An interesting question of tactics from a recent game:

The Yellow clip was on the peg, Red on rover, Black and Blue both on penultimate. Red had broken down trying to make rover. With all four balls present, Black roqueted and made his last two hoops.

Should Black now peg out Yellow or not?

And how should Black leave the balls?

What difference would it make it Red were for the peg or penultimate or 4-back instead of rover?

I would (almost) never peg out an opponent whose back ball is on rover. Whether you peg it out or not, oppo is going to have to hit in and soon to win. If you peg him out a hit in will almost inevitably win him the game immediately. With 4 balls on the lawn he may not necessarily be able to get the peg out and you may get another shot.

I would try to leave the peg ball near penult on a line between penult and Peg. lay up on North Boundary wired from peg ball. With 4th ball near corner 1. Obviously only if I had sufficient control to get the wiring well. if not, just go for separating oppo as widely as possible. C1 and middle East boundary say, and lay up near C2 with a rush to Penult (ensuring no double from East boundary ball).

I agree with your no-peg-out argument but I think you can do better with a proper corner hoop cross-wire which should not be difficult to engineer given four balls round rover.

Depending on the court conditions, I favour cross-wiring across 1 or 4 with a rush to penult from C3 or C2 respectively (showing only one ball). You increase the shot left for the oppo by 50%.

You will probably reckon I am being pessimistic here but my reasoning was as follows:

1. The Cross -wire (although it should be doable as you say) is putting all your eggs in one basket. If you leave it open by even an inch it is probably game over.
2. The increase on the shot length is about 33% by my reckoning rather than 50%
3. You might put some doubt in his mind about whether to play with the peg ball. I think he should still shoot with the rover ball but doubt is good.
4. The finish is easier since you either have a penult pioneer or oppo joined in C1. Again I know that the 2-ball finish from a rush out of C2 is not difficult and should be do-able but sometimes forward rushes go wrong.

As with everything, its a trade off. I am willing to reduce the shot length to 25 yds rather than about 33yds for the less risky leave and the trivial finish. But it would be a dull world where everyone did things the same.

I agree with Robin and Stephen that not pegging out yellow is best.

But suppose you do peg out yellow. It is easy enough to make a good leave: red near corner II, laid up guarding corner IV with a rush to penult. Red has a 40 yard shot, and has a ten yard rush to his hoop to win if he hits. If he misses, you still have a long rush to penult with oppo a few yards from rover, and may not finish. (You could lay up in II with red in IV instead — it's a bit harder to make rover for both players but easier for you to make pennult.)

If you have control of the leave, you want to have yellow left on the lawn to make your own finish easier, and preferably hoop-bound in a way which makes it difficult for red to finish if he hits, so you get another shot.

I don't like Stephen's option over pegging out a ball, because it doesn't make your finish much easier nor the opponent's finish harder, but does reduce their shot length by 8 yards.

How about …

1. Finish from penult and penult.
2. Don't touch the ball for rover, peg out oppo and leave a wired rush to penult.
3. Peg out oppo leaving your peg ball an inch in front of 2 or 3, with partner having a 5 yarder towards penult, with oppo near the opposite corner.

I believe that the answer to this depends on the relative playing strengths of the two players.

At a high handicap level, I think that the peg-out is very strong given the likelihood that the player with the innings is likely to fail a hoop.

At the mid handicap level, I think leaving all the balls on the lawn gives you a good chance of finishing next turn and the likelihood of another shot if they hit in since they will probably struggle to get a rush on partner to the peg after rover.

The question is more interesting at an elite level.

Sometimes the red will fail rover to just off the wire in an unrunnable position. In this case, I think an elite player needs to consider jumping through rover and pegging yellow out, leaving a rush to penult wired from red so that red has no shot.

In other cases this may not be possible. There is a line of play that is difficult for even the elite player, but again worth considering. If you can leave red near corner 1, peg yellow out and then rush near to hoop 3, you may be able to position your peg ball just north-east of hoop 3 so that it won't rush to rover and leave yourself a longish rush to penult that still guards the shot. This also works in the mirror image position, corner 4 and behind hoop 2.
I believe that the above option is probably best, but you should also have a fall-back option if things start going wrong. I like a 4 yard wide join on the north boundary, possibly even with the "rush" pointing towards the corner. This gives you 3 scenarios:

1. Oppos shoots and misses in which case, if you are elite, you should finish anyway.
   
2. Oppo shoots and hits in which case, they may not get a great rush with their 4 yard take-off and then have a 23 yard rush afterwards.
   
