What Was my Opponent Thinking ?

stevekur1

stevekur1

The "COMMISH"
Silver Member
Hey Guys,

At league the other night i was playing my opponent and twice i got bad on my break shot so i played the ball in and called safe drawing the ball down table and spotting the the breakball, and this is what he decided to do.

I have played him before in league and he did pretty much the same thing, i thought then maybe he was just unsure of the speed to hit the ball. until the other night when he did it again.

I would ask him why he did it, but i may have to play him again before league is out.

Here's the 2 lay outs, does anyone have an idea why he would of done this, and how should i have countered it? out side of the obvious to not get bad on my break shots ! lol

i think what i should have done was take a back scratch and nudge the ball into th rack or try to make a bridge over the rack and kick the cue ball back down table where i had him, afterall he was on one scratch first !

i did end up, thinning the the back ball and putting him on the rail, next to the corner behind the rack. after-all that what Mr Mathews says is a great place to put the cueball as a safety.

I would just like to know what others would think of why he would of played it the way he did ??????

thanks
Steve

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#2

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Steve:

I think the proper reply for him in both instances is to do what he did. He is supposed to take the intentional foul into the back of the rack, but he needs to disturb the balls.

Are you saying that in both instances the rack remained virtually undisturbed as in your cuetable diagram? If that is the case, I think your response is to send the cue ball two rails back up to the top rail, taking an intentional.
 
Well, the balls did shift ever so slightly, but since i didnt memorize them i didnt want to mislead anyone. for them to say that there was a possible dead ball or something. There definatly wasnt one though. i think i did the right thing in what i did.

just wanted to get inside his head a little to see what he was thinking.

I remember grady saying that you dont to put the cue ball up table as a safety, because alot of times you create a dead ball when trying to bring the cue ball up table.
 
stevekur1 said:
Well, the balls did shift ever so slightly, but since i didnt memorize them i didnt want to mislead anyone. for them to say that there was a possible dead ball or something. There definatly wasnt one though. i think i did the right thing in what i did.
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If the balls had shifted a bit and you were convinced there were no dead balls, then I say the proper thing to do was to shoot away from the rack at the bottom rail, 2 rails up toward the top rail.


stevekur1 said:
just wanted to get inside his head a little to see what he was thinking.
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His initial shots were correct IF he had managed to dislodge a ball or two which would have prevented you from going up table. I think he just didn't execute properly.


stevekur1 said:
I remember grady saying that you dont to put the cue ball up table as a safety, because alot of times you create a dead ball when trying to bring the cue ball up table.
Click to expand...

Grady was talking about when you are doing a legal safety and you are skimming the rack and going up top. You had your opponent on a foul and had no need to skim any balls and disturb the rack.
 
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This is the kind of thing players often do without understanding the theory behind it. I was one of them. It's a common move taught in books and DVDs, but I would shoot it without understanding the key that DMGwalsh mentioned: usually something from the 2nd or 3rd row of balls will pop out. Then the other player must come back with something pretty smart to avoid selling out one of those balls.

Depending on how confidently you can kick and how lucky you get, a ball may reach the side rail and allow you to get a legal safe out of it. Typically people hit it softly though, as it's risky to kick that firmly. If you hit a little off-center, your CB skips to the side and they can see the ball that popped out.
 
dmgwalsh said:
Steve:

I think the proper reply for him in both instances is to do what he did. He is supposed to take the intentional foul into the back of the rack, but he needs to disturb the balls.

Are you saying that in both instances the rack remained virtually undisturbed as in your cuetable diagram? If that is the case, I think your response is to send the cue ball two rails back up to the top rail, taking an intentional.
Click to expand...

yep.......
 
i think what i should have done was take a back scratch and nudge the ball into th rack or try to make a bridge over the rack and kick the cue ball back down table where i had him, afterall he was on one scratch first !

i did end up, thinning the the back ball and putting him on the rail, next to the corner behind the rack. after-all that what Mr Mathews says is a great place to put the cueball as a safety.


