Friday, July 10, 2009

Being "Greedy" or Playing it Safe

Many times there are situations where a team is sitting on a bunch of points and the captain must weigh in whether or not a boule should be played for further points; or should be simply dropped to avoid the risk of losing everything. These examples are exaggerated (perhaps) but offer up some possible scenarios where the pros and cons should be taken into consideration before a boule is played. Of course the score (and how close one team or the other is to 13) as well as the types of players left with boules to play should all be accounted for in the decision.


Example-1 may offer a third point for the team, but if that cochonnet is pushed by an aggressive pointing, it may kick back to a nest of the opponent's boules. Example-2 looks ripe for a shooting to regain the point, but if your own boule is shot (by mistake of course) then your opposition stands to win tons of points. If you have an expert shooter you may want to take this chance, or... I'd suggest pointing up against the opposition, pushing that boule away but not so hard that your played boule won't still cut the enemy boules if it hits your own 2nd closest boule. Example-3 occurs all of the time: That pesky front boule from the opposition sitting there waiting to be pushed closest. If you already have a number of points, why risk losing them all by pushing the opposition closest? Your opponents may call you "chicken" but I feel points in hand are better than points for them!


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