What would a sucker do?

by Paul · November 23, 2012

What Would a Sucker Do?

(Part 4)

You have stripes here. You each only have one ball left and the 8-ball. Your opponents ball, the solid, is sitting in the jaws and is directly blocking your corner pocket shot. What do you do?

1) Bank your stripe in the corner

2) Slowly roll the your ball up in on front of their solid to prevent them from hitting their ball!

3) Replace their ball with yours by softly shooting yours directly into theirs!

Suckers¦

You must assess each situation to come to the best possible answer, which is the one with the highest winning percentage.

Why are these not good ideas?:

1) Bank shots are low percentage and if you miss, your opponent will most surely run out and win.

2) Slow rolling your stripe in front of theirs with accurate speed control is very hard to do and the cost is high if you miss.

3) Softly shooting your ball into theirs will leave your ball in the jaws but you probably won’t get another shot because you will leave them an easy shot on the 8-ball.

Answer: Use draw to put forward spin on your stripe and call it in the corner. This will likely result either one of two positive outcomes:

A: If you pocket your stripe, you can now shoot the 8-ball to win the game.

B: If your ball does not follow it in and instead, stays in the jaws, you have now blocked their pocket with your stripe because you used a draw speed to set your 8-ball shot in that same corner.