Play for the win. Always. You never know what will happen in the round after. However, I agree that set rules are not the best way to drive your strategy. For those with a math inclination, let me derive how a statistician would think about this : - choice #1 - pointing. Let's say you have a 90% chance of making the shot in this case. The "expected value" of your shot is 0.9 point (90% x 1 point). What does it mean? It means that in average, you'll score 0.9 points when making this decision. Put it another way : 9 times out of ten, you'll get to play another round, and one time out of ten, you'll loose. - choice #2 - shooting. Let's assume you're an OK shooter, with a 50% chance of hitting, whatever the distance, the pressure, etc... The expected value in this case is 1 point (50% x 2 points). However, you have a 50% chance of loosing If you care about expected value, as 1 > 0.9 (assuming the 90% pointing and 50% shooting success probabilities), you should shoot. If you care about not loosing, as 10% < 50%, you should point. If you care about winning, as 0% (no chance of winning with choice #1) < 50 %, you should shoot. This area is called "decision theory". You have to think carefully about what you think is most important when taking your decision! Of course you can take a lot more things into account (and even mix together the 3 proposed alternatives with their respected weights). I like to think of pétanque strategy as a scientist sometimes 😉

Inspiring youtube video about top tennis players loosing a lot and actively learning not to dwell about it. I wish you to learn to stay in the present 😊

I agree with what has been said : more information would help make a better decision (how difficult is the pitch? What is the distance? and so on...). But in these situations, I think one principle must be your main driver : will you loose if the opponent does not miss? You then have two choices : either put the pressure on them by trying to point twice and wait for a miss; or shoot twice and try not to miss to be in control of your faith and play one more round. My inclination would be to shoot twice, not because I am a shooter, but because I do not like relying on something happening that I do not control (a miss from my opponent in this case).

@Jimmy Skog Correct. Sorry for the misunderstanding

@Jimmy Skog I 100% agree with you. I use it on a regular basis on the court. But believe me, my opponents are not always happy about it!

Hey Kevin! I feel that what's holding me back is that I can manage to shoot quite well while "in rythm", during training. When I am only shooting at a quite rapid pace, I hit most of my shots (or so it feels). It's very different within a game, when I get to play one boule every 5 minutes and shoot most of them (I often play as a shooter, as you may have guessed) but I also have to point quite a lot. In those circumstances, I'm happy when I hit over 60%. I would like to discuss ideas for training drills that would help me improve that gap. Thanks! Xavier