FIBS Board backgammon forum

The match score matters here.  I really want to make the 5 point, but leaving the blot on the bar point may lead to a gammon.  But since gammons don't hurt us all that much AtS, I think we can afford to make this play. 

The other option is to hit on the 9 and put a man on the roof with 7 builders in the zone.  Now that I've taken a second look at it I like it better - it leaves half the shots and is nearly as strong, maybe stronger.

I added one option, which was bar/24 11/9*/8, I couldn't see it there.  It had the hit, but didn't leave two blots, I know that gives us less builders, but too many loose checkers with Zorba having a 4 point board didn't appeal to me.

I reckon we're better of making our GP.  The prosaic bar-24, 8-7, 6-5(2) for me.

Quote from: diane on November 21, 2010, 07:25:52 PM
I added one option, which was bar/24 11/9*/8, I couldn't see it there.  It had the hit, but didn't leave two blots, I know that gives us less builders, but too many loose checkers with Zorba having a 4 point board didn't appeal to me.

Thanks.  I missed that one - it should have been in the list.

I don't like making a candlestick on the  8, so I'm not persuaded, but it may well be best.  My take is that we want to block his runners so we need to make another point, and 11/9* 11/10 gives us more options than a stack on the 8.  I think that outweighs the 5 fly shots from the bar.

Now that we've anchored, it seems like our top priority is trapping his blot on our 1 point. While hitting seems right instinctively I don't think it does much to contain him. It could actually hurt us if he simply made a forward anchor in our board with a roll like 4-3.

On the other hand we could make a bold play that has the potential to turn the game around in one roll...Bar - 24, 6 - 5 (2), 8 -7.

By my count he hits us with 14 numbers. If he misses, we have substantial wood to make the bar point and put the game up for grabs. If he rolls an idiot number like 1s, 2s or 4s it gets pretty juicy for us.

At the risk of beating it to death, cuz of the score we can't get hurt too badly, I vote to go for it.

Bob

Quote from: ah_clem on November 21, 2010, 04:24:03 PM


The match score matters here.  I really want to make the 5 point, but leaving the blot on the bar point may lead to a gammon.  But since gammons don't hurt us all that much AtS, I think we can afford to make this play. 

The other option is to hit on the 9 and put a man on the roof with 7 builders in the zone.  Now that I've taken a second look at it I like it better - it leaves half the shots and is nearly as strong, maybe stronger.

And now that I've had nearly a day to think about it, I'm thinking that my original instinct was correct.   The hitting play doesn't make any new points so it leaves us with a swiss-cheese blockade of only three points.  Making the 5 point gives us four out of six points, plus it slots a fifth.  If we can make the bar point next roll we'll have a very strong blockade. 

It's mostly about containment - we need to contain a checker, and a 4.5 point blockade against one checker looks stronger than a 3 point spaced blockade against two checkers. 

An idea of lesser importance is timing  - if we can contain him, we want his board to crunch so we can  extricate our runners.  If we hit and he escapes one of his checkers our timing will be rather poor. 

So I'm changing my vote back to 6/5(2) 8/7.

gnubg 0-ply likes making the five point.  It wins more games and loses about the same number of gammons.  AtS, that's a slam dunk.

Hitting wins more gammons and may be correct for money or at gammon go.  Or if we knew he was going to roll double sixes.  (c:




    1. Rollout          bar/24 8/7 6/5(2)            Eq.:  -0.175
       0.431 0.120 0.015 - 0.569 0.270 0.016 CL  -0.175 CF  -0.175
      [0.002 0.004 0.002 - 0.002 0.003 0.001 CL   0.005 CF   0.005]

    2. Rollout          bar/24 11/9* 11/10           Eq.:  -0.226 ( -0.051)
       0.406 0.149 0.021 - 0.594 0.273 0.019 CL  -0.226 CF  -0.226
      [0.002 0.005 0.003 - 0.002 0.003 0.001 CL   0.005 CF   0.005]

    3. Rollout          bar/24 11/9*/8               Eq.:  -0.287 ( -0.112)
       0.373 0.130 0.014 - 0.627 0.265 0.014 CL  -0.287 CF  -0.287
      [0.002 0.005 0.002 - 0.002 0.003 0.001 CL   0.005 CF   0.005]

    4. Rollout          bar/24 8/7(3)                Eq.:  -0.302 ( -0.127)
       0.365 0.108 0.010 - 0.635 0.250 0.014 CL  -0.302 CF  -0.302
      [0.002 0.004 0.002 - 0.002 0.003 0.001 CL   0.005 CF   0.005]
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