you must strike your ball low with a tremendous amount of check side on it. I think that more side than screw is wanted for these shots, as I have an idea that an excess of screw makes your ball curl away from the pocket towards the end of its run. I know that the side alone has this effect when your ball is running against the nap, and it may be that screw is not really to blame after all. But whatever the cause may be, I find that in actual play these shots are more certain if an enormous amount of side is used in conjunction with a somewhat higher striking of the cue-ball than I employ for a decided screw effect. You have to play fuller on the object-ball than you would if using genuine screw in conjunction with your side, and the stroke is played with all the cue-power you can put into it. The force may make the red travel three times across the table, and I find that by playing in this manner the cue ball seems to roll heavily towards the pocket without developing that fatal curl which must be avoided at all costs.