PART III. MENTAL AND BODILY GAMES. INTRODUCTION. THERE is no game even of pure skill in which chance has not some share. For example, at the end of a game of Chess or Polish Draughts between two equal players, the result is frequently determined by a disposition which neither had foreseen nor combined. Again, the head of one of the players may be on a certain occasion clearer than that of his adversary; and to this accidental superiority he may be sometimes indebted for a triumph over a superior player. Bodily games, on the other hand, are sports that require certain physical dispositions, which after a certain age are but the portion of few. BILLIARDS, WITH INSTRUCTIONS AND RULES FOR THE FOLLOWING GAMES, viz. The White Winning Game. The White Losing Game. The White Winning and Losing Game. The Red Losing Game. The Simple Carambole Game. In order to play this game well, attention must be given at first to the method of holding the mace or cue, to the position in which the player should stand, and the manner of delivering the ball from either; but these are much more easily acquired by observation, or by the direction of a good player, than by any possible written rules. The games usually played till lately were the white winning and the red winning carambole games; but the winning and losing carambole game is now become the favourite. Almost all the problems at billiards receive their solution from the two following mathematical principles : 1st. The angle of incidence of a ball against one of the cushions is equal to the angle of reflection. 2ndly. When a ball strikes another, if we draw a right line between their centres, which will of course pass by the point of contact, this line will be the direction the ball will follow after it is struck. Fig. 1. B M N Two balls being placed, the first at N, and the second at M, you must strike the ball M at o, in order to pocket M at B. Through the centre of the pocket B, and that of the ball M, conceive a right line; the point in which it will intersect the surface of the ball M, on the side opposite to the pocket, will be the point on which it should be struck to give it the requisite direction. Again, conceiving the imaginary line prolonged by the radius of the ball, the point where it will terminate will be that by which the ball N will pass. In this consists all the skill of the game; but although it must be confessed, that mathematical theory alone will never form a player, still it will be found, when fine practice is based upon sound theory, that the most brilliant results are attained. The ball M is almost concealed by the bricole with respect to N, so that it would be impossible |