Soft break in 9 ball

M

MiscueBlues

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I've never used it or played against someone doing it, but it sounds interesting in theory, especially for 9 ball leagues that do point per ball scoring.

What are some ways to break soft? Is going into to the 1 soft and bringing the cue ball into the stack with the 1 hiding on the other side of it possible?

Is using it in regular games, 9 ball/3 foul, a possibly winning strategy? I can imagine forcing someone to bust open the rack and give up bih or risk getting 3 fouled.

Also why does it seem to be so frowned upon in tournaments? It sounds to me like a very interesting strategy. I guess it would be bad for "tv" but it's not like pools on tv anyway :)

So what is a good soft break, and what's it good for?
 
Here's a video of Deuel soft-breaking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H6OlaGA5eE

It's just as offensive as a hard break. It seems (to me) that the advantage is more control over the one-ball and the cueball. You get enough spread to execute a run out, but are much less likely to CB scratch, etc.

In the video you'll notice that Deuel always makes the wing ball and the one-CB is always lined up to pocket in the corner.

But I'm not a soft-breaker so hopefully others will chime in.

Youtube search of "Corey Deuel soft break" returned lots of videos.
 
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It sure works great for him, appreciate the link....................
 
MiscueBlues said:
I've never used it or played against someone doing it, but it sounds interesting in theory, especially for 9 ball leagues that do point per ball scoring.

What are some ways to break soft? Is going into to the 1 soft and bringing the cue ball into the stack with the 1 hiding on the other side of it possible?

Is using it in regular games, 9 ball/3 foul, a possibly winning strategy? I can imagine forcing someone to bust open the rack and give up bih or risk getting 3 fouled.

Also why does it seem to be so frowned upon in tournaments? It sounds to me like a very interesting strategy. I guess it would be bad for "tv" but it's not like pools on tv anyway :)

So what is a good soft break, and what's it good for?
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Every league rule I know of do not allow "safe" breaking, and they also state you have to hit the break hard. It's not permitted in many tournaments because it leads to the same layout each time with a very predicable corner ball being made if the rack is setup tight (or not tight depending on the scruples of the racker). It just leads to a very dull game which the tournament promoters don't want. Who wants to see someone run 6 racks of 9 ball with the same balls going in the same hole with the same position played between them each time? You may as well lay out the same pattern for each player, give them ball in hand and the one that runs out the most times in 7 tries wins.

If you want to purely go for a win, obviously doing it the easierst way is what you want which is what Corey said when someone asked him about his break. The issue is that that easy run pretty much kills the whole point of how the game of 9 or 10 ball is. I was watching the latest TAR match that was released on video with Shane and someone who's name escapes me now, but they were both soft breaking and were basically getting the exact same layout 100 times. I really had no interest in watching that. I think I watched maybe 20 racks then skipped to the last 20.
 
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MiscueBlues said:
Ok so a soft break is not a safety break... Does a safety break exist for 9 ball?
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If by "safety break" you mean leaving a fat cluster in the middle that your opponent has to deal with before running out on you then I'd say its possible but tricky. The reason I say that is that in most leagues and tournaments you have to either pocket a ball or 3 or 4 numbered balls must come in contact with the rail. So, right there you have spread out the rack a little. And if you split the 1 ball out then your opponent also may have a cut shot into a corner that they can use to break up the cluster a little more.

If you are playing someone who is any good at straight pool at all, a small cluster like that on the break isn't going to slow them down much.

Now, if you could somehow leave the one ball clustered and then draw the cue ball back up table then you will probably slow them down but unless you pocket a ball they can probably just push and hand that cruddy break back to you.

In my humble beginner's opinion, if you can pull off a "safety break" in 9 ball you're almost good enough to just break right in the first place and either run it or hook your opponent even if they are better than you are.

I could be wrong though.
 
