Why Pass On Breaking?

[Bob Jewett]

I haven't seen the video so I'm making the assumption that pocketing the head-ball in the side would open the rack a lot more than the standard safe-break. So if you miss that shot, you're not just losing control of the table, but giving your opponent a much better opportunity to get rolling, aren't you?

It depends on the percentages. I think you want to consider who will get the first open shot. If you do the standard safe from the break, I think the chance you will get the first shot is less than 50%. If you can break in a ball 55% of the time, that seems to give a better result.

If the safe breaker got the first shot more than 50% of the time, then it would clearly be to his advantage to break. But I think we don't know what the percentages are.

A similar consideration comes up all the time during the game. You are facing a shot that feels about 70% for you. Should you play safe? If you are only 50-50 to get the first shot after the safeties start, you should shoot the 70% shot. If you are 100% to get a 90% shot out of the safety battle, then play a safe. My conclusion is that in general you should go for 51% shots unless an absolutely inescapable safety is at hand. If you played such a safe on Lassiter he would take three, play safe and you would be stuck on the end rail with no reasonable safe to play. You would net 15 points and give up a couple of racks.

 

[Bob Jewett]

I haven't seen the video so I'm making the assumption that pocketing the head-ball in the side would open the rack a lot more than the standard safe-break. So if you miss that shot, you're not just losing control of the table, but giving your opponent a much better opportunity to get rolling, aren't you?

In the video, the player hits the head ball thinly -- almost like a one pocket break -- and it goes softly straight into the side. The cue ball comes around three rails -- foot, side, head -- and ends above the side pocket where the ball went in leaving a couple of easy shots and at least six loose balls, IIRC.

 

[krupa]

It depends on the percentages. I think you want to consider who will get the first open shot. If you do the standard safe from the break, I think the chance you will get the first shot is less than 50%. If you can break in a ball 55% of the time, that seems to give a better result.

If the safe breaker got the first shot more than 50% of the time, then it would clearly be to his advantage to break. But I think we don't know what the percentages are.

A similar consideration comes up all the time during the game. You are facing a shot that feels about 70% for you. Should you play safe? If you are only 50-50 to get the first shot after the safeties start, you should shoot the 70% shot. If you are 100% to get a 90% shot out of the safety battle, then play a safe. My conclusion is that in general you should go for 51% shots unless an absolutely inescapable safety is at hand. If you played such a safe on Lassiter he would take three, play safe and you would be stuck on the end rail with no reasonable safe to play. You would net 15 points and give up a couple of racks.

In the video, the player hits the head ball thinly -- almost like a one pocket break -- and it goes softly straight into the side. The cue ball comes around three rails -- foot, side, head -- and ends above the side pocket where the ball went in leaving a couple of easy shots and at least six loose balls, IIRC.

I'm a fairly pessimistic person and I so I'm hearing you say that there's a 45% (for instance) chance of leaving my opponent with easy shots and loose balls. That seems kind of high to me when the alternative is leaving the CB at/near the head rail with maybe two or three loose balls, none of which are easy shots.

So do I need to take a more aggressive attitude towards my playing? Not necessarily on the break, but in general maybe?

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

I'm a fairly pessimistic person and I so I'm hearing you say that there's a 45% (for instance) chance of leaving my opponent with easy shots and loose balls. That seems kind of high to me when the alternative is leaving the CB at/near the head rail with maybe two or three loose balls, none of which are easy shots.

So do I need to take a more aggressive attitude towards my playing? Not necessarily on the break, but in general maybe?

I don't think Bob is saying there is a 55% chance of making a ball necessarily nor do I think he's arguing that people are playing the game wrong. What he is suggesting is that this is valuable information to know. I think in 14.1 it's good to be a pessimist at times. No matter what your attitude is though, it's important to acknowledge your options and the value of each option. In the end, you are your own person and your shots are not always going to be representative of the general population. As our technology improves and we begin to introduce things like Billiard Buddy into 14.1, these are questions that will hopefully get answered for each and every person.

