It frequently happens that a ball lies just on the brink of a hole, and that a discreet touch in the right place will cause it to drop therein. For such strokes as these the instructions given for securing winning hazards at Billiards may be studied with advantage.
The game is usually 120 points—i.e., up and down the board. This number, is, however, not absolute, the player who first reaches it continuing to play until the whole of his eight balls are exhausted, and scoring the whole number obtained. If he be the second player, the game is then at an end, but if he was the first to play, the second player is entitled to
play his eight balls also, and the player attaining the larger total is the winner.
If, when the game is won, the loser has not turned the corner—i.e., begun to score on the downward journey, the game is a "double," and if there was any stake, the loser pays double accordingly.
Where four persons take part, two play as partners against the two others, one of each side playing alternately the whole of the eight balls.[[69]]
BILLIARDS.
The best introduction to an account of Billiards will be a brief explanation of the implements of the game and the terms used in connection with it.
The bed of a full-sized table (see Fig. 1) is 12 ft. long, and 6 ft. 1½ inches wide. The pockets are 3⅝ inches across. The billiard spot, S, is 12¾ inches from the centre of the top cushion, opposite to the baulk. The pyramid spot, P, is placed at the intersection of two lines drawn from the two middle pockets to the opposite top pockets. The centre spot, M, is exactly between the middle pockets. The "baulk" is the space behind a line drawn across the table, 29 inches from the face of the bottom cushion, and parallel to it. The "half-circle," or "D," is 23 inches in diameter, its centre, K, coinciding with the centre of the baulk-line.