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"A Cannon Usually Wrongly Played"

middle pocket, which sometimes happens. This is not a good shot, it is too positionally unsound. Even if you do happen to cannon just right on the red, where is the white going? By playing the cannon in this way, the most you can expect is a very problematical leave off the red; whereas by playing it correctly you retain control of all three balls. The right stroke is the simple cannon off the side cushion shown in my diagram. No side is required on your ball. You place your ball in the "D," to make the angle shown, play slowly and not too full on the red, send your ball against the side cushion, and complete the cannon fully on the white. This leaves the red in splendid break-building position. If it is far enough up the table, you can go in-off it. If it does not offer the loser, you can pot it in the middle pocket to leave the familiar cross-loser off the spotted red. And when your ball returns to hand, you have the white offering an easy hazard into the left middle pocket if you happen to want it. This simple exposition of the true meaning of three ball control is highly instructive, the more so as a few trial shots will show you that, after a little practice, it is just as easy to make this cannon correctly as it is to mishandle it by playing it direct from white to red. The principle of the shot is capable of almost indefinite extension, especially when considered in conjunction with the use of side, or side combined with screw or top, on the cue ball. But before you experiment with these complications, I want you to extract the last atom of scoring efficiency from the plain-ball type we are dealing with. You can easily set-up many slight variations of it, all playable from baulk, and if you weld these into your game, your billiard improvement is likely to be more marked than you may suspect, simply because these cannons are so frequently met with in actual play.