So, imo, I think only you can determine if you need to be more aggressive or not.

 

[Bob Jewett]

I don't think Bob is saying there is a 55% chance of making a ball necessarily nor do I think he's arguing that people are playing the game wrong. What he is suggesting is that this is valuable information to know. I think in 14.1 it's good to be a pessimist at times. No matter what your attitude is though, it's important to acknowledge your options and the value of each option. In the end, you are your own person and your shots are not always going to be representative of the general population. As our technology improves and we begin to introduce things like Billiard Buddy into 14.1, these are questions that will hopefully get answered for each and every person.

So, imo, I think only you can determine if you need to be more aggressive or not.

Mostly I agree except for the last part. Often in league play I see players shoot really passive safeties when they should play much more aggressive safes. An example is when they get straight in on the break ball and call safe rather than pocketing it and playing a much, much better safe on the rack. I would say something to them but I think giving up 120-40 is sufficient help already.

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

Mostly I agree except for the last part. Often in league play I see players shoot really passive safeties when they should play much more aggressive safes. An example is when they get straight in on the break ball and call safe rather than pocketing it and playing a much, much better safe on the rack. I would say something to them but I think giving up 120-40 is sufficient help already.

Ah, I couldn't agree with you more here and a lesson I learned over the years. A good safety is one that cannot be returned. You can still be aggressive while playing safe.

 

[SpiderWebComm]

If someone keeps playing 51% shots on me...they're losing way more than 49%.

Bad logic.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

 

[kollegedave]

What a great thread. Like SJM I don't think the stats Jude wants to see exist, however, maybe there will be some animus after this thread to take a studied look at the accu-stats library.

However, I would like to suggest to Jude, and anyone else, a method I have tried with the one pocket break. Try taking what people consider as the disadvantage for awhile and see how you fair. This is what I noticed...

1) If you always allow an opponent to break. They will get better. Accordingly, if someone views the straight pool break as an advantage and not a disadvantage and they TAKE the break, I believe it is reasonable to assume that the breaker will improve at breaking and will soon be "laying it down" as some say.

2) If you play the same opponent, they will get better at escaping the break or taking advantage of it, depending on how you view the break.

3) If there is even a moderate advantage one way or the other, to ALWAYS have to overcome the disadvantage gets to be a bit of a load even if escape methods improve. Accordingly, if it is determined that taking the break is even a slight disadvantage, I would not agree to take it on a regular basis, unless my opponent was just that weak.

kollegedave

 

[Bob Jewett]

If someone keeps playing 51% shots on me...they're losing way more than 49%.

Bad logic.
...

I agree that if someone is 51% on every shot they will never win except in an easy 3-cushion match. That is not what I was talking about.

If you are on a 50 ball run and you play a break shot and you get a bad roll and have only a 51% shot and the safe is going to go into a situation that will be no better than 50-50 for you to get the first open shot, you should play the 51% shot. That's what I was hoping to say. The correctness of this is pretty obvious.

 

[Steve Lipsky]

I think this is a great thread. It brings to mind that this is one time I wish pool were more mainstream. If it were like baseball, we'd know exact percentages on different tables, across skill levels, in different humidity, and on Tuesdays .

I think we can go a lot further with the analysis. Players are not always equally skilled at offense and defense, even the pros. So playing the head-ball could be the right choice for some, even if they're only 45%. You'd have to figure in their chances to win a resulting safe battle if they opt for the standard opening.

Further, even ignoring defense, if you take a top player like Thorsten, playing the head-ball could be reasonable (read: not necessarily best) even at very low make-percentages. If his average run with an open table is 40, and he is 30% to make it, and his opponent's average run is 14, then he still has equity in playing the shot (40*.3=12 vs 14*.7=10). He'd almost certainly have more equity playing safe - but he would not come out behind even with the offensive shot.

