Good straight pool players define themselves fundamentally by their ability to maintain long runs of balls by consistently bringing balls into play on the re-rack. As such, the positioning of the last balls is of huge importance to which order you should take them in and why, as it can make the difference between finishing your run or making many more points.

In general in straight pool, you are looking to break into the top two sides of the pack and not the bottom. This is simply because balls are pushed towards the lower corner pockets much better (leaving you simpler runs without the need to send the cue ball up and down the table), as well as the cue ball usually finishing in open play somewhere in the middle area of the table as it bounces off of the pack if played well. Attacking the pack from the bottom like you frequently do in snooker is often much more dangerous in straight pool, as balls are pushed up table, and you end on an easy shot much less often, with the cue ball frequently staying close to the bottom rail area of the table.

For this reason, in this spot we want to take the top ball on the diagram first (as it provides a much harder shot into the the top side of the pack in its current position), and try and get on the other ball for the final shot, leaving ourselves a decent angle to slam into the pack and bring some balls into play. The best place to do this is from where the ball is on 9balls excellent diagram (and I fear he may put me out of a job soon if he keeps these up every week ):


This provides the simplest and most effective route into the pack, as it requires no cushion shots before hitting the pack, and can be easily played with screw and pace to give us the best chance of bringing balls into play and leaving the cue ball in open play in the middle of the table something like this:


Solution: You should take the ball at the top of the diagram first, leaving yourself a nice angle off of the lower ball to slam into the top side of the pack.