I've only been playing on bar boxes for the last 5 years. With the MR I hit the 1 ball soft. I always make the #2 wing ball and have the 1 ball for the side or corner pocket by where I break from. I'd say I get an easy combo on 9 ball with 3,4,5, or 6 50% of the time. I beat the 9ball ghost easily in race to 10 almost all the time (90%). Johnnyt
 
Actually, the soft break is preferable instead of the smash break with some goober with a speed app. The latter has no place indoors with the proximity of people, glass, lighting, and other stuff that breaks. What the heck is everyone thinking? A pool ball is the hardest ball in all of sports!
 
Paul Schofield said:
Actually, the soft break is preferable instead of the smash break with some goober with a speed app. The latter has no place indoors with the proximity of people, glass, lighting, and other stuff that breaks. What the heck is everyone thinking? A pool ball is the hardest ball in all of sports!
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Yet no mandatory helmets...YET. Johnnyt
 
Paul Schofield said:
Actually, the soft break is preferable instead of the smash break with some goober with a speed app. The latter has no place indoors with the proximity of people, glass, lighting, and other stuff that breaks. What the heck is everyone thinking? A pool ball is the hardest ball in all of sports!
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Nope.......

nope.jpg
 
with a magic rack on a bar box i have soft broke many times and it seems accurate..pocketing wing ball bringing the 1 ball up table near corner pocket and leaving cue in middle area...it works for me with a magic rack but a regular rack..i cant do it..always seems to be a slug in it no matter how good i rack it...but on barbox i prefer a solid medium stroke so when cue ball pops it doesnt get too wild and scratch or bounce off table..i try to practice my break quite often...slowly getting better on 7' & 9'

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2
 
ktmrider765 said:
with a magic rack on a bar box i have soft broke many times and it seems accurate..pocketing wing ball bringing the 1 ball up table near corner pocket and leaving cue in middle area...it works for me with a magic rack but a regular rack..i cant do it..always seems to be a slug in it no matter how good i rack it...but on barbox i prefer a solid medium stroke so when cue ball pops it doesnt get too wild and scratch or bounce off table..i try to practice my break quite often...slowly getting better on 7' & 9'

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2
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Can't soft break with out either a) a template or b) new balls and new cloth..... Even if it looks like you racked them perfectly variances in sizes or cloth divots are going to make a soft break into a slug if you are only freezing them....

Chris
 
The Renfro said:
Can't soft break with out either a) a template or b) new balls and new cloth..... Even if it looks like you racked them perfectly variances in sizes or cloth divots are going to make a soft break into a slug if you are only freezing them....

Chris
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i agree...after trial and error i found out...even.playing a match i felt the rack was.perfect and a soft break would do real well...so i tried to get fancy.....and----SLUG!..lol....but yes everything must either be.new or a template...

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2
 
bdorman said:
Here's a video of Deuel soft-breaking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H6OlaGA5eE

It's just as offensive as a hard break. It seems (to me) that the advantage is more control over the one-ball and the cueball. You get enough spread to execute a run out, but are much less likely to CB scratch, etc.

In the video you'll notice that Deuel always makes the wing ball and the one-CB is always lined up to pocket in the corner.

But I'm not a soft-breaker so hopefully others will chime in.

Youtube search of "Corey Deuel soft break" returned lots of videos.
Click to expand...

Well that break in the video is a joke. The corner ball goes in every time like a set up trick shot. There is more going there then just a soft break.
 
macguy said:
Well that break in the video is a joke. The corner ball goes in every time like a set up trick shot. There is more going there then just a soft break.
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I know I'm new here and to pool in general but I disagree that there is more going on. At the bar table championships in Reno I watched two really good pros play each other in 9 ball for the entire match. (not sure if it's bad etiquette to name drop) Both basically broke and ran on each other and if it wasn't for alternate breaks I'm guessing one may have shut out the other. In both cases, neither broke very hard and the balls scattered almost the same way every time. I'm guessing if there was some shady racking going on one or the other would have caught it.

