Practicing and playing leaves in USCA croquet

Better late than never

Partner (black) for #3, with no deadness. Yellow is in Corner I. You are running a three-ball break, and have just roqueted black at 3-back (blue’s wicket). You have had some trouble just keeping the break together, and have missed all of the usual opportunities for picking up yellow.

Blue, for 3-back, is ball-in-hand on black. Black is for #3. Getting to yellow won’t be easy, yet get to it you must.

Clearly in this case you are not expecting anything fancy in the way of a leave. Ideally you would position yellow, black and blue near #3, and red near Corner I. But that won’t be easy to do unless you pick up yellow before scoring rover. The only reasonable chance to do that will be to rush black toward Corner I after scoring penult. If you do get a good forward rush out of penult, try to rush black near #1. Take off to yellow, then send yellow to #3 while blue goes to red at rover. Score rover, rush red to black, split red toward Corner I and rush black toward #3. If all goes well, you may even get a good standard rover leave.

A more realistic scenario is that you do not get such a good rush after penult, or any useful rush at all. There are several sequences that will get yellow to #3, blue and black toward the east boundary, and red toward the west boundary. First off you have the choice of double-loading rover, or of sending black directly to its final location after penult. In either case you rush red toward Corner I after scoring rover, then pick up yellow.

The last word

Now get practicing.

Copyright notice

Copyright 2001–2008 by Jeff Soo.

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