He was coached from the age of 12by local player Ernest Rudge who came from Normanton in Yorkshire, and became the proprietor of the Victoria Billiards Hall in Chesterfield. Ernest had a billiard room at the bottom of his garden at Shaftesbury Avenue in Chesterfield, where Joe would go to be given lessons. Davis had to take a tramcar and then walk a mile and a half to get there. He had morning lessons nearly every day, and Rudge would allow Joe to carry on practising on the table on his own if he had to go to his billiard hall. When this happened Ernest's young daughter Mary would take the balls out of the pockets for him. Ernest Rudge was a strict disciplinarian and would not allow Joe to play or practice without a purpose. If he caught Joe doing so, or fooling around he would send him home. This did happen on one or two occasions. Recalling these instances years later in his autobiography "The Breaks Came My Way" , those occasions made him very sad at the time. But Davis also believed it taught him probably his greatest lesson in life: to play seriously at all times and with great concentration. He practiced constantly. Davis would later manage billiard halls that were owned either by his family or by Rudge.Joe also read Charles Dawson's book "Practical Billiards". He scored a break in billiards at the age of 12 in an exhibition game against J.D.Dickens. On 11 November 1913 he won 500 - 467, in a match against F.D. Carpenter in the Chesterfield and District Amateur Billiards Championship. Joe made seven breaks of 20 or above, with the highest being 34. His performance was praised in the local newspaper.