3. Oppo is persuaded into not shooting in which case you should be able to rush to and obtain a wired position somewhere.

In any case, you will have left them a 37+ yard shot.

My thanks to those who have offered the many interesting and useful suggestions.

I suppose that in one way it is good to have so many options to choose from, but there remains the problem of which method should be taught to which players. (Note that I am interested in the question mainly from a coaching viewpoint.)

One thing puzzled me a little:

If you are going to peg out the yellow ball, you are apparently backing yourself to make the last two hoops and peg out in one turn using only your own two balls. It seems you would need to be confident of doing this at least 5 times out of 10, because one option (not necessarily the best) for the opponent would be to simply hit his red ball to (say) the middle of the east border and wait for you to make your last two hoops. If you fail to do so, he will have at least one, and possibly two, chances to roquet with your balls in the middle of the lawn.

So it seems that if you do not have great confidence in your ability to finish with just the two balls, and will need a third ball to be confident of finishing in one turn, then you should keep both opponent balls in play.

And in that case I would have expected people to suggest things like:

1. wire the opponent's balls at rover and give yourself a rush to penultimate in the 2nd or 3rd corner; or
2. wire the opponent's balls at the peg and give yourself a rush to them in any corner; or
3. wire the opponent's balls at penultimate and set your rush in the 1st or 4th corner; or
4. place the opponent's rover ball behind rover, his peg ball wired from it in front of penultimate, and set your balls in the 1st or 4th corner (or 2nd or 3rd corner?).

It seems to me to make less sense to set a longer roquet for the opponent, or leave your own balls in a position where he will find it difficult to use them, if it will also make it more difficult for you to use them yourself and so increase the chance of having to give him more than one chance to roquet. In other words, the sophisticated leaves with one of your balls open and the other unrushable to rover seem to make sense only if you are an elite player and have pegged out the yellow ball; but most respondents seemed to be saying that pegging out yellow was not a good idea.

Rob's solution was indeed attractive, but would you teach players below the elite level to ignore the opponent's ball for rover? I suppose it depends where the balls are.

From a coaching viewpoint, I'm surprised that you would consider presenting a "right answer" to a problem like this. I would have thought your aim was to teach students to assess the risks and opportunities in a position and then make their own decision.

As Chris said, this question depends a lot on the skill level of the opponent, but also on your skill level. I think a lot of what has been said, while totally accurate, probably isn't suitable to be taught to high or middle handicap players. But that also applies to your suggestions, John. I would not want to suggest to an 8 handicap any solution that involved a cross-wire. (May be worth mentioning that it exists, but that's all.) It's far too likely to go wrong, and could be catastrophic if it does.

As to when to peg out a ball, making the last two hoops and pegging out, off just two balls, is not too testing for most good players — you definitely don't have to be elite. It's harder if your rush to penult is from C1 or C4, but if you set it from fairly close, (say) the middle of the north boundary, then it really is not too difficult. I find my unsuccessful triple peels often end with me rover and penult, with a rush to penult from the west boundary, penult high. I'm confident of finishing from that. This is particularly the case as rover and penult are close enough together that a poor rush out of penult is often rescuable by a cut to about peg-high and then a big scoop to rover.

To put it another way, I would say that if you aren't confident of finishing with a two-ball, two-hoop break, you definitely shouldn't be attempting cross wires (or worse still, cross pegs).

For me the reason for leaving all the balls on the lawn is not that you need them to help you but the fact that if they are both on the boundary it is very likely that your opponent, even if he hits, won't be able to peg out and so you'll get another shot. I would almost never peg out oppo if his backward ball is for penult or rover, and probably not for 4-back. The only time it seems to me to be worth doing is Rob's suggestion of not touching oppo's other ball and leaving it completely wired, which is brilliant if you can make it work. I don't think you need to be elite to do this, but again, I wouldn't teach it to a middle-bisquer.

Such is the problem with such a tactically rich sport!

It is likely that there will be no "right" answer, but a range of options. Which is correct in this circumstance will depend on

1. exactly where the balls were,
2. the standard of your opponent,
3. your standard of play, and
4. actual and assessed confidence of the players.

Strictly, even if you don't think you can finish, you need your opponent to think that you will finish in one turn. If so, they should (will?) shoot, amd you'll have a three-ball break.

Likewise, if you are an elite player and find yourself with a rush north instead of south after penult, you should still be able to leave a wired dolly rush to rover. If you are the single ball player you will find yourself asking "do I want to take my 37+ yarder for a non-guaranteed finish or dare I risk not getting another hittable shot?"