efren in bellflower
the way we play is you definitely don't get ball in hand. you break from behind the headstring and call your pocket before you break. normally it's stipulated you will have to switch pockets, and if you're playing aggi in LA, if you shoot at the same pocket twice he lets you do it, gets up when you fire that first ball into the "other" pocket, and says "your pockets over here," thus your inning has ended.
anyway, a great game. if you wanna hear stories about efren, he was purposefully scratching on the break when i watched him ~8 years ago. he lost a ball but he would never get snookered after the break. youll find out soon when you play this game that the zero innings really kill you, that was efrens insurance against it.
efren had more offense back then imo, and was shooting at 45 on 4.5 inch pockets. absolutely amazing. he wasn't beating it, but he was trying.... he was down the whole night though.
ive posted this before, but some of the most impressive shots i saw out of him were to shoot a ball down the long rail of the pocket he had, he hit that long rail with the cueball, went into the stack in such a way as to hit the end rail, then side rail, then come out for the balls hed just broken open. wish i could diagram it for you.
i could talk all night about this, id better stop.
edit: just to give you an idea of how awesome 45 in 5 racks is (which was efren's number)... Jeff Beckley shot at 15 in 3 racks on big pockets and just got absolutely robbed, had no chance whatsoever.