Every Boy's Book: A Complete Encyclopædia of Sports and Amusements

by Unknown

The first ball is placed on the winning-hazard spot. The white ball is placed in baulk. The game is placed by holing all the red balls. A great deal will depend in this on keeping the white ball safe, so that your adversary may have to play a cramp stroke. It is a pretty game to play with friends. Pyramids can be so modified as to suit a number of players, each striking in succession, and scoring according to the number of balls pocketed. A small stake is placed on each ball to give an interest in the game. When played in this manner, the winner who scores the greatest number takes the stakes.

“WINNING AND LOSING CARAMBOLE GAME”

Is played by either two or four persons. Winning and losing hazards, cannons, and forfeits, go to make the score, which is usually 50. If four players make a match, and play side against side, they play 63 up, and the partners may instruct each other. This plan is open to objection, and a far better one is for each to play his own game, and handicap the inferior players by giving them ten or fifteen points at the commencement. In this case, if either party gives a miss, it is far better that he should lose one point than the others should take one each. The white and spot white balls are then played alternately, as if only two were playing. The game commences by stringing for the lead and the choice of balls. The player must place his ball within the striking ring, and stand within the limits of the corner of the table. He whose ball rests nearest to the cushion at the baulk end of the table wins the lead, and chooses his own ball. A few general hints respecting the rules only is necessary. The red ball is placed on the lower of the two spots at the bottom of the table, and replaced there when it is holed (i. e. pocketed) or forced over the edge of the table, or when the balls are broken or, in other words, placed as at the commencement of a game. Whoever breaks the balls leads off. With respect to scoring: if the striker holes the white ball (called a white winning hazard), or if he holes his own ball from the white ball (called a white losing hazard), he gains two points; if he does both, he gains four points. If he holes the red ball, he wins three; and if by the same stroke he holes his own from the red, he wins three more.

POOL.

There are several ways of playing pool. There is the ordinary game, with as many balls as there are players, or with two balls only, the players playing in turns, and playing with alternate balls; playing with the nearest ball; playing at the last player; or the player playing at whichever ball he chooses. The most popular game is that in which the player plays at the last player. When coloured balls are used, they are played as the colours are placed on the marking board. Each player has three lives at starting. But there is this drawback to pool: if the player happens to lose all his lives in rapid succession, he is condemned to inglorious idleness until the pool is played out, and then the same thing may happen. This may be obviated by allowing the lives to be unlimited, and paying nothing into the general pool, so that if a player’s ball be pocketed, he has only to pay his stake and remain on hand until his turn comes round again. In this manner the players may continue their game for an unlimited period, and a new-comer may join the game at any time.

There is a cannon game which affords excellent practice. All the pool or pyramid balls are ranged in a line against the top and bottom cushion, having the plain white ball in the middle. A cue is then laid flat against them, and they are pushed along the table, so as to strike the opposite cushion. The object of the player is to take the white ball and make as many consecutive cannons as possible. Should his own ball run into a pocket, he is obliged to stop and let the next player in; and if any of the coloured balls run into a pocket, it must stay there, and of course decrease the chances of a long series of cannons. This is much more difficult than it looks.

There is a cannon game with one red and the two white balls. In this pocketing either of the white balls causes two to be deducted from the score, and pocketing the red ball loses three. The regular French game consists of cannons only; misses and pockets do not count either way. It is usually played on a French table, without pockets, with two and a half inch balls, and a heavy one. The baulk is not confined to the semicircle. At the commencement the red is placed on the winning spot, and the non-striker’s ball on the centre spot in baulk.

ITALIAN SKITTLE POOL

Is an excellent game for boys. It is played thirty-one points up. Four balls are used, two being white, one red, and one blue; and five skittles are placed in the centre of the table. Each of the skittles is numbered in the following order:—The first opposite the baulk is numbered 1; the one to the right 2; the one opposite to the first 3; the opposite to the second, on the left, 4; and the one in the centre 5. The red ball is placed as in the cannon game, the blue one beneath it. The two white balls are kept by the two players who have to play first. There is a peculiarity in this game, from the fact that a number, from one to sixteen, is chosen by the player at random, and the marker secretly adds it to the score, and in order to win the pool the player must make between the points of the game and those on the hidden ball thirty-one points, neither more nor less: if he makes more he is technically dead, and out of the game. The first player has to strike the red ball, the second the blue one, while the following players may use either. The points are made by knocking down the skittles, each of which counts as many points as its number, and by whatever ball these skittles are knocked down they always count. If a ball is knocked out of the table, it destroys all the points made by the stroke. Any player reaching twenty-nine or thirty points has a right to stop on his declaring so, only the points he makes in his subsequent play count to the advantage or disadvantage, whichever it may be, of the previous player. The survivor from amongst all the players who have died by overstepping the thirty-one points wins the pool. He who knocks down the four outside skittles, leaving the centre one only standing, makes what is called the royal, and wins the pool. There are some minute rules about stopping, which must be declared immediately on reaching twenty-nine or thirty points, and only one person can stop. The advantage of stopping is the chance of being the survivor.