Your first task after the break is to survey the table and make a plan for winning the game. If the table is clustered or if balls are lying within the paths of other balls, then you have to deal with ol’ man trouble.
Trouble balls are any balls on the table that are situated in such a way that they must be moved from their present position n order for the game to be won. The first decision to make is whether you are going to move them or leave the moving to your opponent. If your foe is capable of moving the balls and then running out you would prefer to retain control and move the ball yourself.
Now, when do you move it becomes the question. Do you have a shot early in the game that you can use to send the cueball off of the cluster and break it up? Can you do this with the reasonable certainty that you will have a shot after you do so?
Perhaps, if the cluster is near a pocket, you can send the object ball off of the cluster, caroming the object ball into the pocket, breaking apart the cluster, and still maintaining cue ball control for po on the next shot.
Or, if there is no early smash-out, you may have to figure a way to get to the trouble ball, make a good hit on it, and play a safety behind another ball. If the safety is good enough you will get ball-in-hand and come back to the table with no clusters.
All of these are the choices you must make according to the layout that you are given. Your responsibility is to make the smart choice. Time after time you will see players try to bust out clusters and lose control of the cueball, giving up the table when they scratch or roll safe. Remember: If you cannot predict the path of the cueball after you break the cluster, you are taking an unnecessary risk to break that cluster out. Ridding the table of trouble is counter-productive if you wind up giving control of that table back to the other guy.
So when you make your plan first determine how you are going to handle the trouble. Then plan your game backward from there. Where does your cueball need to be in order to end the trouble? How do you get position there from the ball before? And so on. Get in line, stay in line, and handle trouble while maintaining control of the cueball. If your chances are less than favorable for doing so, consider ducking out in such a manner that your opponent is forced to take risks of his own. Play the odds, baby.
