I have long thought we are looking at the wrong stat when we look at break and runs without looking at break and wins. Give the player with superior planning the break and when they can't run out you will see them running to the best safety, not the last possible ball they can make.
While break and runs don't matter a whole lot in tournaments unless too many people are watching they are bad ju-ju gambling. I was usually working my circuit alone most of the week. The last thing I wanted to do was come in and break and run when the people I was playing couldn't. I never broke and ran before my opponent did. Once they opened the door I might break and run a few racks. String racks together? Not no but hell no! Sure as sin somebody will be watching to snitch me out somewhere down the road when it mattered. I played on seven foot tables to ten foot tables and was happy on any of them. I don't remember things like the biggest "pack" I put together, not more than three or four unless I am forgetting some of the crazy nights. I probably made more than that a few nights when things were crazy.
Talking about template racks, there are several issues with them when trying to compare them to old school triangles. First, most are designed to hold the balls together under slight pressure, the holes they are sitting on pull the balls in against each other. A triangle doesn't do the same thing, once it is gone there is nothing holding the racked balls against each other under pressure like a template that stays there. Another thing, there are usually provisions to put the templates in the same place over and over. Just racking the balls and breaking trains the cloth to hold the balls together. We talk about a lot of things equipmentwise but rarely about the racks themselves adding to more effective breaks.
With my home table I could get perfect racks with a triangle, I could get perfect racks with the template, but breaking off the template was distinctly different. The balls open up better off of a template in my experience. There is a tiny amount of force holding the balls together in a template rack and this has to be overcome before balls move. I think this holds the front of the racked balls together until the force moves through the entire formation better than loose balls that have been assembled by hand or using a triangle. No proof of this, just speculation. However, I would never get in a break competition where some were allowed to use templates and I had to use a triangle. I wouldn't compete in straight pool high run competitions where a privileged few were using different cleaned and polished balls than the masses either.
Years ago I shot a weekly steel plate match. A half-dozen competitors were able to use full jacketed bullets while most weren't allowed to. When our times were measured in thousandths of a second or smaller units, a comparatively heavy metal jacket took the plates down faster than a hollow pointed bullet like I used inside the rules or a lead or lead nosed bullet. We competed man on man like a round robin in pool so the win/loss record of every match was important. Lose by a thousandth of a second or have a brainfart or equipment malfunction and lose by seconds it was all the same, win/loss was all that mattered. I would have been allowed to use the jacketed bullets too if I wanted to. I had an ethical problem with it when most had to follow the rules. Bringing this around to pool, often the tables in a tournament aren't the same. Different pocket sizes, different brands, different locations in the venue. These things can matter a lot and I try to make sure that my toughest competition doesn't gain an edge because they are playing on or with different equipment.
Hu
While break and runs don't matter a whole lot in tournaments unless too many people are watching they are bad ju-ju gambling. I was usually working my circuit alone most of the week. The last thing I wanted to do was come in and break and run when the people I was playing couldn't. I never broke and ran before my opponent did. Once they opened the door I might break and run a few racks. String racks together? Not no but hell no! Sure as sin somebody will be watching to snitch me out somewhere down the road when it mattered. I played on seven foot tables to ten foot tables and was happy on any of them. I don't remember things like the biggest "pack" I put together, not more than three or four unless I am forgetting some of the crazy nights. I probably made more than that a few nights when things were crazy.
Talking about template racks, there are several issues with them when trying to compare them to old school triangles. First, most are designed to hold the balls together under slight pressure, the holes they are sitting on pull the balls in against each other. A triangle doesn't do the same thing, once it is gone there is nothing holding the racked balls against each other under pressure like a template that stays there. Another thing, there are usually provisions to put the templates in the same place over and over. Just racking the balls and breaking trains the cloth to hold the balls together. We talk about a lot of things equipmentwise but rarely about the racks themselves adding to more effective breaks.
With my home table I could get perfect racks with a triangle, I could get perfect racks with the template, but breaking off the template was distinctly different. The balls open up better off of a template in my experience. There is a tiny amount of force holding the balls together in a template rack and this has to be overcome before balls move. I think this holds the front of the racked balls together until the force moves through the entire formation better than loose balls that have been assembled by hand or using a triangle. No proof of this, just speculation. However, I would never get in a break competition where some were allowed to use templates and I had to use a triangle. I wouldn't compete in straight pool high run competitions where a privileged few were using different cleaned and polished balls than the masses either.
Years ago I shot a weekly steel plate match. A half-dozen competitors were able to use full jacketed bullets while most weren't allowed to. When our times were measured in thousandths of a second or smaller units, a comparatively heavy metal jacket took the plates down faster than a hollow pointed bullet like I used inside the rules or a lead or lead nosed bullet. We competed man on man like a round robin in pool so the win/loss record of every match was important. Lose by a thousandth of a second or have a brainfart or equipment malfunction and lose by seconds it was all the same, win/loss was all that mattered. I would have been allowed to use the jacketed bullets too if I wanted to. I had an ethical problem with it when most had to follow the rules. Bringing this around to pool, often the tables in a tournament aren't the same. Different pocket sizes, different brands, different locations in the venue. These things can matter a lot and I try to make sure that my toughest competition doesn't gain an edge because they are playing on or with different equipment.
Hu
