Sometimes there simply is no perfect answer. It’s a gamble, but that’s what makes these rotational games sometimes more interesting than 8-ball. A perfectly broken rack with a bunch of balls in but no view on the 1 is statistically terrible for the breaker. With amateurs, you can study their strengths and weaknesses in prior games, but I feel like with pros, all you can do is leave them a moderately tough position with no safety option and very difficult positioning. Or you can tie up some other balls and make their runout difficult.

On a side note, I feel like this is why Joshua Filler will go down in history as one of the all-time greats. A good example is the recent final of the US Open. During a crucial game, he decided that that letting his opponent back to the table was gonna put him at similar odds as giving them ball in hand, and just banged the ball as hard as he could. Yes, he got lucky, but he literally PLAYED the luck shot. That is a legendary amount of foresight under that much pressure.