Davis reached the final the following year and was again defeated by Newman. In this match Joe achieved his highest break ever in billiards of 2,501 on 27 April 1927. He used the pendulum stroke during this break. It had recently been introduced by Tom Reece. This involved manoeuvring the object balls into the jaws of a corner pocket so they were touching each other, and scoring long runs of close direct cannons by tapping the cue ball lightly across them from one cushion to the other. There were calls for this stroke to be limited or abolished because it was so tedious to watch. On 9 August 1927, the Billiards Association Control Council decided to alter the rules to eliminate the big break made from ball-to-ball cannons alone. In relation to the pendulum stroke, the number of consecutive direct cannons allowed during a break was limited to 35 without the intervention of a hazard, an indirect cannon, or a direct cannon in conjunction with a hazard. The pendulum stroke was defined as being in the category of the direct cannon. This meant that the object balls had to be broken from the position over the pocket before the break could be continued after this amount of direct cannons, because between hitting the first and second object ball one or more cushions had to be struck.