Is there any advantage or dissadvantage...

BrianJD

......to breaking in snooker. You wouldn't imagine there is but I wonder is there any difference in the stats in the frame winners.

F1ngers

I would imagine there is, if you can put the white on the baulk or behind any of the baulk colours - you're off to a good start.

Most pros should be able to do this.

Get it wrong and you're in a world of pain.

BrianJD

F1ngers wrote: »

I would imagine there is, if you can put the white on the baulk or behind any of the baulk colours - you're off to a good start.

Most pros should be able to do this.

Get it wrong and you're in a world of pain.

It's very rare to get a snooker from a break yet sometimes there is a shot to nothing on for the opponent after the break. I would imagine that would give possibly give a slight increase to the (non Breakees) getting on a break first (or messing up first)

celticfc

Well down in the club it is still an advantage for sure, but on the faster TV tourney tables it may even be a slight disadvantage.

Everytime the break-off is played it seems, the reds split wide and unless you get the white tight on the cussion or are lucky enough to cover balls you are always leaving some sort of oppertunity.

The reason I say you're lucky when you block them off the break-off shot is because you can't really know exactly where the reds are going. The real skill in it now is finding that baulk cussion.

Ronnie and John probably demonstrate this best....

Ronnie has struggled with is break-off shot a lot over the years. More recently seems to tend to play most break off shots left handed because he gets much more side on the cueball to get on the cussion.

John plays most breaks from the green (other) side of the table as opposed to most players. I reckon he thinks that if there's a pot left on that players will have had more practice playing long pots from the conventional side rather than putting them somewhere behind the yellow.

That's the way I read it anyway.

Bruthal

Its probably 50/50 overall. It would be interesting to see what the stats are for professional matches. It certainly would not have the advantage of a first throw in darts i dont think.

I dont think the player either breaking off or his opponent would feel any major advantage/disadvantage in a final frame decider. At the top level, even if a player is snookered from the break off, they usually have an easy time of it rolling up to the side of the pack off one cushion.

Being left tight on the baulk cushion is more tricky, but that does not happen on every break off.

userod

BrianJD wrote: »

It's very rare to get a snooker from a break yet sometimes there is a shot to nothing on for the opponent after the break. I would imagine that would give possibly give a slight increase to the (non Breakees) getting on a break first (or messing up first)

I was only thinking of this earlier. If players could just work on this could they not practice hours and hours, days and days, months and months of trying to achieve a high snooker percentage from the break? It would be an incredible advantage to their game. You'd think it would be doable but surely not seeing that it's incidence is so low. Must be the triangle format or the 'cluster effect' of the balls that they can't come off the balls so accurately.

Bruthal

userod wrote: »

I was only thinking of this earlier. If players could just work on this could they not practice hours and hours, days and days, months and months of trying to achieve a high snooker percentage from the break? It would be an incredible advantage to their game. You'd think it would be doable but surely not seeing that it's incidence is so low. Must be the triangle format or the 'cluster effect' of the balls that they can't come off the balls so accurately.

To get the snooker from the break requires to end up very close to or tight behind yellow green or brown, and if the snooker does not happen then there maybe a high percentage starter shot on. And even if the snooker does happen, its an easy shot for these players to come off one cushion and nestle into the side of the pack.

To get the white tight on the baulk cushion is a higher percentage shot. And would leave a more difficult shot than the snooker would. Because no player wants to just run up to the side of the pack unless they have to.

No amount of practice could enable a player to stop right behind a specific baulk colour from the break off in a good enough percentage of shots to intentionally do it from the break off, and running the white off 3, or more likely 4 cushions.

zack01

Hendry at his peak preyed on a poor break where if the cue ball didn't finish up behind a baulk colour he would almost certainly knock in one of the loose reds from the pack and proceed to clear up, countless times he did that mostly in final frame deciders.