Three-Cushion

Players who have done well at pool or straight billiards often take up three-cushion, find it the most satisfying because it is the hardest. Curly-haired, florid Johnny Layton was the best pocket billiard player in the world before he decided that knocking balls into pockets was dull compared to pure cueing. When he won his first championship he went home to Sedalia, Mo., where he had become proficient during long sleepy days when, if you were not playing pool at the smoke house, there was nothing to do but count the cars on Ohio Street, or go down to the station to watch the Spirit of St. Louis come in from New York, or lean against the window of Bards drug store, waiting for something to happen. He started a poolroom of his own, but found few customers. Moving to St. Louis, he opened another place, with metal tables in it, but the balls made such a noise whamming off the cushions that it got on his nerves.

Before the national three-cushion championship ended in Manhattan last week, Layton had taken a beating from August Kieckhefer. If anyone, talking to Kieckhefer face to face, looks at his left eye, he has a feeling that Kieckhefer is interested in something else. To overcome the behavior of his eye, he shoots left-handed so that he can sight with his right eye. He beat Layton 50 to 38 in 58 innings, but three-cushion championships are decided by total number of games won and lost, and it was Layton and not Kieckhefer who played off in the finals against Otto Reiselt of Philadelphia. Both finalists were cautious. In three-cushion billiards, the cue ball must touch cushion three times before hitting the second object ball. So much muscle as well as sound knowledge of angles is necessary in bringing this off that, in an important match, players often try less to make shots than to "leave them safe"--leave both object balls at one end of the table and the cue ball at the other. In salaries, cash prizes and percentages of gate receipts there was $10,000 up for the winner of this final 50-point match--every point worth, therefore, $200. For once Layton was not smiling; Reiselt, with lines standing out in his sallow face, played like a machine. At the end of 31 innings the score was 23 for Layton, 22 for Reiselt. The smoky, crowded room was hot, and each man dried his hands before shooting. After they had both missed in the 41st frame, Layton ran eight, and, when Reiselt missed, made the three that gave him his title for another year.

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