Speaking of giving out big spots, there seem to be to schools of thought that the better players have about this. I remember years ago playing in a straight pool league and there were two players in the league who were clearly way above every one else and they had to give up big spots like 150-40 often against decent players. These two players were very good, roughly shortstop speed or a maybe a shade under that. Well, one of them had the plan to just go for big runs all the time. The other had a completely different idea, he never went for a hard shot ever! He'd run a rack at a time, maybe two racks, he'd only go for a break shot if it was very easy. He said there's no point taking any kind of risk when i know I can out safe them all day long.
Guess who did better that season? The conservative player went 11-1, the other guy went 6-6. The conservative player, who wasn't conservative against other good players mind you, won some matches with scores of 150-9, 150-14. And these were against decent players. I always found the way that season played out very interesting.