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The game of artistic billiards is as interesting as its name. If you wish to play artistic billiards, your shots require absolute precision. This game demands a player of great caliber as the shots are taken from pre-determined positions. There are 76 pre-designated shots and they are categorized according to their difficulty of execution. As a player of artistic billiards, you do not have the choice of taking a shot from a position of your choice.

If you are one of those who have a knack for hitting the bulls eye every time, you can take a shot at artistic or fantasy billiards. Accuracy and precision rule the roost in the game. There are a total of 500 points up for grabs. Depending upon the difficulty level of hitting each shot, points are assigned to each of the shots. For a comparatively easier shot, a maximum of four points can be scored. If you manage to take a clean strike at the most difficult shot, you gather 11 points in your kitty.

Your cue is your tool to success. A player can use a maximum of twenty different kinds of cues, each of them designed to hit from a particular position. With a whole range of improvised shotmaking techniques in your armor, you can emerge as a successful player.

If you want to taste the classic fervor of billiards, then artistic billiards is the one you need. The artistic billiards or fantaisie classique is a type of carom billiards originated in Western Europe.

This tests how well you can handle difficult shots with 76 pre-set shots. The perfect execution of the most difficult shot has 11 point, where 4 point is given to the perfect execution of the least difficult shots. Thus total of 500 points you can score in 76 shots.

The shot-making techniques of this game require you to have high skill, patience, analysis, logic, and artistic talent. There are definite postures exclusively for artistic billiards, not found in other types. Few of the most used game techniques are masse, force draws, jumps, force follows, kicking etc.

There are around 20 cues available. You can choose one from them depending upon the shot you require. For a tip, try masse with short and light cue that has a flat, hard and wide cue tip. Each shot is given three chances to perform.

So if you want to test how special you are, and how well you understand this game, go for artistic billiards. It would be the ultimate assessment of your talent and skill

Massè
The art of the masse deserves a whole book by itself and will be difficult to
condense into just one short chapter. The masse shot is basically to make the
cue ball curve , by striking down onto it, to produce a desired path in order to
contact/pot an object ball that otherwise would have been difficult or
impossible to hit/pot using a normal shot. Great care must be taken in
undertaking these shots as damage to cloth , cues and even the table can occur.

Masse 1
In the diagram we can see that the object ball is not with in the cue balls visual
path . We can use Masse to overcome this problem and curve around to make
the pot. The 1st example is one of the easier Masse shots (if there is such a thing) as the object ball is over the pocket and it should just take a tap from the cue ball to pot it.
Remember to use a firm but not hard hit.   The idea cannot be expressed fully
with words as it is more of an artistic interchange , but it is helpful to think
about it like this: Masse is created by squeezing the cue ball against the table
so that it slides outwards, then after friction takes effect on the cue ball the roll
starts from the spin generated, then it continues this path to the target.

Excerpted from the 8ballsecrets.com ebook www.8ballsecrets.com