Why Pass On Breaking?

In league matches when playing a lesser skilled player both Charlie and I often opted to take the break when winning the lag or the coin flip. It seems that it bettered our odds of a win at the end of the game with having to give out a huge spot.

More often the lesser player would have a tougher time nailing the break and leaving the CB mid table with plenty of options.

Even if that said opponent did have a real good break the higher skilled player would have better chances at the return safety. Or making that tougher shot from the end rail.

Great thread !
Steve

Interesting idea to revisit what has always been conventional wisdom, but the winner of the lag has not taken the break even in the Golden Era of championship straight pool, so I have to believe the break is not an advantage.

I guess guys like Mosconi, Crane and Greenleaf simply figured it was the 2nd guy to the table that had the 1st crack at 150 and out.

pass on break??? for sure!!!!

i have watched quite a bit of 14.1 between good players. i do not recall ever seeing the lag winner choose to break.

i find getting the cb to the headrail and leaving no playable ball to be really tough. the great players do it often but they run 100+ often too.

first, there is virtually no chance of pocketing a called ball and continuing.

second, there is a great chance of the breaker leaving a shot or a good chance for a safe.

as i see it the break is never an advantage in 14.1

does anyone out there have info to the contrary?

DogsPlayingPool said:

Interesting idea to revisit what has always been conventional wisdom, but the winner of the lag has not taken the break even in the Golden Era of championship straight pool, so I have to believe the break is not an advantage.

I guess guys like Mosconi, Crane and Greenleaf simply figured it was the 2nd guy to the table that had the 1st crack at 150 and out.

Click to expand...

Good point.

Another thing -- and I don't know if it's just me and my flawed perception -- but today's straight pool players don't lay down nearly as good a break as players from the past do. It could be that in days of yore, straight pool players practice the break -- getting it to the point where they instinctively know where and how to hit the cue ball to get minimal ball dispersion off that corner ball and have the cue ball go 4 rails, pinning it to the head rail. But today's players don't, because they have too many things on their plates (i.e. playing other games, like short-rack rotation).

The matches of today I've seen, the opening break looked like, well, I'll put it kindly -- that the opening break technique was kinda sorta left to chance, and not an obviously-practiced shot.

Only my $0.02 though,
-Sean

sfleinen said:

...The matches of today I've seen, the opening break looked like, well, I'll put it kindly -- that the opening break technique was kinda sorta left to chance, and not an obviously-practiced shot.

Only my $0.02 though,
-Sean

Click to expand...

Prolly right. When people talk about Shane practicing his break 3 hours a day I don't think it's for straight pool.

I strongly believe that passing the break is the correct play against knowledgeable players. In my experience, those that suggest otherwise tend to overlook some key factors.

In short, a poorly executed opening break will usually lose the opening safety battle, but a well executed opening break may leave a) a backscratch response b) a dead ball in the pack, or c) a loose ball or two allowing opponent to play a relatively simple safety. In truth, although it happens sometimes, it is rare that the opening break gives a strong opponent a major headache.

A bad break loses the safety battle, but far too often, a good one doesn't win it at all. That's why, for me, the choice is a no brainer.

Jude Rosenstock said:

Okay, so here's another thing to consider. What about equipment? How might the increasingly used Diamond tables with 4.5" pockets play into this decision? Prior to recent years, the pockets have almost always been about 5". Would this conventional wisdom still apply on a Diamond?

Click to expand...

The tighter pockets slightly reduce the breaker's disadvantage but even with tight equipment, the break should be passed up when the lag is won.

I'd call equipment an almost negligible factor here.

Jude Rosenstock said:

I appreciate your response but I'm not necessarily talking about "strong players". I mean, I don't want to exclude them either but I'm talking about all instances where the advantage of not breaking might be nullified or flipped. Assuming both players are reasonably experienced at the game, do you feel the strategy applies to all levels or could C level players gain an advantage from breaking?

Click to expand...

Jude:

I see what you're trying to get at here, and I think you may have a point -- that equipment "can" have an influence if you're considering the playing demographic that I think you're describing.

With tight equipment (like Diamonds), the player coming to the table after the opening safety break is less likely to go for the "come with it" shot that results from a safety break attempt. In contrast, on looser equipment (e.g. generous Gold Crowns), a player of that demographic "might" go for that after-break "come with it" shot. So here's an instance where the particular circumstance for which you created this thread -- re: why pass on breaking? -- the equipment might have a say.

Interesting spread of responses thus far, though!
-Sean

Jude Rosenstock said:

I apologize but in all sincerity, I'm not asking for your opinion. It's "opinion" that got us where we are today, citing conventional wisdom and the actions of others. It's this same "opinion" that led baseball teams to spend hundreds of millions on clubs that couldn't make the playoffs because conventional wisdom said Bobby Bonilla was a good player.

