Okay so Wamy is a little busy this week, so here's an interesting problem from a tournament I played in last week. It was a ten ball tournament, but for the sake of this discussion we'll pretend it was nine ball. Either way it doesn't matter much:



This is the layout. The score is 7-7 in a race to nine and both you and your opponent are top players, but he has just missed the seven ball and left you here. The seven is about 1/4" from the end rail and you're partially hooked on it, only able to see about 1/4 of it.

What's the right shot and why?

Tap the 7 with left english and leave it behind the 8 with no clean shot from the cue. It'll force him into a difficult shot off the rail. If he misses it should be a run. If he makes it he may have a difficult leave for the 8.

I think we could get the win by putting as much draw as possible on the cueball and just clipping the 7 on the left side. Cueball would travel left and knock the 9 ball in. The safety (snookering the 7 behind the 8) isn't that easy as the close distance between the 7 and the 8 looks like you could double kiss the cue ball or have the 7 kiss the bottom of the 8 and leaving both open. If I lose, I want to go down swinging.

This is a very tough situation, considering you changed the game being played to 9ball.

llDayo's is good, but very difficult considering the weight of the shot and precision of the contact point.
I find it very difficult and cringe when I have roll the cue ball to contact a fine point at any distances over four feet, considering that I just dont trust the rolls (drifts) of the tables. If the cue ball drifts a fraction to the left or right, youre risking a fouls shot and selling out the game.

Frank the Tank's shot is a good one as well, but I think the risk of hitting the wrong side of the 9ball is very plausible and is bringing the scratch into effect.

First off, I think an offensive shot is out of the question. What I would try to look at is creating distance between the cue ball and the 7 ball.
I see a fantastic shot to not only create distance, but I see an opportunity to leave the cue ball very close the the 8ball with it obstructing the path to the 7ball.
The shot I see is a one rail kick shot.

You want to aim near the first point(little white dot) to the right of the lower side pocket, this should hit the 7ball fairly thick. The execution of the shot should be taken at a speed a little harder than if you were going to long bank the 7 into one of the corner pockets. If you put low english on the cue ball, it should stay right behind the 8ball, and the 7 will go two rails to the other side of the table. Youre basically switching the positions of the cue and 7 ball and leaving your opponent a very difficult shot.

I like going for this shot because ducking really seems to hold no value here. I load the cueball up with right english, play rail first and back-cut the ball in. My big worry is scratching in the corner bottom left but if I hit this properly I should be fine and the right english will transfer to check off the far left rail and move me back into the correct position for the 8. It's actually a much easier shot than it looks and having the 7 ball 1/4" off the rail makes it pretty routine.

Grunch.

I know guys who get down to cut this without much thought but I'm not one of them. If you are comfortable with extreme fine cuts and/or using swerve well to open up the angle I'm not sure the straight cut is that bad on a decent table.

The only obvious safety shot (the slow clip) is very hard and does not even bring that many benefits - it's easy to escape from, and depending on exactly where we leave it actually gives some easy offensive/defensive possible shots. Bad combination against a good opponent.

Only other shots I see on are the one rail kick, which is very hard and the cue ball seems a bit too far down the rail to make it +EV, and the kick off the cushion and try to clip it back. With a ton of bottom right we should be able to clip it across, and if the cut is really not on, this probably gets my vote as the best shot.

---edit just saw cueballs solution and he gives a better description/picture of my last shot suggestion than I have so refer to that if you don't understand my hungover English ---

how about this ? i really see no good defensive shot .. there is also a chance we hide the cueball behind the 9ball if we miss.

is a shot like this not on?


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

leave the 7 ball safe and often leave oppo in a tricky snooker

The only problem I have with this is if you miss your shot the 7 will (most likely) be sitting right around the pocket. If you don't get enough speed you could also end up fouling (or if you graze the 7 to thin you could run into the 8 and not hit a rail).

Agree with the above, i think this totally depends on your strengths as a player, i know i would much rather slowly play the white upto the 7 rather than trying to cut and pot simply because of the stated above.

Obv if i was good at potting these type of shots i would go for it but this seems like a game deciding shot to me.

Play to your strength?

Okay, so obviously this is a very difficult situation, because you're more or less dead. Almost any safety leaves a fairly easy return to put you in an even worse situation than you are now, and you're playing a player who most likely won't give you any air at all. A mistake here and it's likely he'll run the set out and you can plan your speech to the railbirds. In my opinion, the important thing to think about when you are faced with this kind of a layout is to find some way, any way, that will give you a shot at a win.

So let's go through the answers...


Nope, your hit on the 7 is too thin for that.

A slow shot the length of the table with inside (check) english to brush a ball and move it an inch or so? Is that the shot you want to shoot for what is most likely your last hurrah? Sorry, but not me.

No idea what that means.

These posts represent a decent option, either going for the ball or playing the touchy safety. However both are very, very hard to judge because the 7 is that little bit farther off the rail than would be ideal for going for it, but a little closer than we'd like for the safety. Plus you're coming in at a fairly narrow angle, making it all the harder to judge. Move the cue ball farther to the left (or higher up in the picture) and I love these shots. From where it is it's pretty dicey though.

Creative but very hard to judge.

Also creative, but the upper side pocket is a huge obstacle. You need to just miss it to have any shot at making the 9.

----------------------

Okay so here's what I came up with. Again, I feel I'm more or less dead in this situation, and not just for the game for the match, so I'm looking for something, anything that will give me a decent shot at a win. In my opinion even a trickshot is better than trying a low percentage safety that just loses the game anyways. Since every option is bad, it's better to lose shooting at a pocket. You die just as dead in the end, but at least you took your shot.

id better play more 1p . there are alot of useful shot in that game that can apply to 8/9 ball.

This is not a shot I wouldve ever thought of. Shows how playing different games can help you out in your primary game..

this problem was great. love this forum

im going with ashley long on this one.