Quote from: socksey on November 20, 2009, 07:56:37 PM
I want to get the most hits possible and save our prime by playing 20/15*/12*. Unless he rolls a double 2, we will most likely pick up another one or 2 pips and still have plenty of room to cover our 2 pt. Kill, kill kill is what I like. :laugh:
Socksey,
Kill kill kill is great for money play or when gammons count. But gammons don't count here and frankly his best game winning strategy is to make a second point in our home board. He can't do that with only 3 men back, it takes 4. I wouldn't send the fourth man back here.
Dorbel,
ack. Now I'm completely confused. I first wrote an argument why eschewing the hit and breaking the prime is the right thing to do, then decided that sage players wouldn't give up the prime at this stage of the game. In fact, I anticipated your next post telling me how wrong it is to abandon the prime. But instead of telling me that I was wrong, you're telling me that I was right but that I was wrong to anticipate you telling me that I was wrong. My head hurts.
Let's look at it again:
With 8/3 8/5, unless he rolls a 6 or big doubles, he'll likely leave the blots sitting there for us. We might get a second play off the eight and be able to sit tight on our anchor, or we might be able to miss his blots with a 4 or a 6. 5s are bad for us, most doubles are bad for us, but there are lots of playable numbers. If we can manage to not hit him, we should be able to waltz home while his board crunches. The 6-1 joker is a factor here, but even if he does roll the joker, we'll probably enter and likely send another checker back in the process. Even if we don't send a second checker back, he still has a checker stuck behind a blockade so he really needs two 6-1s to get away.
OTOH, hitting one checker and playing one off the 8 allows him to sit on the bar and wait for a shot while his board (such as it is) stays intact. He retains the ace point, and his timing will be good - as a general rule, a well timed ace point game gives about 25% chance of winning. And if he can hit us, he might force us to send a second checker back. Then we're into a complicated backgame. ugh.
So, it seems like there's more to go wrong with the hitting play than the prime-breaking play. I'm reluctantly going to withdraw my previous withdrawal and go back to
8/3 8/5