Safety Play at the World 14.1 Tournament

Dan White

Dan White

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
So I went down to the tournament for the Wed evening round robin, and was lucky to bump into my friend Stu. We spent the evening watching various matches, and I was treated to my own live commentary. (I guess that's about as live-streaming as you can get) :smile:

Alex was playing Daya in an interesting match ultimately won by Daya. Stu attributed the win to Daya's superior knowledge.

There were two safety situations to discuss. Instead of making this a quiz type format, I'll just tell you what Alex did, and what the better move probably was.

Situation 1:

CueTable Help



This was the approximate situation. Alex had to play a safe and he went into the 6 instead of the 4. The angle might have been a little easier on the 6 in real life, but a shot on the 4 was definitely possible. The concept underlying the "correct" play is to develop "threats" on both sides of the table. Since Daya had no threats on the bottom half of the table, he simply went to the bottom long rail and back to the pack without any chance of leaving Alex a shot. They went back and forth a couple of times like this until a shot opened up for Daya, which he took. Alex gave up a chance to put some pressure on Daya by forcing him to make a more precise safety reply in which Daya would have to hide the cue ball behind the pack, avoiding clear shots on uptable balls on BOTH sides of the table.

Situation 2:

Same match - Alex vs Daya:

CueTable Help



Alex was shooting, and had decided to take 3 fouls. He tapped the cue ball 3 times and then reracked. (I might not have the pack set up exactly right, as I'm not sure why Alex decided to take the 3 fouls. Maybe someone else who was there might know. Alex is very short, and might not have been able to do anything with the shot from where he was. However, that doesn't change the analysis).

Stu's opinion is that the correct shot was to do as shown in the table above. The idea is that by taking this shot, which has reasonable % chance of success for these players, you give your opponent an opportunity to do something careless. If Alex misses the ideal position, which is to line up with the 10 and 13, your opponent can't do much damage anyway. You've already chosen to give up 18 points, why not at least see if you can help your opponent make a mistake?

I guess that about covers it. Comments?
 
In Situation 2, why would he take any foul(s) rather than play a legal safety off the 9-ball?
 
AtLarge said:
In Situation 2, why would he take any foul(s) rather than play a legal safety off the 9-ball?
Click to expand...

See my comment above: (I might not have the pack set up exactly right, as I'm not sure why Alex decided to take the 3 fouls. Maybe someone else who was there might know. Alex is very short, and might not have been able to do anything with the shot from where he was. However, that doesn't change the analysis).
 
Very nicely presented, Dan.

Situation 1 demonstrates one of the most critical points in all of 14.1 defensive play. When presented with an opportunity to establish threats on both sides of the rack, a good defensive player will do so. This was a missed opportunity for Alex, who could have applied a lot of pressure here, and Daya ultimately beat him to the shot in this sequence and made a nice run of it. To me, it was the defining sequence of the match.

Glad you remembered this sequence, Dan, for you've obviously learned a valuable lesson here.

As for Situation 2, when Alex took three fouls the position was quite a bit more difficult than what you've shown, but there was a possible escape he might have attempted and he did not find it.
 
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Dan,

I remember Alex P choosing to take a 3rd foul against Dave Daya. In fact, Alex even double checked with Daya that "a 3 foul is a rerack", before taking the 3rd foul.

While I don't remember the exact rack layout, I did think it was odd that Alex elected to take the 3rd foul when it was possible that he could have gotten safe. I seem to recall the rack being fairly clustered and Alex was stuck to the back of it, but could have thin hit a ball to go end rail-side rail, using the stack for protection(like a 1 pocket type of safe. While not the safest of safes, it might have been a better option. Also, Alex was up 40 something to 20 something. Granted, in a short race to 100, both guys can possibly runout the set.

I felt that 3rd foul was the turning point in the match. Alex was chugging ahead and the match turned on that.

As you know, Alex lost that match.


Eric
 
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I was playing on the table next to Alex and Daya when Alex elected to take the third foul. It surprised me and I agree with Stu that it was the turning point in the match.
 
This is one of the most valuable posts I've seen in this forum. Much thanks to Dan and Stu for presenting it here.

- Steve
 
Steve Lipsky said:
This is one of the most valuable posts I've seen in this forum. Much thanks to Dan and Stu for presenting it here.

- Steve
Click to expand...

Thanks, Steve. Glad I said something useful! I sent you a PM the other day, if you haven't checked lately.
 
I would love to participate in these discussions but stupid work computers wont load cuetable!
 
Steve Lipsky said:
This is one of the most valuable posts I've seen in this forum. Much thanks to Dan and Stu for presenting it here.

- Steve
Click to expand...

The position is somewhat less important than the principle illustrated. In Situation 1, The difference between the two options is that Alex "played defense," but Dan, through the shot he recommends chose to "develop defense," and developing defense is a more aggressive, and ultimately more effective, approach.

Those on this forum who play one pocket will be most sensitive to the idea of needing to produce multiple threats to prevail in a safety battle. In one pocket, you strive to develop threats along the long rail as well as threats along the short rail. Straight poolers must, similarly, become sensitive to the value of having threats on multiple sides of the rack.
 
@Dan White

if i remember correctly, then centerpocket is using a mac or linux- and with both you have trouble using shockwave. So he unfortunatley can just read the posts but now see the wei-tables.

lg
Ingo
 
It is always educational to get Stu's input in these posts. I have always enjoyed talking 14.1 with him. His knowledge of safety play and patterns is amazing.
I was able to get together with Stu recently. We mostly talked safeties with a little about patterns. He said he would explain safety play for about 20 minutes. I believe we ended spending about 2 hours on the subject.
Stu had shown me a lot about safeties before. Much of what we went over was a good review. It was good to go over things like the second ball safety again. We also covered some new concepts like the corner ball safety. I didn't remember covering this topic before. I really enjoyed learning this, and using it a couple days later in a match. I used it twice and was able to execute it perfectly both times.
I remember Stu showing me a practice game a few years ago. You are playing pool to two points. The person starting the game gets ball in hand and plays a safety. You keep playing safeties until someone makes a mistake and the other person only has to make two balls.
I would like to see a video of his knowledge. Maybe we can all put some pressure on him to undertake a project like this.
 
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