Problem of the week 19 is a situation taken from a regular game I have against a guy who is a very skilled single ball potter, but really struggles to control the pace of the cue ball or to play any kind of good angular positional play.

This player type is quite common in pool, and usually exists through a player being very good at potting when young, but never putting in the effort or thought needed to get good at positional (and as a result, tactical) play at any point later on. Because they frequently beat adults when they were young and can pull off some very big shots at times, they usually also have big egos and the willingness to gamble that comes with it, and the answer to this problem lies much more in the player type than the ball positions.

Against very weak players in a game like banks – where they will miss most shots – often our main priority is to play ultra defensively. Our attempts to pot balls are nearly secondary to just making sure they never have an easy shot on. Much like the ultra defensive style of gin rummy adopted by Stu Ungar, suffocation becomes our weapon of choice against such a player in hard spots – we have so much more to lose leaving them easy shots, that we basically just take on whatever safety shot has the best chance of getting a ball.

However, against very talented single ball potters (and pros of course) – who will pot many very hard, multi rail bank shots – our priority becomes keeping them off of the table and making as many long runs as possible and allowing our extra positional skill edge to shine. Our edge exists in the fact that they cannot string together long runs (after all, you can't keep just sinking 3-4 rail banks over and over), and as a result we have to take some calculated risks when we look at the table to make sure we keep them off – especially when they are just one away.

In this particular spot, unless we are a very skilled multi rail bank player, the best shot on is the table length bank, played with top spin/English, that will reverse off of the cushion, hold up the cue ball, and leave us a nice simple shot to finish the game as outlined by 9ball here:



This shot is arguably the easiest bank available on the table for most players ability, and has the advantage of having a huge margin of error for the position of the cue ball. Even if massively over hit or not enough top spin/English is added, we will have a shot at either the middle or lower left corner pocket even if we over hit it by a metre.

I didn't really think of it before playing it in this case, but quickly realised this shot has a huge added bonus against this player type – the tilt factor. Because you have to play it hard to get the top spin to bite off of the cushion, the shot looks to an inexperienced positional player as a fluke. In the case of this game, it seemed to really get to my opponent, who after telling me that the ball stops there one time in a million, watched me sink the final ball and immediately doubled the stake and demanded another game.

Solution: Against all but very weak players, play the table length bank/double with top spin/English to give yourself the best chance at winning the game at this visit.