THREE-POOL
When four players only are left, and one of them is finally killed, the marker should be careful to call ‘Three-pool.’ Why this is so may not be apparent to the novice, and perhaps it will be cheaper for him to learn from a book than to pay for the information over the table. When four or more players are left in, the striker plays for a hazard, and, whether successful or not, he has no further anxieties beyond the safety of his own ball; but in three-pool a new element is introduced: he must consider where the object ball will finally stop if his hazard fails, and the middle of the table is the very worst position for it. A moment’s thought will show the reason. A., B., and C. are three players: B. plays on A., lays himself safe from C., and leaves A. in the middle of the table. C. having to play on B., is now, in most cases, in a great dilemma; he has no chance of taking B., and with A. in the middle of the table may find it very difficult to get safety after he has played. If he has a long shot from under the cushion, he will probably leave A. a fairly easy stroke, in which case B. may suffer also, so that B.’s own carelessness, or his indifference as to where A. was left, may deservedly recoil on his own head. The amount of consolation meted out to him for having been sold will be the cold comfort of ‘You ought to have played three-pool;’ in other words, ‘You ought, while leaving your ball safe, to have also left A.’s ball in such a position as to make safety fairly possible for C.’ Again, it is only self-defence to leave the object ball near a pocket, in case of a failure to put it in; especially is this advisable when it is very hard for the striker to get safety, for it is clearly to every player’s advantage to have, if possible, a comrade in misfortune.
The general principle of three-pool may be more easily understood from Diagram VIII., which shows two cases in which the obvious stroke for ordinary pool would be quite wrong in three-pool. In each case red has to play on white, yellow being his player. In No. 1 red has a hazard in the middle pocket, but it is not particularly easy, and must be played slowly, so that if it fails white will very likely be thrown by the lower jaw of the pocket to about A, while red drops slowly down to B. Yellow has the poorest chance of escaping white next time, and, being extremely indifferent to what becomes of red, will probably sell him, as he deserves. If red plays the game he will dribble white down towards the left-hand bottom pocket, and be himself safe at C, when yellow will not be forced to run any risks. In stroke 2 it is tempting to play for the double into the middle pocket with strong right-hand side and screw, so as to get near the spot off three cushions; but as this would probably leave white in the middle of the table, and yellow would be in hopeless trouble, the right stroke is an attempted double into the bottom pocket, when left-hand side and screw will leave the striker safe, and yellow will have no difficulty in getting safe also, while, further, the striker will have the best chance in the subsequent finessing.