This opinion article came out about that same time and I kind of agree with the author.

http://thepoolscene.com/independent-pool-and-billiards/magic-rack-debate-overshadows-u-s-open-bar-table-championships/

My guess is that the pros spend hours and hours on learning how to break just right using the magic rack and that especially on a bar table they can get the wing ball almost every time and a decent enough spread of balls that their ability to hit good cut shots and get position is all they need to run that out almost every time.

For not that's fun to watch but at some point the math is going to kick in and when a pro is playing another pro, whoever wins the lag might as well have won the match right there.
 
Floppage said:
I know I'm new here and to pool in general but I disagree that there is more going on. At the bar table championships in Reno I watched two really good pros play each other in 9 ball for the entire match. (not sure if it's bad etiquette to name drop) Both basically broke and ran on each other and if it wasn't for alternate breaks I'm guessing one may have shut out the other. In both cases, neither broke very hard and the balls scattered almost the same way every time. I'm guessing if there was some shady racking going on one or the other would have caught it.

This opinion article came out about that same time and I kind of agree with the author.

http://thepoolscene.com/independent-pool-and-billiards/magic-rack-debate-overshadows-u-s-open-bar-table-championships/

My guess is that the pros spend hours and hours on learning how to break just right using the magic rack and that especially on a bar table they can get the wing ball almost every time and a decent enough spread of balls that their ability to hit good cut shots and get position is all they need to run that out almost every time.

For not that's fun to watch but at some point the math is going to kick in and when a pro is playing another pro, whoever wins the lag might as well have won the match right there.
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I am not saying anyone is intentionally doing anything. Just if a table is breaking like that something is wrong. If the corner ball always going in is the case there is something wrong and needs to be corrected to prevent this from happening.

The first would be to switch to 10 ball the, most logical change for pro pool. The second would be to have a second break spot for 9 ball about 2 inches up. Sometimes in sports rule changes need to be made from time to time.
 
macguy said:
I am not saying anyone is intentionally doing anything. Just if a table is breaking like that something is wrong. If the corner ball always going in is the case there is something wrong and needs to be corrected to prevent this from happening.

The first would be to switch to 10 ball the, most logical change for pro pool. The second would be to have a second break spot for 9 ball about 2 inches up. Sometimes in sports rule changes need to be made from time to time.
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That's actually a good point. Why isn't 10 ball more popular?

Is it the whole Color of Money thing? I guess someone could make another hustler movie but with Paul Newman dead I am almost afraid some idiot in Hollywood might try to make it "Weekend at Bernies" style and have Tom Cruise carrying him around with sunglasses on while trying to hustle up 10 ball games for money.

I haven't tried moving the 9 up to the spot like the Open rules are requiring but I plan to do that this weekend to see what happens. Not that I can make the wing ball every time but I'm curious what the break looks like when its moved. I know that rule is pretty controversial right now but honestly I don't think it's just Shane's break that beats so many other players. I think there's a lot more to it than that.

Oh, and my apologies to the OP for the thread hijack. I don't think this is what he meant at all with this thread but hopefully he got at least one or two answers.
 
If you want to purely go for a win, obviously doing it the easierst way is what you want which is what Corey said when someone asked him about his break. The issue is that that easy run pretty much kills the whole point of how the game of 9 or 10 ball is. I was watching the latest TAR match that was released on video with Shane and someone who's name escapes me now, but they were both soft breaking and were basically getting the exact same layout 100 times. I really had no interest in watching that. I think I watched maybe 20 racks then skipped to the last 20

I didn't spend much time on this last night and probably need to look again at exactly how and where he's hitting the 1 ball but I didn't get those perfect layouts like Corey was getting. I'd say you really need to practice this and it would probably never be consistent from table to table. I like it though. I'm going to work on it. Not as easy as Corey makes it look or at least not for me...
 
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