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© Copyright 2001, Jim Loy
Pool players sometimes get very good at using a mechanical bridge (that contraption often kept under the table, that you use as an extension of your left hand, if you are right handed). The pros get very good at it indeed. 3-Cushion Billiard players avoid it like the plague, however. In the dozens of videos that I have, the only two examples of using the bridge, that I have seen, were two shots by Torbjorn Blomdahl. He missed a rather easy shot, and made one. Sang Lee passed up an easy shot, in favor of a tough shot and missed. One player (Forton, I think) actually set his cue on the table, walked around behind it, moved it a smidgen, then walked to the side of it, and shot an awkward shot without having his head over the cue, missing badly. It looked ridiculous.
Billiards players warn to never use a bridge. One of them said that it's the worst thing you can ever do. I am told that billiards players need to get the proper hit, with the proper side English. And that is difficult to do with a bridge. I'm sure they are correct in all that. But it would seem that they would also rather miss a shot, and even lose a game, than use a bridge. I think they carry their aversion to bridges to extremes.