I'm asking you to step away from opinion just for a moment. What we have here is a pool shot that is handled nearly identically by all players at the start of all 14.1 games. What are the results? Who wins this mini-battle and by how much? Breaker v. Racker. What's the score?

For the sake of everyone's sanity, I have always passed on the break. I simply want to know what I'm passing up. Is there statistical research that says something like "on the professional level, the breaker pockets the first shot of the game 33% of the time" or something like that. By the end of this discussion, hopefully something statistical will be given and when that happens, there's good reason to believe it will support your opinion. Today, I just want to challenge conventional wisdom and see what we learn.

Click to expand...

No offense taken, but I'd be astonished if these statistics exist. Unfortunately, Accu-stats, arguably the first ever collector of pool related statistics didn't hit the scene until the mid 1980's, and it's the sort of thing they were able to measure for nine ball because they had thousands of matches videotaped and computerized data that had been collected (at first, on punched cards) during matches that could be analyzed without great nvestment of time. The golden age of 14.1 had already passed by then. There are, in fact, quite few straight pool matches on videotape, and I wouldn't consider a sample of less than 1000 matches to be significant for this kind of statistical analysis.

Incidentally, as an attendee at about fourteen different World 14.1 championship events (over nearly forty years) and at least fifty different full days of play in those events, I'm sharing my observations moreso than my opinion.

Still, like you, I'd love to see some statistics concerning the opening break shot in 14.1. FYI, I'm not sure I'd care who made the first ball but, instead, who was the first to get a really good look at a table. Perhaps, at pro level, a "really good look" would be defined as one in which an incoming player would be expected to run five balls or more at least 70% of the time. The other stat I'd like to see is for top pros considered simliar in ability, what percentage of the time did the opening breaker win the match?

Excellent thread. Hope you're well, Jude.

Bob Jewett said:

...In league last Sunday my opponent broke and left a dead ball in the rack. The statistics on that would be interesting as well. Unfortunately they depend on how well the second player finds dead balls and is willing to shoot them.

Click to expand...

Very good point. I can't count how many times I hit a shot, maybe even shooting what I thought was a dead ball break out, only to miss my shot but have another ball go straight in that I hadn't seen.

Jude Rosenstock said:

This is actually very interesting information. If a player knew their break statistics for the standard opening safety AND they knew the odds of pocketing the head-ball on the break, they can begin to deduce the exact risk involved in taking such a shot. It's really very simple too. If you can pocket that head-ball more often than you successfully gain control of the table after breaking safe, you're doing it right.

I think part of the reason why it might not become "the trend" any time soon is that this shot still has a failure-rate and so long as that's the case AND there are people out there that believe breaking safe is the only way to go, the shooter will undoubtedly look foolish if he misses and then sits for the next 150 balls. But, this idea you posted is exactly why I started this thread in the first place. I think plotting the trends of a 14.1 game with the purpose of justifying or altering strategy is a worthwhile project. This would be an extreme alteration but if what everyone says is true, the breaker has a clear disadvantage then perhaps, attempting to pocket a ball on the break is appropriate.

Click to expand...

There is nothing new about experimenting with pocketing a ball from the opening break. As far back as the late 1970's, I can remember Jack Colavita experimenting in practice with the three best known shots off a full rack of 14.1, and Jack wasn't the only person trying these shots out.

1) banking either corner ball into the top corner pocket
2) kicking hard at a corner ball to send the top ball two rails into the side pocket
3) playing the top ball directly into one of the side pockets (for what it's worth, Alex Pagulayan was highly unsuccessful playing the top ball into the side on the opening shot in his match against Darren Appleton at Derby City in the 2011 final, failing to make it even once in either his warm-up or in the match).

Neither Jack nor his contemporaries discovered a shot they believed was worth playing. But that was then, and you raise a highly critical point. As you ask, if the breaker is at a disadvantage, how big is that disadvantage? After all, we must note that if one assumes that the breaker is at a disadvantage, certainly any shot that is a 50/50 proposition or better should be played. In fact, we can generalize by noting that if the breaker will win control of the first rack x% of the time, then any shot having a success rate of x% or better should be played. Like you, I'd love to see the stats.

As you note, the game and theory evolve from both a practical and strategic standpoint over time, and it cannot be assumed that the views on the opening 14.1 break will not change with time.

Jude Rosenstock said:

This is actually very interesting information. If a player knew their break statistics for the standard opening safety AND they knew the odds of pocketing the head-ball on the break, they can begin to deduce the exact risk involved in taking such a shot. It's really very simple too. If you can pocket that head-ball more often than you successfully gain control of the table after breaking safe, you're doing it right.

Click to expand...

I haven't seen the video so I'm making the assumption that pocketing the head-ball in the side would open the rack a lot more than the standard safe-break. So if you miss that shot, you're not just losing control of the table, but giving your opponent a much better opportunity to get rolling, aren't you?