Practicing Break Building on Messy Layouts

[Csmith]

I don't think I've seen this talked about before. Most people, myself included, tend to practice with all the colours on their spots and the reds in either open positioned or clustered below the pink. Classic break building opportunities. But does anyone work on the scrappy layouts? Set the table up with colours off their spots and maybe some high value colours safe?

I know that I've had some success with practicing break building off the baulk colours since it's great practice for those trickier chances. In my neck of the woods there aren't that many players so any tournament could have me playing a 20 break standard and 100 break standard player back to back. The lower standard players have a talent for making any frame scrappy so I've been thinking it would be a good idea to dedicate some time to creating chances off those layouts. Particularly for handicapped tournaments.

[vmax]

I sometimes practise the line up with the reds from the baulk cushion to the blue, a lot harder as the yellow and green are in the way of a lot of the reds to the corners, and vice versa, so you have to concentrate mainly on the middle pockets for the reds and the brown and blue at the start.
I once made a break of 42 using only the baulk colours after a spell of safety from behind the black pushed most of the reds into baulk, not my highest break but I consider it my best. Potted all those balls but could still lose when I missed with three reds left.

I think that players with a pool background where the balls can be anywhere, are more comfortable with these type of chances than pure snooker players who are used to the red, black, pink layout at the top of the table.

[Csmith]

I think that players with a pool background where the balls can be anywhere, are more comfortable with these type of chances than pure snooker players who are used to the red, black, pink layout at the top of the table.

I think you may be right about that. Pool players tend to be used to evaluating 'messy' tables. I think as snooker players we spend a lot of time practicing variations of being around the black spot and it becomes in some ways routine and we become accustom to just know the correct positional shots to stay on black or pink.

I like the idea of making breaks off the baulk colours. And getting used to going up and down the table is really effective for an awkward start to the break until you can get the pink or black available.

[sharkster63]

I dont know why but I really like to make all the balls in balk and work my way up to the high value colours, I agree that it helps in scrappy frames, I like allot of cut shots that many players will not even look at, I feel confident on them and able to get shape because I play them in practice all the time. I noticed that pro players avoid this and get up to the black as soon as possible. Cheers

[Csmith]

I dont know why but I really like to make all the balls in balk and work my way up to the high value colours, I agree that it helps in scrappy frames, I like allot of cut shots that many players will not even look at, I feel confident on them and able to get shape because I play them in practice all the time. I noticed that pro players avoid this and get up to the black as soon as possible. Cheers

I've seen Alain Robidoux practice a number of times he often starts in the baulk too and works his way up. Though he doesn't clear all the reds first, he tries to get there as quickly as possible as you mention. What you do sounds like good practice since we can sometimes run into matches where there is never a break building opportunity around the black, be it from prolonged safety exchanges or poor breakoffs.

[vmax]

I think you may be right about that. Pool players tend to be used to evaluating 'messy' tables. I think as snooker players we spend a lot of time practicing variations of being around the black spot and it becomes in some ways routine and we become accustom to just know the correct positional shots to stay on black or pink.

I've seen a few tv frames where pro players agree on a re-rack rather than face a layout where most of the reds end up in baulk. Shouldn't be allowed IMO, re-racks are for frames that have reached an impasse rather than something that's out of the norm of the usual scoring opportunity at the top of the table.