I have talked here many times about the importance of maintaining control of the table. One player invariably sets the flow of the table and you want that player to be yourself. Yet every time I walk into a poolroom I see people surrender the table to the other guy when they did not need to do so, usually because they just didn’t think through all of the options at their disposal.
In diagram 1 you see a set-up where the breaker has made nothing and left a shot on the one ball. The two ball is clustered up ugly with the three ball, however. The other day I saw a player come to the table with this opportunity and duck on the one ball. He sent the one ball two rails to the other end of the table and then he and his opponent traded safeties on the one back and forth until one of them made a bad hit. The two was still clustered up in trouble, thus the safety war remained unresolved. So the man who ducked first solved none of his problems on the table by so doing.
This first ducker just said that he was afraid of the two ball and wanted the other fellow to play with the two instead of himself. This meant he had to give up control of the table and risk his opponent making a good shot on him and winning.
What he should have done is to make the one ball (as shown in diagram 2) and then break the two away from the three while sending the cueball safely uptable. (Diagram 3) Doing this gives him the opportunity for ball-in-hand, this time with no clusters left on the table.
Situations come up all the time where clusters stand between you and a trip to the winner’s circle. While it is often true that the player who breaks out the cluster risks being snookered or suffering a bad roll from the collision, it is also true than many times opportunities to de-fuse the cluster are ignored in favor of avoidance altogether.
So don’t rush to judgement. When a cluster tries to ruin your day take a walk around the table. Come up with more than just the obvious option. Explore all the possibilities before you and you just might find one that keeps you in control, and the guy in control is always going to win in the long run.
