This was the table when she got ball in hand: (click photo to enlarge)
She studies the table a little bit and I presume she's going to play safe.
Instead, she makes the 3 ball, then gets good on the 5, calls SAFE, and then makes the 5 ball.
I then safety her to death because her last two balls are all tied up in mine. It was pretty easy to play safe and get ball in hand and move my balls around until everything was open for me. However, I missed a shot because it barely went by one of her balls and she had two easy stop shots before the 8ball to win and beat me.
She was SO excited!
She was jumping around and all happy! (as the top player in the league, I get that a lot when someone beats me, lol.) I'm trying to be as nice as I can be and I shake her hand and smile and try to slip away with my tail between my legs.
Before I could walk away she grabs my hand to keep me near her, and she starts to share with me what she did and why she did it and then asked me if I would have done anything differently.
I hesitated at first as I was still trying to deal with my loss, lol, but she was real eager to learn, so I shared, "well, I guess would have done one thing differently."
"Oh?"
I shared with her that it's important when you play safe to always improve your situation. Don't just "play safe."
I explained further:
I would not have made the 3 ball and then the 5 ball, but instead, I would have used the ball-in-hand to move the 5 ball down the table toward all the stripes. I would have rolled it in front of the side pocket, for example, so it can be used as a break out shot later. The 5 ball is not being helpful way up table, so let's move it to make it helpful down the road.
At that point, it doesn't even matter where the cueball is left because the stripes can't be run out anyway by me because everything is so clustered. So, the most important thing is to move the lonely solid to where it can be used as a break out ball down the road.
You'll see me punt balls a lot - I'm simply moving them to a better position if I don't have any break out balls.
Try it. You'll like it.
2 comments:
Yes, well said. I see people in BCAPL or USAPL call safe and sink their ball. Usually that ball would be better placed near a pocket (as a breakout ball or as a safety net if you fail to get position later) than inside a hole. I also see them leave the opponent's ball near a pocket when they can combo it in so their ball can "own" the pocket instead.
In many cases with ball in hand, I like doing a breakout early, while I still have several balls to work with. I would sink a ball and cause the cue ball to carom into a cluster. But in your post, a breakout using the 3 ball could send the 8 ball dangerously to some pocket. And doing a breakout by using the 5 ball might not work as expected; the other balls are far away and an angle or bank into them might not work as desired.
That's a good point Robert - I stay away from break outs that contain the 8 ball! It's scary how many times I think it wont go into a pocket and yet still can get ball all the others balls to sink. So, I try and avoid that at all costs, also.
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