Could someone who unlike me generally completes his (or her) triples help, please.

Standard TP, but in running H3 you knock the peelee into an unpeelable (or even jawsable) position, although still very close to it. Nudging the peelee to perfect position, you take off to the escape ball and rush that down to good position near the H4 pioneer. Seems to me you have three options as to how to proceed:

1. After H4, rush back to H3, put the escape ball into position for the 4B peel going to 6, then take off back from the peelee to H5. This has the advantage of a good peelee and putting the escape ball into place from close range, but the disadvantage of a longish (c.18yd) take-off.
2. As above, but after putting the escape ball into place rush the peelee south of H5 and stop shot it back. This has the advantage of putting the escape ball in place from close range and ensuring a good rush on the H5 pioneer, but the disadvantage that you're putting the peelee in place from a long way away (c.22 yds). For players like me there is also the very real risk of mishitting the rush to somewhere disastrous (say midway between H3 and H4.)
3. After H4 just rush to south of H5 and stop shot the escape ball into position (say 3 yds west and a yard north of 4B). This has the advantage of a good peelee and a good rush on the H5 pioneer, but you're putting the escape ball in place place from a long way away.

I think I prefer 1, but interested to hear from others.

Firstly you should be careful about where you leave the peelee. If you can't leave it in rush-peelable position (basically 1 inch straight in front) then you shouldn't have it too close to the hoop. You have either one rush or possibly two rushes and a croquet stroke on it before you attempt to peel it, and if it's too close to the hoop then your rush will probably knock it to an unpeelable position.

1. This is the usual play, but as you point out the take-off is a potential way to break down, or lose control. You should only do this when the hoop 5 pioneer is good enough, and the lawn conditions are such that you are confident of retaining control. Remember you probably want a rush out of the hoop too.
2. The exact position of the peelee isn't critical, as you still have a rush on it. If you don't have a good rush southwards, you can always default to option 1. If you do rush badly, you are unlikely to be able to do the peel, but with some reasonable strokes should be able to pick the four ball break back up by 1b, so probably won't break down.
3. This is the safest option, in that you give yourself the best chance of making hoop 5 under control. If the hoop 5 pioneer is bad, or the lawn is tricky, this is often the best option. If the escape ball goes to a bad position you may not be able to have a go at the peel, but with two balls in the vicinity of 4b you should be able to get a rush to 6 and continue the break. You might try 2 yards W and 1 yard S of 4b as an easier position for the escape ball. It allows you to peel with a straight shot, and hold for a straight (but perhaps 2-yard) rush to 6.

Fools rush in … I don't fit your category of generally complete peeling breaks but I can observe that 3 looks the least good. The position of the escape ball is more critical than that of the peelee because you get to roquet the peelee (and therefore tidy it up) before the peel attempt.

I would nearly always do 3 provided that I was able to get peelee south of and straightish in front of 4-back after 3. When this has not been possible (or as is more likely after a disatrous previous peel attempt) I would do 1 or 2 (usually 1 but in more difficult conditions or with a poor hoop 5 pioneer I would do 2).

Getting a rush out of 5 is more important than the position of either of the balls near 4-back in my opinion (provided the hoop 6 pioneer is far enough north).

It probably is not the method most likely to lead to completion of the TP but it probably is most likely to ensure that you get at least as far as one back with the strikers ball that turn.

I'm afraid this gets the usual "it depends" answer. In this case, it depends on where you can get peelee, and where the hoop 5 pioneer ends up.

#1 is probably standard, but does depend on you giving yourself a good pioneer for 5 when approaching your hoop 4 pioneer.

If your hoop 5 pioneer is bad, you may be better off (after 4) choosing #3 in order to be more confident of making hoop 5 and more importantly getting a forward rush afterwards. This of course relies on you getting peelee somewhere sensible immediately after 3.

If both you hoop 5 pioneer and peelee are dodgy, then #2 is your best bet.

If you need to tidy up your peelee, but hoop 5 pioneer is good, you have option #4 which is to rush back after 4, place the escape ball into position, rush peelee into position and take off to hoop 5.

In general, I like #3, but then I don't like take-offs. I think #1 is probably more common.

I think that you will get a wide range of responses here. Additionally, I don't believe that any of them will be wrong. In some ways, this question comes down to what strokes you are good at.

I generally opt for Option 3 because I am good at croquet strokes, but hate long take-offs followed by a potential 3 yarder. This option gives you the safest option for continuing the break. I will try and position my hoop 5 pioneer 2 feet SSE of hoop 5.

However, when I am playing on a very easy lawn (flat, evenly paced with average hoops), I sometimes change to Option 1. This is because, I believe the chance of breaking down isn't really much bigger in easy conditions but this option increases the ease of getting the 4-b peel. If I decide to do this, I will try and position my hoop 5 pioneer 2 feet E of hoop 5.

Option 2 is also justifiable. Imagine that you have decided to play option 1, but have sent your hoop 5 pioneer 2 yards SSW of hoop 5. Rather than risk the long take-off with a hoop in the way, you can still rush partner south and stop it back again, obtaining a rush on your poor pioneer.

Wylie discusses this briefly (under the heading 4b peel before 5) and concludes "For a few players this does not put the break at risk. Do not try this peel unless you are one of them."

I know I'm not one of them.

I would normally put it (or at least try to put it!) 3-4 ft south of the hoop and perhaps a little east, aiming to go straight there after 4, in order to make the forward rush to SE of 4-back aa easy as possible.