Thanks Jude; as I said, this is a great thread and with enough data, we could discover some truly interesting details.

- Steve

 

[driven]

Good point.

Another thing -- and I don't know if it's just me and my flawed perception -- but today's straight pool players don't lay down nearly as good a break as players from the past do. It could be that in days of yore, straight pool players practice the break -- getting it to the point where they instinctively know where and how to hit the cue ball to get minimal ball dispersion off that corner ball and have the cue ball go 4 rails, pinning it to the head rail. But today's players don't, because they have too many things on their plates (i.e. playing other games, like short-rack rotation).

The matches of today I've seen, the opening break looked like, well, I'll put it kindly -- that the opening break technique was kinda sorta left to chance, and not an obviously-practiced shot.

Only my $0.02 though,

The breakshot of yesterday might have been more of a sure thing due to the balls they played with. did they call them "mud" or something like that?
The old equipment certainly dictated to a point the way the game was played....

Also what Steve said, it's a real shame there isn't an Elias Sports Bureau for pool. Most of what these great players did from the past will soon be lost, if not lost already. Thanks to Accustats and the internet knowledge has become easier to obtain.

I do not have an answer to the original question, in most of my games it really does not matter, I know I do not like loosing the coin flip and would rather not be the breaker, but with the amount of innings it takes to get to 100 now that I think about it it doesn't matter at all.
steven

 

[Steve Lipsky]

It would also be interesting, given a look at the data, to see if lefties have an advantage when forced to break. Since we leave our opponents on the opposite side of the table they are used to, there is at least a possibility that the shots we leave look awkward to our opponents.

I've always been curious if this is indeed a real thing...

- Steve

 

[DogsPlayingPool]

In a recent YouTube video the breaker called and made the head ball in an obviously controlled way. I think it was in the European Championships. If that trend continues, the break could become a huge advantage. Of course, the rules will change if that starts to happen.

In the video, the player hits the head ball thinly -- almost like a one pocket break -- and it goes softly straight into the side. The cue ball comes around three rails -- foot, side, head -- and ends above the side pocket where the ball went in leaving a couple of easy shots and at least six loose balls, IIRC.

Found it, Bob. Good memory you have. It was in Europe and the break was basically just like you described. The second and third rows remained essentially intact while the rest of the balls opened up.

It was Huidji See. Just for the record, it was opponent rack and the the table was tapped. See looked over the rack then called the apex ball in the side. I think it's interesting that it was a tapped table. Perhaps it was something See noticed in pre-match practice about the way the balls racked on this particular table that made him confident in playing this shot. I wonder if he would have called it were they using a traditional triangle.

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmZh_0HrdWI

 

[Bob Jewett]

... Just for the record, it was opponent rack and the the table was tapped. See looked over the rack then called the apex ball in the side. I think it's interesting that it was a tapped table. Perhaps it was something See noticed in pre-match practice about the way the balls racked on this particular table that made him confident in playing this shot. I wonder if he would have called it were they using a traditional triangle. ...

I have heard that in one tournament Nick Van den Berg didn't bother playing for any break shot -- he just played a shot out of the 14-ball rack. I suppose in such a situation you would want to leave the 15th ball where it would be an insurance ball for the "dead ball in rack" break and it could conceivably stay there for your entire run.

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

I have heard that in one tournament Nick Van den Berg didn't bother playing for any break shot -- he just played a shot out of the 14-ball rack. I suppose in such a situation you would want to leave the 15th ball where it would be an insurance ball for the "dead ball in rack" break and it could conceivably stay there for your entire run.

I can't stop thinking about this. My instincts have always led me to believe that tapped balls or a magic rack would never be good for 14.1 but this seals it. From the start of this thread, I have always been under the assumption that the general approach to 14.1 would remain untouched. The question I raised was simply about how much of a disadvantage the breaker truly had. Dead balls change everything. As you state, the shooter can forego patterns leading to a break shot and leave an insurance ball for the duration of his run. It would be pool's equivelant to steroids. All records would get destroyed.

