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We can hit one of his homeboard points by entering on the 2, or we can make our golden point by entering on the 5.  Which is strategically more important?

Making the GP seems to lead to a backgame, and a poor one - the 5 and 1 (20 & 24) make a poor backgame structure.  Since I suck at backgames, and know enough about them to see this as a poor one, I'll avoid that.

Of course, if we play bar/20 6/4*, we're not really playing for a backgame.  So maybe that's a good move - owning the GP provides cover for aggressive hits like this.

Entering on the two puts us back in the race, and if we play the 5 as 13/8 we have a spare in range to hit or make another homeboard point.  I like that better. 

No, I don't have any real confidence that it's better than the other play. 

I think Clem has talked himself out of the best play here. I prefer bar/20, 6/4*. This isn't really "going for a backgame", rather steering towards a long and difficult positional struggle. The play makes a great point, unstacks the 6pt and puts a man on the bar, quite a lot of action for one roll. If Red can hit back from the bar it doesn't matter much, as we have the best anchor and he has a blot inboard. If he can't hit back, we have a good point slotted.
The 20pt is such a great point to have, commanding the opponent's outfield and insuring us against gammonish doubles. We aren't likely to be playing a backgame with it unless we have several more checkers hit. As Clem points out, 20 and 24 is pretty useless, because those points dont combine to create problem rolls for Red. What we will hope to do is use the 20pt as a recycling point to send back men out into the game. Note that Red already has three checkers quite deep in his board and will probably want to cover his 2pt soon as well. This will leave him with only 11 checkers to play with as the game goes on, always difficult while we have 15. Note that hitting the 23pt blot recirculates that checker and excuses Red the task of covering it, effectively bringing him back to 13 playable checkers and a made 3pt, which is a lot better.

Quote from: dorbel on January 21, 2010, 10:17:47 AM
I prefer bar/20, 6/4*. This isn't really "going for a backgame", rather steering towards a long and difficult positional struggle.

Well, I suck at long and difficult positional struggles too.  (c:

Your play is certainly sound - how wrong can it be to make the opponent's 5 point?  And the point about his blot being a real liability is well taken - if he covers it, he's burried 25% of his soldiers before the battle begins.

It's rather ironic that a move or two ago I was advocating slotting the 20 while you were questioning the utility of doing so.  Now that we have a chance to make that point I'm the one arguing against it.  My reasoning is that with checkers on the 23 and 24 (and possibly a checker on the bar) we'll probably make that point soon anyway so let's whack a checker out of his home board while we have the chance.  On the other hand, the checker on the 20 is utg so it may not be there in a move or two. On the other other hand, with half a roll being used to enter, he probably won't hit loose it, so only doubles whack the slotted GP checker.

So, the question is: make the 5 point now or insert a tempo move and try to make it in a move or two.  As I said above, making it now is sound, and it looks like the forum is headed in that direction.  I'll give the vote another couple of hours and if the polling hasn't changed much I'll move it along.

Making the golden point is clearly favored.  Once that is done, hitting the blot on the 4 is clear.

Entering and hitting with the two is a triple whopper.  Oops.




   1. Rollout          bar/20 6/4*            Eq.:  xxx
     
   2. Rollout          bar/20 7/5             Eq.:  ( -0.147)
     
   3. Rollout          bar/20 13/11           Eq.:  ( -0.173)
   
   4. Rollout          bar/23* 13/8           Eq.:  ( -0.297)
     
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