A little more about, 'Professor Perkins.'
Professor Perkins was the foremost thinker in the science of billiards in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Perkins had been a merchant seaman who always sought out the best billiard players in every country he visited. After examining the techniques of great players all over the world, Perkins combined the best aspects of all the top players forms into one simple coherent style From one great player, Perkins took the grip, from another the best stance and from yet another he copied the best stroke and so on until he had created the most effective cueing method ever devised.
Perkins was the first person to seriously analyze the ergonomics of billiards with the idea of doing everything in the simplest most synergistically efficient way. Professor Perkins brought human engineering to the science of billiards.
It is self-evident that Perkins used 'Occam’s Razor' in devising his fundamentals. Occam’s Razor is a scientific principle stating: “The simplest procedure that reliably produces the desired results is always best.”
With this idea firmly in mind Perkins created a style of play capable of “making any conceivable shot.” The achievements of Lanson Perkins’s students proved the effectiveness of his style.
Professor Perkins held the opinion that any normally coordinated young person with a sincere desire and the willpower to play good billiards could be trained to world championship levels in a short time (2-4 years).
When Perkins voiced his ideas to reigning world champion, Willie Hoppe, Hoppe snapped back, “Champions are born, not made.” snubbing Professor Perkins.
But Hoppe forgot the years of training he received from his father and lost his memory of the daily lessons champion Maurice Daly provided whenever Hoppe did exhibitions at Daly’s room in New York City. Willie also received vital strategic instruction from the great Frank Ives in Pop Anson’s billiard room as a young lad. A season long tour with Jake Schaefer. Sr. provided solid grounding in how to play Championship billiards. Willie Hoppe was actually a very well trained player taught by many top players as a youngster.
Insulting Perkins began a feud that Willie Hoppe would live to regret.
A report in the March 28, 1914 issue of SPORTING LIFE shows the depth of the animosity that developed between Professor Perkins and Willie Hoppe:
“A ripple of laughter wafted through the little hall just as Hoppe reached 50 in his run. Willie heard some one in the audience snoring. He stopped and looked up, and lo and behold! It was no less a personage than Professor Lanson Perkins, who just at that moment was dreaming of the time when his brilliant pupil, Welker Cochran, would take the measure of this champion of champions.”
Perkins set out to train a World Champion with the specific goal of dethroning Willie Hoppe. In 1909 Perkins’s student Calvin Demarest, an amateur, beat Hoppe to win the World Professional 18.2 Balkline Championship. Worse was to come since Perkins was busy grooming Welker Cochran for professional play with the specific intent of driving Willie Hoppe into retirement.
Due to WW I, the first opportunity for Welker Cochran to demonstrate his skills in professional competition came in 1919. Cochran immediately put Hoppe on notice of his intentions by finishing second, with Willie winning the title.
We don’t know exactly what Hoppe thought about the appearance of Cochran in his billiard world, but Welker Cochran and Jake Schaefer, Jr. were soon beating Hoppe’s old records in every tournament.
The 1921 tournament did not go well for Hoppe. Young Jake Schaefer, Jr. another newcomer to world title play won the championship that year with Cochran finishing 3rd behind Hoppe.
Schaefer, Jr. won the 18.2 balkline honors from 1923-26 and Cochran lowered the boom on Hoppe in 1927. Willie never won another 18.2 tournament after 1927.
In the 1930 World 18.1 Balkline Championship, Cochran let out all the stops and beat Hoppe 3,600-2,815 with four runs exceeding the world high run record established by Frank Ives (140) with runs of 196, 176, 157 and 142.
Cochran set a record for the highest match average for 18.1 up to that date with a Grand Average of 32.43. Willie Hoppe didn’t play badly, he posted his highest 18.1 match average in his career (25.36). Cochran simply beat Hoppe’s best game into the ground.
Lanson Perkins died in 1916 and never got to see Cochran beat his feud rival in championship play. Nevertheless, we can be sure that Professor Perkins firmly believed that Cochran would eventually triumph over Hoppe. Perkins had seen young Cochran make prodigious runs in exhibitions and knew that Welker’s increasing ability would eventually result in world championship titles.
Cochran and Schaefer, Jr. dominated the balkline games so completely in the late 1920s that competition finally stopped except for a few challenge matches. Welker Cochran won the last 18.2 tournament in 1934 with Hoppe finishing 3rd behind Eric Hagenlacher.
After balkline died, Cochran became a six time World 3 Cushion champion who defeated Hoppe six out of nine times they competed for the World 3 Cushion title. Cochran was the only player to ever hold the World 3 Cushion and the World 18.2 Balkline titles at the same time. Welker Cochran won more than ten World Billiard Championships.
Welker Cochran dedicated his book SCIENTIFIC BILLIARDS : “To Professor Lanson W. Perkins Who took me in hand at the age of fourteen and taught me the fundamentals of billiards, I dedicate this volume with the fervent hope that it may be as helpful to my readers as his patient and kindly instructions were to me.”
I've adhered to the axiom of Occam's Razor my entire life playing 3C & Golf. Basically, "The least amount of effort creating the most amount of effect!"