Thursday, May 24, 2012

Sometimes it is best not to Point your Boule too Close

Two doublettes today at lunch time.  Pat and Abu had a close victory in the shady portion of Cadillac Square Park, while Alpha and I took two wins in the Sun.  Deric had a particularly good pair of shots today which resulted in four points that round. 

I would like to bring up a "strategy" in pointing that may result in your opponent using their shooting boules for pointing.  When you're confronted with an opposing team that has a strong shooter, you can trick them into expending more boules trying to win the point by not placing your boule obscenely close that it is a mandatory shot. 

By placing your boule about a foot and a half away from the cochonnet, you leave just enough hope in the opposition that they'll try to point rather than shoot - and in so doing, they'll use up more boules trying to win back the point.  They might in fact get the point, but I've seen plenty of times a bunch of boules used to get the point, and sometimes it still not won.  When the opposition has used up 3 boules - their shooter is forced into pointing (more for defense than anything) and so you've tricked them into sacrificing their shooter for the hope of beating that 1.5 footer.

Of course it all really depends upon how you size up the other team's players.  If their pointers can make easily to within 4 inches of the cochonnet, and you lack a shooter - you might want to shy away from this method.

No comments: