Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/694

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These, with the exception of some remarks about the conduct of strangers, the payment of wagers, and so on, are tiie rules by which the English game of billiards is universally governed. The principal modifications of this game are the four-handed game, which is ordinary billiards by four players in sides of two, each player being allowed to instruct his partner ; a la royale, or the game of three ; the white winning game, consisting entirely of winning hazards ; the white losing game ; the red winning game; the red losing game; the cannon game; and the American game. This last is played with four balls, two white and two coloured, and consists entirely of winning hazards and cannons. There is also a Russian game, called .carline or Caroline, not unlike American biUiards ; a German game, Wurst-partie, in which a certain number of balls are placed in a row across the table ; the Spanish, or -gkittle game, which the Germans call Kugel-partie ; and French billiards or the cannon game formerly universal on the Continent, and now very popular in the United States, where the best players are Frenchmen or men of French ex traction. Of these games, however, it is unnecessary to speak, as they are all much inferior to billiards, and can be easily played by any one familiar with the established English game. The lesser varieties of billiards choice of balls, in which each player selects the ball he plays with ; bricole, in which the player strikes his ball against a cushion and endeavours to reach his opponent s ball from the rebound ; bar-hole, so called from a pocket or pockets being barred or stopped for one of the players; one pocket to five; winning against losing ; the nomination game, which is ordinary billiards, in which the player is obliged to name his stroke before attempting it, and failing to make it gains nothing, or gives unnamed cannons and hazards to his opponent; the commanding game; the go-back game, which id played by an adept against a tyro, the latter scoring all he makes and the former going back to nothing every time his adversary makes a winning or losing hazard ; all these are so barren of interest and so seldom played as barely to deserve mention. As to the science of the game, there is really little to be taught in books ; practice and instruction from an adept will better enlighten a tyro as to the mysteries of the side- stroke, the drag, the screw, the following ball, the spot- stroke, &c., than any amount of verbal explanation. It may, however, be as well to refer briefly to these several points, in order to render this notice as complete as the space at command will admit.

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Pyramids is played by two or four persons in the latter case in sides, two and two. It is played with fifteen balls, placed close together in the form of a triangle or pyramid, with the apex towards the player, and a white striking ball. The centre of the apex ball covers the second or pyramid spot, and the balls forming the pyramid should lie in a compact mass, the base in a straight line with the cushion.

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