Game 1 Move 10 Zorba to take or pass

[ah_clem]

The Herd offers a cube.  Take or pass?

[Zorba]

Hmm... 

Another tough decision for me. Looking at my backcheckers and the Herd's opposing formation, this has all the signs of a (big) pass. Not only does the Herd have a strong prime, there's also good blitz potential. Many losses will come in the form of a gammon loss, it seems.

But, there's more to this position: the Herd also has three backcheckers of their own to escape. I only have a 4-prime, but it's still a pretty strong blockade. And if the Herd runs from the anchor, I have some blitzing chances myself, some of which may lead to a gammon win.

Then there's the timing aspect: the Herd doesn't have much time to get the backmen moving; in like three rolls, the front position may be about to crunch. Blitzing worsens the Herd's timing but increases gammon wins; running the backmen improves timing but may give me time to consolidate.

There's pretty strong duplication to consider: fives and sixes escape a backman and could be good blitzing rolls too.

Since it's not immediately clear to me how these two counterforces work out among various rolls, I decided to go over the Herd's 21 possible rolls quickly (apologies for the crypto style!):

11: no esc but gammonish blitz ok timing
21: step up and safety
31: hit loose, mixed bag
41: hit loose twice: gammonish, reas. timing
51: ditto
61: ditto
22: gamm ok timing
32: step up+spare on 5
42: ditto on 4
52: ditto on 3
62: step up+loose hit
33: point on 1: gammonish, suspect timing
43: hit loose, spare on 5
53: hmmm?
63: hit outfield
44: terrible timing but some gammons
54: good either way
64: full prime
55: yeehaw
65: bad timing but gammonish
66: almost yeehaw

Well, after this exercise, it has become clearer to me: whereas the Herd may get some timing problems escaping the backmen, this gets compensated for by a lot of gammon wins when things (just) work out. There are few bad rolls for the Herd.

If I don't get into trouble immediately after the Herd's next roll, I still have a lot of trouble escaping my backmen usually, and I suffer the same problem in timing when I start to attack upfront; in fact my timing is usually worse as I have a 5-prime to jump twice most of the time. When I crack my barpoint upfront, the Herd's escape becomes so much easier. Another thing pointing towards a pass is that even if the Herd blitzes me and has to crack its board, unable to escape the backmen in time, it's not like I win the game immediately: I could dance; the Herd may still have the 22pt anchor; I could get hit with a fly shot or even later in the bear off.

Bottom line: I think I got some decent winning chances, but it's not enough to compensate for all the gammon losses. PASS.