FIBS Board backgammon forum

Killing Sixes. 3-away, 3-away. Pipcount Red 72, White 88. White to play 4-1. In one form or another, this belongs to a class of positions where the player is bearing in against an anchor and faces the choice of clearing a point or keeping a block. Red, an advanced player who averages PR10.25, played 6/1, keeping the block but burning his last spare. Note that this leaves blots next turn with 6-5, 6-3, 5-4 and 4-3, beware those stripped points! He doesn’t need the block with this big lead and he does better to play 7/6, 7/3, clearing a point that has to be cleared anyway and creating two spares. This blots next turn with 6-1, 5-4 and 4-3, so a little bit safer but the real bonus is that Red doesn’t have to play the other sixes, slowing him down and pressuring White to break her board and/or run one back checker. This is always a feature of bearing in against a 23pt anchor and often, though not always, means that you should clear the 7pt before the 8pt. The match play is an error costing 0.059ppg.