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"When to Take Chances"

But if the score were 99 to 98 in your favor, it would be very bad billiards indeed to take your chance with the pot-shot at the red. Then you should give a gentle miss an inch or two out of baulk to leave all three balls dead in line. As you want but one for game, your opponent cannot give an answering miss. His best chance of a score is a tremendously difficult hazard into one of the middle pockets. He might pot the red in a top pocket if he strikes a wonderful winner. He might screw back into a baulk pocket if he has plenty of luck, pluck, and cue-power ; he will need all three in abundance to do it. All these shots are possible, and there are others-a wizard with a cue might even make a masse cannon of sorts. But the chances are heavily against a score of any kind, especially between hundred-up performers, and the odds are that you will have a good chance to make the point you want when your adversary fails at some ambitious attempt to score.