"When to Play for Safety"

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Articles:

SAFETY PLAY

A Single-Baulk

A Double-Baulk

A Complex Problem

When to Play for Safety

A Useful Shot to Know

When to Pot the White

An Ideal Double-Baulk

Therefore, as a general principle, I want you to act upon the rule that unless safety is "staring you in the face," so to speak, it is better to try your hardest to score something. Never open a bout of safety play unless you can see the end of it favoring your own game. If you keep this in mind, and play regularly for safety when it is obviously the only thing to do, your insight into safety play will improve until you are capable of coping with its more complex aspects. But you will never reap much benefit from safety play if you take any absurd risk in an ordinary game rather than pot the white or give a miss, or play to leave a deliberate single or double baulk. I know that this sort of thing is "not done" in friendly billiards, but it is a great pity, and also very stupid. Take my advice, harden your heart, play for safety whenever it is your game to do so, and thus accustom yourself to the kind of billiards you will be compelled to play in handicap or tournament games.

Be careful not to overdo it. Before you pot the white, make sure there is no other stroke worth trying for. And when you do pot the white, do so in a manner giving you every chance the balls offer to leave a double baulk. Figure 38 illustrates my first point.

The red is as shown. The white is a good half-inch clear of the top cushion and 18 inches from the top pocket-the cue-ball is a foot behind the white and the same distance from the top cushion. Nothing could be easier than to pot the white and leave a double-baulk, but if instead of doing this you play the white against the jaw of the pocket facing you, and put top and plenty of left-hand side on your ball, the white will "bump across" the pocket opening as shown in my diagram, and get out of the way by the time the cue-ball comes along spinning with side which takes it into the pocket. Then, with your ball in hand, and the red and white in front of you to help yourself from, you are in a far better position than you would be if you had made your opponent a present of a double-baulk.

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