Sadly, I do like the idea of a perfectly tight rack, especially for the opening of a game. I've often wondered if the beating tables get from 9ball prevent 14.1 players from executing an ideal break. If ever the day were to come when tapping or magic rack was used, something would need to be done to keep the integrity of the game intact. Perhaps dissallow the breaker from calling a combination/carom at the start of a rack.

 

[Ratta]

Well,

i m wondering here since decades about this thing. Why the hell it is so hard for some guys to just rack em up on the opposite of the table? I heard often funny excuses ( not in the rules blabla).
To make *fast* a rack in the kitchen area. Here you usually have best conditions to rack up the *straight pool rack* oldschooled way.

I do it always- if the *used* area is terrible (tapped or whatever)- i use the kitchen area to rack up.

lg
Ingo

 

[Jude Rosenstock]

Well,

i m wondering here since decades about this thing. Why the hell it is so hard for some guys to just rack em up on the opposite of the table? I heard often funny excuses ( not in the rules blabla).
To make *fast* a rack in the kitchen area. Here you usually have best conditions to rack up the *straight pool rack* oldschooled way.

I do it always- if the *used* area is terrible (tapped or whatever)- i use the kitchen area to rack up.

lg
Ingo

I would imagine it's a combination of a number of things. For starters, it's horribly inconvenient to rack the balls on the headside. Second, in many poolrooms that host 14.1 leagues & events, the tables are marked for footside racking. The last reason is probably from pure stubbornness. Most 14.1 players simply refuse to budge.

 

[TSW]

I have heard that in one tournament Nick Van den Berg didn't bother playing for any break shot -- he just played a shot out of the 14-ball rack. I suppose in such a situation you would want to leave the 15th ball where it would be an insurance ball for the "dead ball in rack" break and it could conceivably stay there for your entire run.

I would love to see a video of this. Even on a tapped table, what ball is dead out of a 14-ball rack?

 

[9BallJim]

Found it, Bob. Good memory you have. It was in Europe and the break was basically just like you described. The second and third rows remained essentially intact while the rest of the balls opened up.

It was Huidji See. Just for the record, it was opponent rack and the the table was tapped. See looked over the rack then called the apex ball in the side. I think it's interesting that it was a tapped table. Perhaps it was something See noticed in pre-match practice about the way the balls racked on this particular table that made him confident in playing this shot. I wonder if he would have called it were they using a traditional triangle.

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmZh_0HrdWI

I tried this shot on the break and could get close but couldn't make it.

I trained my table when I bought a Sardo rack years ago. I assume "tapped" is the same as the training I did for the Sardo rack. At first I loved the Sardo rack and got perfectly tight racks for 8-ball, 9-ball and 14.1. I actually started shying away from it when I was playing more 9-ball. The reason being it seemed like it was almost cheating to use it. I collected data and found that I would make the wing ball 97% of the time breaking from the side rail. I felt that this perfect situation would only hurt my ability to adapt when breaking on other tables. Probably after a year or so, I started noticing that the Sardo did not rack the balls as tightly be it 8-ball, 9-ball or 14.1 so I resorted back to my traditional wooden rack. Now, I feel like I'm not getting the spreads I could be on 14.1 break shots because of the cloth being tapped. I did a test by racking the balls just below the proper location and the spread I got was considerably better. Although I only did this test a few times, I definitely won't be tapping or training my cloth when I get new cloth. For now, it just makes me work a lot harder for my runs.

 

[nashville14:1]

non safe break and called ball from pack of 14

so now I have seen on youtube 2 ways to call & make the head ball from a full rack of 15 in the opening break. what about the way van den berg reportedly called and made a ball from the stack of 14? anyone have info on that or is it just another urban legend without substance?

also is the requirement to send cb & 2 ob to a rail suspended if a called ball is pocketed?