The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-10-08
AN EASY BUT IMPORTANT SHOT.
Champion Hoppe Tells Of an incident
In Billiard Match for Supremacy.
OKansas City Journal. }


William Hoppe. the young champion of
the world at 1S-inch balk line billiards.
one shot in, and holder of the worlds rec
ord run OF 30 for 1S-inch baik line, two
shots in, was asked the other day what
shot, II any, he considered the most mo-
Ilentous of his career. In January last
Hoppe defeated Maurice Vignaux in
Paris and wrested the 1871 title away from
the veteran Frenchman He told of a
shot in that game which came as near as
any to being turning point In his strus-
gle for premier hoDors. 1t was the win
ming of that game that brought him from
the shortstop class up 10 the masters
clsss-rankcd him among the topnotchers.
The most important shot to me, of
that game, said Master william, was
at the beginning OF the second inning of
the second half of the contest. In Paris
there is a recess when one of the players
has reached the halfway mark In points.
| The game was close enough when the sec
ond half began to be either mans. For
the shot | am telling you about the balls
were lined up extending diagonally out
from the side rail. The cue ball was
other two. The cue ball went from the
first object ball to the side rail and then
to the second ball, catching the second
ball on the fer edge: The shot gave me
IF mad missed ] would have left posi-
ton for Vignaux, and the chances are
that he then would have caught his stroke
first instead of me. great deal de-
pended on which of us got his stroke
first, and I consider that shot the most
important in the game. Anyway, he did
not play well after that. and he told me
after the game that that shot beat him. :"
In the recent Chicago 1872 tournament
Hoppe defeated George Sutton, who made
the record average of 100 for 1872 in the
New York turnament- There was shot
in that game which he thinks as hard as
any he ever made. The first object ball
was frozen to an end rail. Near the other
end rail and near it's middle was the cue
ball The second objec. ball was in a cor
ner just to the right of the cue ball. The
cue ball was driven up to the far object
ball. sliced off the latter to the right and
to the adjacent end cushion and came
back to the second object ball-a one
cushion shot. 1t was a shot calling for
complex application of force and a posi-
tior shot as well. 1t gathered the balls
and led up to big run.
How long did 1t take me to run 307?''
repeated Hoppe. About forty minutes,
should say. ] did not feel much like play
| ing before the game began, but the far
ther it went the better l felt. Sometimes
a man plays well when he doesn't think
he is going TO and vice versa. That's one
of several things about billiards that are
hard TO explain. / was a little tired when
[ reached the hundredth count of the run.
200 mark in run you feel you can make
anything, and that's the way I felt in
that run.
There was more applause when |
/
/ passed the previous record run, made
by Cure. Most of the spectators did not
know the record run had been beaten. No.
/ can't say that applause has much effect
on me. / never see the people in an i'm
portant match. The balls and the table
are all I see. The only time / feel nerv-
Gus is just before the start. After the
start I'm all right
ut was not the applause that bothered
me in the game in New York in which
schaefer beat me- continued Hoppe. tell
ms of the contest in which he rallied and
almost caught Schaefer at the tape. 81
lost that game through bad judgment.
There was a lineup and I took a chance
that / should not have taken. / thought
1 had the game won sure. became too
confident and threw the game away. 1t
taught me q lesson, however.
There is a good deal OF strain in bill
| lard contests, but / for one don't feel 1t
until it is all over. Then you're apt to
be tired and nervous. A tournament isn't
as trying as a match, because you have
mere chances. The hardest thing a con-
testant in tournament experiences is to
! look on as a spectator and see one of
your rivals winning whom you want to
SC5 lose.
Asked If he thought any as yet unde-
veloped game would supersede the present
| 1S-inch baIk line games, Hoppe replied
| that he did not. They have plenty of
variety in them, and no other games will
| take their place; at least, not for while, "
he said. Figuring ahead7 Well. you
!
ahead. If you did you wouldn't get the
| balls where you wanted them. You have
| to figure further ahead In ISL than in 49,
! The hardest thing in billiards to get right
/ Is force-judgment of force. If you get
! your force right there is nothing TO it.
| Angles? They come natural to me. But
while force is important, another import
| ant thing in billiards is the eye. Often a
| player misses a shot and he doesn't know
why. The chances are that it is the eye
which can get out of whack in a billiard
sense, just as the stroke can.
''All else being equal, results in billiards
| depend on the system employed. Person
| ally, / prefer free stroke and don't care
| much about keeping the balls extremely
close You're not as likely to get tied up
! according to the way figure it out, when
YOU don't play them so close. and the
freer stroke means freer muscles. I de-
pend a good deal on my drives, and as
| long as the balls come to within two OF
| three inches of each other IL suits me
Something can be left to execution.
| There's one thing about the shortstor
| class that makes ii harder to win in thai
class than when playing with the cracks
/ The latter all play about the same, AND
/ you have q better idea of what they car
| do but you can't tell what a shortstop is
I going to do Sometimes he'll play as vel
| as Schaefer.
Il like Sutton's billiards best to watch.
said Hoppe in response to query on that
| subject
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