If the stack is undisturbed to the point that _

> no loose ball allows a good return safety
> no dead play is created

then sending the ball back up table, as Dennis noted, while taking yourself a back scratch, is best.
Another fine point is that when sending him back, place the cueball at the center of the head rail and as near frozen as possible. This makes his next move to the stack just that much more difficult.

_Rick
 
Stevie,

Perhaps it would help if you tell us what you expected him to do? In other words, what do you normally do when faced with this situation (opponent plays safe and leaves you downtable facing a full rack)?
 
well,

if it were me playing the first intentional foul i would leave my opponent frozen up on the rack so he had an easy out with out having to back scratch.

what he ended up doing after i left him on the rail, is he tried to thin the rack and escape up table. but i guess he miscalculated the spin and the cueball hooked and he hit the back of the pack a little fuller. opening the door for me to run a few racks on him.

Like i said, i wiould just like to know what he might of been thinking. Thought of asking you guys if you have ever encountered a similar scenario.

Thanks
Steve
 
stevekur1 said:
well,

if it were me playing the first intentional foul i would leave my opponent frozen up on the rack so he had an easy out with out having to back scratch.
Steve
Click to expand...
What are you saying here? frozen on the back of the rack? that is the correct shot.


stevekur1 said:
Like i said, i wiould just like to know what he might of been thinking. Thought of asking you guys if you have ever encountered a similar scenario.
Thanks
Steve
Click to expand...

Steve: I think I told you what he might HAVE been thinking and a few others agreed. He might have been thinking he'd take an intentional dislodge a ball to prevent you from leaving him uptable and then he would probably skim and leave you on the bottom if you took an intentional nudge.
 
The shot your opponent took is very often the correct move, but as has been mentioned, the object is to loosen a few balls away from the pack and leave you stuck against the bottom of the rack. Ideally, the balls that come loose would be on both sides of the rack, making a safety by you to the side rail and back to behind the rack that much more difficult since if you don't get the speed just right you likely leave him a shot on one of the balls on either side of the rack.
 
Yeah, I'm so confused right now lol.

stevekur1 said:
well,

if it were me playing the first intentional foul i would leave my opponent frozen up on the rack so he had an easy out with out having to back scratch.
Click to expand...

Can you diagram where/how you would have frozen him to the rack? And why would you want to leave him with an "easy out", as you wrote above? Wouldn't you want to put your opponent in a spot where he didn't have an easy out??

stevekur1 said:
what he ended up doing after i left him on the rail, is he tried to thin the rack and escape up table.
Click to expand...

He certainly didn't try that in the first attempt, right? That one, he went two rails behind the rack. I'm just curious how you know that in the second attempt he was trying to thin the rack on the way in - that shot is about as bad a decision as one can make in this situation, so I'm wondering how you know he was trying that (especially since he didn't actually do it)...

Just trying to figure out what's going on here, Stevie. :)

- Steve
 
I agree

DogsPlayingPool said:
The shot your opponent took is very often the correct move, but as has been mentioned, the object is to loosen a few balls away from the pack and leave you stuck against the bottom of the rack. Ideally, the balls that come loose would be on both sides of the rack, making a safety by you to the side rail and back to behind the rack that much more difficult since if you don't get the speed just right you likely leave him a shot on one of the balls on either side of the rack.
Click to expand...


I agree completly
 
Steve Lipsky said:
Yeah, I'm so confused right now lol.



Can you diagram where/how you would have frozen him to the rack? And why would you want to leave him with an "easy out", as you wrote above? Wouldn't you want to put your opponent in a spot where he didn't have an easy out??



He certainly didn't try that in the first attempt, right? That one, he went two rails behind the rack. I'm just curious how you know that in the second attempt he was trying to thin the rack on the way in - that shot is about as bad a decision as one can make in this situation, so I'm wondering how you know he was trying that (especially since he didn't actually do it)...

