Coaching the AC Half Bisque

Half bisques lend themselves perfectly to a short indoor coaching session in wet weather. Even if players have no half bisques themselves, they may encounter an able player with one. More particularly, players of any ability may well find themselves with half a bisque to spend if playing bisque difference, if playing 18-point AC, or if playing Short Croquet with a 70% bisque allocation to even out the odds.

The basic message is simple. Half bisques work like full bisques, giving an extra turn with the same striker's ball, but with one important restriction: no point may be scored for any ball.

A half bisque comes into its own in three situations. Most powerfully, when setting up a break, if you know you will need to invest two bisques, use the half bisque first. You'll run no hoops while setting up, giving it the power of a full bisque. When you then call for your full bisque, it's a new turn, and any hoops scored will count. Roger Mills's book 'Bisques, Breaks and Beyond' is the go-to guide on how to identify a two-bisque break opportunity (a 2BBO) and what to do next, and can be confidently recommended to developing players.

A half bisque can also tidy up a leave. You'll run no more hoops in that turn; investing a half bisque may mean the difference between an easy hit-in for your opponent and a challenging situation costing them a bisque to retrieve.

And a half bisque can be a useful 'get out of jail' card if your opponent sets up a perfect leave, or if you break down in a situation favourable to your opponent and have no full bisques left to rescue things.

In timed games, half bisques - like full bisques - are cancelled once time is called, so coaches need to guide students to use them while the clock is still ticking. They are reactivated if completing the last two turns brings about a golden hoop finish.

Oddly, the Laws of Association Croquet are silent on how half bisques are represented (usually with a shorter bisque stick, or a full-sized one set into the ground at an angle). They are also silent on how a player indicates for one (normally by raising the arms in a T shape).

The Laws do not allow you to swap a full bisque for two half bisques. But they do hint at a rare but valuable tactic: "No point may be scored for any ball during a half-bisque" (42.1). This means that if, for example, an opponent ball has stuck in the jaws, you can, with a half-bisque, peel the opponent ball through, leaving it on the wrong side of the hoop, with no point being scored - a very satisfying move.

John Harris