THE JUMP SHOT IN BILLIARDS.
By P. A. Vaile.
Very few billiard players know the best way to play the jump shot; yet r it is a very important stroke. To snooker players, it is of course, invaluable, but very few of them have the rudimentary idea of how to play it. Some of them attempt it. The method most in favour is to hit the ball very low. This does make the ball jump, but it is very unreliable, as there is not sufficient lifting power, most of the force going into propulsion. For this rea son it is difficult to play a short jump shot in this manner.
I have seen a snooker player, who is good enough to have the chronic habit of entering for the amateur billiard championship, when “snookered” by a single ball on a line of reds a foot wide play off the cushion and miss. With the jump shot properly played he could not possibly have missed.
Some of the best books on the game give no instructions whatever about this useful and attractive shot. The professionals play It by running the cue along the cloth for an inch or two before striking the ball. It is undeniable that a good jump shot can be got this way, but it is not the best way, although it is almost invariably used.
The fact is, that in billiards, as in many other games, strokes have been built up haphazard and without any consideration of the mechanical principles involved, in their production.
The best way to get the jump shot at billiards is not to slide the cue tip along the cloth, but to strike the cloth first, the merest fraction of an inch from the ball. When one gives this instruction one is immediately asked — “What about the cloth?”
With a proper cue-tip it is impossible to damage the cloth if the stroke be properly played, for the cue is running nearly parallel with the bed of the table, and can get no grip on the cloth.
The reason why this is the better shot than the one usually employed may be briefly explained. With a sliding shot the stroke merely resolves itself into applying the propulsive force very low-to be accurate, exactly at the height of the diameter of the circle formed by the cue-tip. It follows naturally that the smaller the tip the better it is for playing the jump shot. The stroke herein described as preferable has the advantage of a large amount of lifting force. The cue strikes the table at an angle, slight, it is true, but quite appreciable, and most important in its effect on the ball. It cannot go through the bed of the table, so it rebounds from it approximately at the same angle, as that at which it struck it. It thus gets a large amount of upward force, which throws the ball into the air more quickly, more accurately, and with more delicacy of touch than is possible with the ordinary stroke.
This stroke may be used to play losers where the ball of: one’s opponent is hanging over the jaw of the pocket. A great amount of ac curacy can be acquired with it. It may be most successfully employed in snooker, and in many cases it makes an otherwise difficult cannon, or an almost impossible loser in the ordinary way, quite simple. It is not a fluke shot, but, played as described, is almost as certain in many ways as if it had not left the bed of the table. For instance, one may be left with an easy loser off the red, were it not for the intervening ball of one’s opponent, which practically renders a score impossible without losing the obstacle. In such cases it is quite easy to play the loser with the jump shot described. When better known it is sure to be more widely used, both in snooker and in billiards, than it is now.
Having described the shot, we have next to consider what implement is most suitable for playing it. We have many adjuncts to the billiard table. There are the jiggers and cushion rests, butts and halfbutts, spiders and cues, and masse cues, and various other things, each df which we use in its proper place, but peculiarily enough, we have no implement suitable for playing the jump shot in the most perfect manner.
In games, the things that interest me are the difficulties. I can jump a ball six or eight feet away from the cue ball and go and get my winning hazard. I have done if repeatedly, and often shown it as a trick shot, but, frequently I noticed that my direction was bad. I soon came to the conclusion that the ordinary cue is not a good implement for a jump shot. One is lifting a sphere with a desire to propel it accurately through the air, and one deliberately chooses the impact of a circle on a circle-for the circumference of a billiard ball is, of course, a circle. The contact of two circles is practically a point. That, allowing for the compression of the edge of the tip, is all one gets when playing the shot with an ordinary cue.
I saw that a rectangular-tipped cue would give much better results. Messrs. F. H. Ayres, Limited, have made several for me, and I found as I anticipated, that there is no comparison in the work of the two cues. With the oblong tip the ball beds into a straight line of the edge of the tip, and so gets a perfect direction it the cue is well used.
It has been stated that this shot is a foul shot, because the ball is hit with the wood of the cue. It is no more hit with the wood of the cue in this shot than it is in any stroke where the extreme of the side is imparted-and this is not at all.
I never any doubt of this, but to make absolutely certain I coloured a cue for several inches right up to the tip, and played the stroke repeatedly. There was not a trace of contact with the ball, other than in the legitimate way.
One hears some curious objections. A friend, after seeing how effective the stroke is, said, “Yes; but you are robbing snooker of half its terror.” This style of argument should do away with spiders, cushion rests, and all other assistance. Even with the jumper there will still be left enough difficulty on the billiard table.
I am inclined to think that the idea is quite a novelty in the billiard world. The design has been registered, and in the future we may hear in every well-appointed billiard-room the, command among other well-known orders, “Give me the jumper.”-“Sydney Evening News.”
Kalgoorlie Western Argus, 10 January 1911