2nd ball break

MattPoland said:
Inside wants to spin off the rail towards down table. Does that mean your bottom english is sufficient to draw back up table if the inside wasn’t there?
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You're talking out of my pay grade now...lol
I have no idea. I just know that I have become very consistent with this break and it works the best for me.

I have to credit Blackjack, David Sapolis, as he was the one who advised to hit it with inside. The results have been dramatically better for me since.
 
Koop said:
You're talking out of my pay grade now...lol

I have no idea. I just know that I have become very consistent with this break and it works the best for me.



I have to credit Blackjack, David Sapolis, as he was the one who advised to hit it with inside. The results have been dramatically better for me since.
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You break off the right rail with bottom-left english?
 
dr_dave said:
It's all in the article. Check it out.

Enjoy,
Dave
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Nice article.

Food for thought. You find that the breaker wins 60% of the time and deem that the advantage for the breaker, as I read it. One consideration is that in any given match, the better player will also be breaking more often, so some of that 60% may be attributable to overall skill, not the break. I think you'd want to look at alternate break results or compute player-specific win-with-break vs. win-without-break to get a more accurate estimate of the breaking advantage.* (Even so, your likely upper bound of 60% is informative.)

Cory

* Geek-out. You could run a regression with player fixed effects and a dummy for the break to get a better estimate of the marginal benefit of breaking conditional on player skill.
 
Cory in DC said:
dr_dave said:
It's all in the article. Check it out.
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Nice article.
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Thanks.

Cory in DC said:
Food for thought. You find that the breaker wins 60% of the time and deem that the advantage for the breaker, as I read it. One consideration is that in any given match, the better player will also be breaking more often, so some of that 60% may be attributable to overall skill, not the break. I think you'd want to look at alternate break results or compute player-specific win-with-break vs. win-without-break to get a more accurate estimate of the breaking advantage.* (Even so, your likely upper bound of 60% is informative.)

Cory

* Geek-out. You could run a regression with player fixed effects and a dummy for the break to get a better estimate of the marginal benefit of breaking conditional on player skill.
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Good points, but I'm content with the "likely upper bound."

Regards,
Dave
 
That article has some interesting and surprising stats. I usually default to a head-ball break but I've been using the 2nd-ball break as a "Plan B" when I don't get good results with the head-ball break.

My (non-statistical) observations:
1. I don't hit them as hard with my 2nd-ball break.
2. The variability of my 2nd-ball break is lower: My good breaks aren't as good, but my bad breaks aren't as bad.
3. I get more clusters with the 2nd-ball break. The balls tend to come back to the side I hit from and group there, whereas my head-ball break tends to spread better.
 
BRussell said:
I get more clusters with the 2nd-ball break. The balls tend to come back to the side I hit from and group there, whereas my head-ball break tends to spread better.
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I'd rather make 5% fewer balls on the break and have more runnable tables.

pj
chgo
 
dr_dave said:
Here's a pertinent excerpt (with bold text and blue highlight) from the article:

Recently, I viewed a large collection of online YouTube match videos to determine break effectiveness of the best 8-ball pro players. I looked only at final and semi-final matches of competitive men-only bar-table events to get stats for the best players. The tournaments from which I collected data were the 2014 US Bar Table 8-Ball Championship, the 2015 US Open 8-Ball Championship, the 2015 US Bar Table 8-Ball Championship, the 2016 Chinook Winds 8-Ball Open, and the 2016 Wyoming Open (Saratoga) 8-Ball Championship. The players involved included Shane Van Boening, Darren Appleton, Skyler Woodward, Corey Deuel, Rodney Morris, Dennis Orcollo, Justin Bergman, Jeffrey Ignacio, Mike Dechaine, and others among the best in the game. The total number of games reviewed was 169. 118 (70%) of those were 1st-ball power breaks and 51 (30%) were 2nd-ball breaks. A racking template was used in 105 (62%) of the 169 games.

Regards,
Dave
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Corey in one of those tourneys broke the wing ball straight pool break one rail back and made it almost every time I think he lost in the finals of that turney

1
 
Patrick Johnson said:
I'd rather make 5% fewer balls on the break and have more runnable tables.
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I see that Dave's stats actually show some more break-and-runs with the 2nd ball break. Even if that just means they're about the same, it's closer than I thought.

But then I'm reminded that more clustering makes a bigger difference to me than to those pros. So I'm still thinking I might have a better shot with the head ball break and better spread.

pj
chgo
 
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LegitStick1234 said:
How many use the 2nd ball break on 8 ball? It seems to be better to me on slower tables.
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In my opinion, it's usually a waste of time:

1. Scratch city/hooked cue ball city

2. The best of the best only rarely break the eight in the pocket this way (1 in 35 breaks, amateurs are like 1 in 50)

3. Learn to scatter the rack better with the head ball, don't use second ball to cover another game weakness
 
Just a reminder of Corey’s pattern rack with the 2nd-ball break, described here.