The alternative line of play is to rush back after 4, and rush peel before taking off to your hoop 5 pioneer. In this case you want the pioneer at hoop 5 more East than South to maximise your landing area for the take-off. (Some prefer a roll putting peelee perhaps 4-d yards SW of penult after the rush peel, in which case the hoop 4 pioneer doesn't matter so much since you don't need a forward rush, but the same spot works fairly well.)

Samir's reply is accurate. The reasons are very similar to the earlier postings and depend upon the strengths in your game. In general, keeping the break going by not returning after hoop 4 is considered safer.

There is sometimes a slight reversal to my previous logic. Sometimes the lawn can be so difficult that playing to get rushes out of hoops is difficult and keeping all the balls as much in play as possible is helpful. For example, in the third game of my worlds semi this year, I opted to TPO and jawsed the peel after 3. I took the decision to go back after 4, rush peel off the North boundary and pass roll back down the lawn. I avoided disaster by about 1cm, but felt that in that slightly unusual circumstance it was worth the risk.

However, as a rule of thumb, ignore peelee until after 5 and put your hoop 5 pioneer 2-3 feet SSE.

In my first three triples in the Tankard, the peel after 3 failed to go through (the hoops were very firm, pull seemed unpredictable). Each time I adopted the standard "Wylie" procedure. That is, after hoop 5 you rush somewhere S of 4-back, and send the CB near the middle of the north boundary. You rush peel, roll the peelee somewhere north of 6 (you're unlucky if it goes into peeling position), and make the hoop sending the CB slightly W of hoop six. Run hoop 6 to north boundary, send CB to 2-back, getting a rush on peelee into peeling position, peel it getting a dolly rush to 1-back. Then proceed as standard. It worked three out of three.

I've been doing this for years. No-one else I see ever seems to try it, but I often see people breaking down, or failing to peel, trying other things. A fellow Bristol member, having watched me do it against him (I approached 6 badly from nowhere, so the tactics couldn't be faulted) promptly got the same position, rushed down after 4, took off three yards short, missed the hoop 5 pioneer, and lost the game. At least he couldn't use the excuse, popular with mindless bonkers, that "nothing can possibly go wrong with the take off". Is it part of your A class coaching course, Chris?

So, Chris is quite right. Ignore peelee until after 5. If you're using a ball in or near corner 4 as your hoop 4 pioneer, you may not have much choice. However, when he says "put your hoop 5 pioneer 2-3 feet SSE", I think many people will think he's being a little over-optimistic about the achievable amount of accuracy. 1-2 yards would be quite good.

I had a sequence of three of these earlier this year, which involved putting the ball into peeling position twice, and then putting it into the jaws of penult...

I should point out two things about this line of play.

Firstly, if you have jawsed the peel after 3 and are intending to do this, put the hoop 6 pioneer somewhere sensible. I aim for a spot 1 yard ENE of 6 so that I am rolling up the rush line from behind 4-b.

Secondly, when rolling over from behind 4-b, be mindful of which side of the line between 6 and 2-b the deep ball is. Try (even if you don't succeed...) to put the peelee on the same side as the escape ball, so that you are playing the croquet stroke to 2-b getting the rush to peeling position with less split.

In which case you can't trust the peel before 4-back, which involves a similar rush.

But your "rush to come" is from the line of hoop 6 on a ball which is off the line of hoop 6. Unless the peelee is VERY close to the hoop line, and you manage to run beyond it by EXACTLY the right amount, your rush will only move it further off the hoop line, i.e. to a position where it can't be peeled. The advantage of the Wylie method is that you get a croquet shot which allows you to get a rush into peeling position.

If you are not rushing well, or if your psychological state does not warrant introducing a "difficult" shot into the break should you be trying triples at all?

Many thanks to those who replied to my question - an unusual amount of consensus. I am confident that next time I will find a different way to balls up the triple.

On what to do if the 4-back peel jawses, I was taught (possibly by Chris in his Bowdon coaching course) not to go back and rush peel after H4, but I noticed at least two players doing it at the Pres (one was Jonathan - can't remember who the other one was). I suppose a corollary of needing to do it on very tricky lawns could be that on trivial lawns there is little extra risk in doing it. One problem I have found in doing the 4-back rush peel after H4 is that on some lawns the peelee may curl a little to the east. Especially if the H5 pioneer is eastwards, this can put 4-back in the way of the take-off back to the H5 pioneer.

The gain of going back after 4 is that you get peelee 4 yards north of 4b rather than in the jaws. The risk is that you may break down on your 25 yard take-off to 5, or get a worse rush out of 5 as a result. In easy conditions, I think going back gives me a slightly better chance of peeling penult after 6 rather than before 1b (or at least of peeling before 1b) and that is worth the slight risk of loosing control or breaking down. For most players, in most conditions, this gain is probably pretty marginal.

I have probably done the Wylie peel (penult before 1b) about 15 times this season, so Martin you are not alone, although some of those will have been after peeling 4b before 6.

Hopefully the various responses will have shown that there is no 'right' answer. There is an element of seeing exactly what has happened to your attempted peel after hoop 3 and exactly where your rush south is pointing (and again after seeing where the rush as gone, and again after seeing where your hoop 5 pioneer is, and again after seeing where you rush after 4 is pointing) and then deciding which method feels most likely to work. It is unlikely that the decision you make will be wrong in an absolute sense. (It might not work, but that's another matter!)

More experience will give you more ideas of what can go wrong with each method (and which method uses shots you are good at) and therefore allow a better decision to be made. The biggest risk of the rush peel is it either not going through (making the take off to hoop 5 impossible) or not going through very much (in which case you may have the take-off problem you suggest). If you can be sure of the peel going through by 2-3 yards, there should be no problem. (If the peel goes through to the boundary, you have a different problem.) If you're not sure of the rush peel, don't go anywhere near it after 4!