scored 690 points in a single at the table. With the balls barely moving and repetitively hit, there was little for the fans to watch.

Shortly after, with the specific intent of frustrating nurse shots along the rail, officials employed diagonal lines at the table's corners to regions where counts were restricted, an expansion of the crotching rule that came to be known as the "champion's game".

Reporting on the first tournament at which the rules were featured in 1879, The New York Times wrote: "taken as a test, the games thus

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