8-ball_pattern_rack.jpg
 
I prefer the head-ball break. Since my goal is to break and run out, I simply want the most spread out rack to accomplish the task. Although people argue that if they don't make a ball on the break, they don't want to leave an easy rack for their opponent. However, when I analyzed our final league stats, there is nobody running out more than 10 racks out of 78 games in the season, and the highest this year is 7 table runs.

I know good players that prefer the second ball break. Their theory is that they feel that they have a better shot at running out a rack with clusters than their opponent. The problem is, see above. Nobody in our league runs out an extremely high percentage of racks. So really, this isn't a valid argument.

And for those claiming that they can make the 8 ball on the break 8% to 10% of the time. I say that's an exaggeration. Out of 78 total games in our league, a player will break 1 or 2 times a night out of 3 total games. So an exact percentage is not possible, but two 8-ball breaks is around 5.2% for those with the most number of 8-ball breaks (2 or 3 at the end of the league).
 
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One of the reasons I like using the 2nd ball break during league play is that for weekly league play, asking them to rerack until the head ball is froze is a PITA. Besides, a loose rack with the head ball not froze often gives me a better look at the second ball :D

The head on break has a higher break and run out potential but giving up games in league i'm a bit more conservative with spreading the balls wide open. My team runs the double 7 so its important that I deliver good results since the team lives and dies on the 7s getting shutouts against lower ranked players.

I'm giving league examples only since i'm largely inactive in playing 8ball in competition other than league here in miami. There have been a few 8ball non league tournaments played in florida in the last few years but I missed out on them. Had I attended, im not sure I would have played the 2nd ball break as much. Alot depends on the table conditions as I think new cloth helps the head on break alot, as does big pockets and how well im making a hit on the head ball that day. At US Ams I often break head on, especially since the national event at Strokers is played on new cloth. The owner of Strokers is a very generous supporter of the US Am and recovers the tables before the event.
 
Get_A_Grip said:
I prefer the head-ball break. Since my goal is to break and run out, I simply want the most spread out rack to accomplish the task. Although people argue that if they don't make a ball on the break, they don't want to leave an easy rack for their opponent. However, when I analyzed our final league stats, there is nobody running out more than 10 racks out of 78 games in the season, and the highest this year is 7 table runs.

I know good players that prefer the second ball break. Their theory is that they feel that they have a better shot at running out a rack with clusters than their opponent. The problem is, see above. Nobody in our league runs out an extremely high percentage of racks. So really, this isn't a valid argument.

And for those claiming that they can make the 8 ball on the break 8% to 10% of the time. I say that's an exaggeration. Out of 78 total games in our league, a player will break 1 or 2 times a night out of 3 total games. So an exact percentage is not possible, but two 8-ball breaks is around 5.2% for those with the most number of 8-ball breaks (2 or 3 at the end of the league).
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It isnt necessarily an invalid argument.
 
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Get_A_Grip said:
I prefer the head-ball break. Since my goal is to break and run out, I simply want the most spread out rack to accomplish the task. Although people argue that if they don't make a ball on the break, they don't want to leave an easy rack for their opponent. However, when I analyzed our final league stats, there is nobody running out more than 10 racks out of 78 games in the season, and the highest this year is 7 table runs.

I know good players that prefer the second ball break. Their theory is that they feel that they have a better shot at running out a rack with clusters than their opponent. The problem is, see above. Nobody in our league runs out an extremely high percentage of racks. So really, this isn't a valid argument.

And for those claiming that they can make the 8 ball on the break 8% to 10% of the time. I say that's an exaggeration. Out of 78 total games in our league, a player will break 1 or 2 times a night out of 3 total games. So an exact percentage is not possible, but two 8-ball breaks is around 5.2% for those with the most number of 8-ball breaks (2 or 3 at the end of the league).
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I wonder how representative of the entire pool world your particular league is.

KMRUNOUT


Sent from my iPhone using AzBilliards Forums
 
Not yet.

I heard the second ball break works ok on a bar box. I see a few using it, but about the only pro I remember using it was Dennis when he was playing Lee Van Corteza and it worked for Dennis.

He was also tilting the rack so much even the commentators commented on it. To this day I can't figure out why Lee didn't call him on it.
 
The pros are also playing pristine conditions with new cloth, new balls and play at a much higher level than the shortstops and amateurs in terms of squarely striking the head ball. With those factors, its no surprise 70% of the time they break head on. To me the 8ball smash break is alot like a good ten ball break. If you can really bring the 10ball break, then yeah the head on 8ball break would seem to be a no brainer, especially with new cloth.

Alot of the opinions I read here are talking about people's own personal experience and not in terms of whats most effective as a fargo 800+ monster. For myself, playing mostly just league once a week and working 10hrs a day at a desk, I pretty much use the 2nd ball break during matches each week because I find it easier to make the hit on the second ball using 1/2-3/4 the speed I use on head on breaks and for me, I regularly make balls using the 2nd ball break at that reduced break speed, whereas when im not fully in stroke from my lack of play I scratch too much trying to amp up the break head on.
 
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