I am looking for some advice on what balls are best left on the table while clearing a table on route to the break ball. What balls would be strategic to leave to maneuver around the rack? I read somewhere that a ball left near the long rail about one to two diamonds up from the corner pocket is one example. What balls would you not clear right away?
If someone could post with a diagram would be great.
Seeing now I may have misinterpreted your question: you're referring to object balls one might strategically leave? Although I could think of multiple purposes to do this, there are equally as many reasons not to do it: with the exception of an obvious break ball forming a triangle with two other object balls that will lead to a stop shot end pattern, there's very little I would recommend leaving if it makes the layout play more difficult than necessary under any circumstances whatsoever (#1 priority: never miss on an open table).
So, a ball along the rail may haunt you in the end unless there's a fool-proof pattern to get to it at a perfect flat (= easy to control) angle, meaning one would have to leave other balls along with it, which may or may not be possible.
The same is true of those "textbook" key balls in front of the middle pockets (= only good if not blocking the path for other balls) or center table (= useless if you're short like me and have to lean/reach over them shooting balls in the rack area).
The inverse may be true of those "stragglers" in the head half of the table that "one is supposed to get rid off early" - what if they form an easy to get on end pattern, or a ball is hanging in a corner pocket (= an all-purpose insurance ball from just about anywhere, and a possible break ball in case one messes up the layout)?
I'm with experts like Jim Rempe more in that there are usually balls or groups of balls that are potential run-enders which one should get rid off early, regardless of what other purpose they might serve if one got everything right from beginning to end (= in an ideal world?!). One of the first he'd point out would be a ball in front of a middle pocket that blocks the path for or physical access to other balls - i.e., those balls that are miraculously being left in textbook end pattern diagrams in books (half the time or more, one has to, at the very least, do something at least slightly more difficult to "play around" them than if one had just gotten rid of them early on).
But to answer your question specifically, apart from from what I said earlier about triangle-shaped end patterns, two equally fine break balls placed next to each other to either or one side or even the back of the stack (= multiple choice end patterns!), especially ones not blocking each other's path to either foot corner pocket, are high-percentage to leave until the end of the rack, even if one doesn't have a key-to-the-key (K2, the third-to-last ball of the rack) to get to them - the kind of scenario any 9-Ball player is used to handling with aplomb every other game, nothing wrong with those.
Anything else: don't die with the break ball, the key ball, any principle whatsoever that you may have had in mind - if it all plays out perfectly for you all the time, fine, but if it makes the layout play any less easily and automatically, throw all "principled" thinking overboard, you'll end up being a better Straight Pool player, I can promise you that.
I have a rule I teach all my students: if you feel like you're constantly threading the needle, you're not playing well - you're playing well when you feel like you have options, might as well change your mind and do something else.
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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„J'ai gâché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ – Roger Conti
