Modern Pool

11

1. Material

The farther up front the edge is the more likely the balls are to drop. Here too, are high tolerances as well as there where the angles of the openings are concerned.

- Cushions -

What else about the playing area is there to be considered? This, too, is a complex topic since there are many different kinds of cushions with different qualities. The quality of the cushion essentially depends on the rubber being used. To exhaustively deal with this topic would exceed the scope of this work by far. Since the present work concentrates on the playing aspect of the game the following must suffice:

Cushions are classified as hard, medium, or soft speed. This means you have to know what kind of cushion you are playing on. In playing the game, this makes a big difference and we will have to talk about that in the technical section of the book. The cushions or rather the cushion rubber tends to become slightly brittle with age so it is advisable to renew a table's cushions after a couple of years. If the cushions become brittle or are just too old, they also become softer and softer which makes the balls come up "short" for example on bank shots. How to determine the softness of a cushion will be dealt with in the technical section.

This section on cushions should close with the advice that a player should try to find out during the warm-up phase what kind of cushions he is being confronted. As a good player you will have to be able to adjust to the cushions on any table, at least until they are standardized.

- Slate slabs -

Now a few words on the slabs of slate over which the cloth is stretched. They are also of interest where the playing of the game - particularly in executing extreme shots like the massé or the jump shot - is concerned. The main billiard slate supplier is Italy. Why, some of you may ask, does it have to be slate at all? Why not, for ex-ample, a marble slab. Well, if you take a billiard ball and let it drop onto a marble slab from a short distance, you will see that the ball will bounce numerous times before it finally comes to rest again. If you repeat the same with a slate slab you will find that ball will come to rest much quicker. Usually, it will bounce 2 - 3 times. This is due to the slates layered composition which deadens or rather absorbs such impacts more quickly. That such a quality is considered desirable in billiards needs no further explanation. Scarcely any other natural or artificial material exhibits characteristics comparable to slate, not at present at least and not for an economical reason.

Most of the time, the slate is an inch (25 mm) thick. 30 mm would be desirable but is found only rarely (cf. carom and snooker where slabs are around 40 - 50 mm thick). Because slate is a material sensitive to changes in temperature and prone to warp, a thicker plate is, desirable because it is,...