Lots to learn from both players. Of course I'm a Grady fan so...I absolutely agree with him on his philosophy of not breaking up small clusters from underneath unless he has to. I hadn't really heard him say that before, but it's something I learned myself from trial and error through the years. Even posted it up here once, though I received some resistance to this idea. Haven't watched it all yet, but I will. Good upload.
Watched some more, and it appears Pat was a victim of a scratch-funnel. I call the situations where balls are lined up to guide the cueball into a pocket scratch-funnels. It's one of the big things to look out for in straight pool. Pat is no fool, he saw it but thought he could defeat it with a high ball. My experience is that this cannot be done if the balls lined up are touching eachother or almost so. If you have to play into one of these kind of lined up balls, that are touching each other or close to-, I find draw works more reliably to defeat the scratch, but I go to great lenghts not to touch these myself.
