Run 14 balls and leave one on the table... break the balls open and continue to shoot regardless of pocketing the 15th ball... Removes the luck of getting a little less than perfect on your break ball... Just not sure if you get ball in hand behind the line if you get a bad roll on the break and scratch......
Chris
Could be an ok way to learn straight pool for a newcomer to the game,
I guess. For more advanced players I don't really like the idea, but then again I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to straight pool. Getting perfect on the break ball is almost the entire "heart and soul" of the game, and one of the aspects that keep me interested after many years. Without the requirement that you must get nice position on the break ball, pattern play becomes a bit less important, and to me thats one of the most interesting aspects of straight pool.
If you want to learn straight pool, and you are a good shotmaker, but not good at getting positon on the break ball, you could have the option to get ball in hand behind the headstring if your angle is bad on the breakball. That gets rid of the safing on the full rack, which many players find boring (not me though). To me it's always exciting to see who gets the first shot after the safety battle. For a player of at least moderate skill, straight pool is a game of risk management, playing within your limits and patience, as well as shotmaking and reading the rack. If you smash the rack wide open every time, many of these aspects become much less important and it all becomes a game of staying in the middle of the table and shotmaking. That would be boring to me, but I realise that not everybody likes the kind of straight pool game that I like.