Just trying to figure out what's going on here, Stevie. :)

- Steve
Click to expand...

I think I figured out part of it... when he tried to thin the rack, that was his response to your safe - not his initial foul. Got it. :)

Still not sure what you mean by the first part though...

- Steve
 
A Re-Explanation from the begining

Okay Here Goes.

I Had gotten bad on a break shot, so i decided to call a safety pocket the ball and sending the cueball back down table to put the pressure on him to play a hard safety from the middle of the table and on the back rail. facing a full rack, rather than the head ball missing so he can nest the cueball into the head ball position ( See Cue Table )

http://CueTable.com/P/?@4ARRR4BCpA3CCYA4DCpe4EFbe3FChe4GBjO4HAMA4IAEe3JFSe4KEMO3LBKO3MDvO4NBal3OBJl4PKuE4kKuE4kQLC1kAvg1kBEgzc2qQtFI_Got_Bad_on_the_Break_Shot,_so_i_opted_to_call_a_safe_pocketing_the_ball_and_drawing_the_cueball_back_to_the_end_rail.__Thats_where_it_all_started_!!!&ZZ@

then he did what is in the first cuetable which is at the begining of the post. Like i said i just wanted to understand what his logic was for doing something like that, leaving me an easy out..

Sorry if i am making this very complex, there is no way to really explain it here. maybe if we had a real table on AZ i could explain better !

Thanks
Steve
 
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Sorry guys. Cuetable is screwy, it is not showing the balls on the table in the links. i will try again later

Steve
 
stevekur1 said:
Okay Here Goes.

I Had gotten bad on a break shot, so i decided to call a safety pocket the ball and sending the cueball back down table to put the pressure on him to play a hard safety from the middle of the table and on the back rail. facing a full rack, rather than the head ball missing so he can nest the cueball into the head ball position ( See Cue Table )

http://CueTable.com/P/?@4ARRR4BCpA3CCYA4DCpe4EFbe3FChe4GBjO4HAMA4IAEe3JFSe4KEMO3LBKO3MDvO4NBal3OBJl4PKuE4kKuE4kQLC1kAvg1kBEgzc2qQtFI_Got_Bad_on_the_Break_Shot,_so_i_opted_to_call_a_safe_pocketing_the_ball_and_drawing_the_cueball_back_to_the_end_rail.__Thats_where_it_all_started_!!!&ZZ@

then he did what is in the first cuetable which is at the begining of the post. Like i said i just wanted to understand what his logic was for doing something like that, leaving me an easy out..

Sorry if i am making this very complex, there is no way to really explain it here. maybe if we had a real table on AZ i could explain better !

Thanks
Steve
Click to expand...

Steve:

I think we all understand it. And we all think that while he took the correct shot, he did not execute it properly. We think that what he was thinking was that he was going to execute it properly, dislodging a few balls and preventing you from answering with the best response which would have been to shoot away from the rack and send the ball uptable.

Let me ask you this, Steve.

What would you do if you were faced with the initial leave that you left to the other guy?
 
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stevekur1 said:
... facing a full rack, rather than the head ball missing so he can nest the cueball into the head ball position ...
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For what it's worth, I never saw any of the old-time top players shoot the "replace the head ball with the cue ball" safety shot. They would almost certainly shoot the shot your opponent shot when shooting at a 14-ball rack. One of the exceptions was Irving Crane who would shoot the two-rail-first shot to skim the side of the rack. That shot is illustrated in Mosconi's book, which should be on the required reading list for this forum.

If you are going to shoot onto the head of the rack, you better study which balls are frozen. Not all of them are.
 
Well Dennis,

I have never been faced with that situation, i will have to tinker around with it i guess !!

And who would of though after playing as long as i have that i would have shot every scenario possible !

Steve
 
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