Game 3, move 9: Herd to move 6-2

[diane]

There are many permutations here, I picked the top contenders to choose from...

3DaDDQDNWSvAAA:UQm5AAAAGAAA

[stiefnu]

[spoiler]Seems to me we should use our 6 to make another home board point with 7/1.  What then to do with the 2?  I vote for 8/6, to give us maximum flexibility from our spare outfield points.  8/6, 7/1[/spoiler]

[ah_clem]

[spoiler]
Running with 18/10 exposes us to a triple shot against a four point board. Nah.

That means we're going to wait out the holding game, so let's try to conserve sixes so that we can avoid the forced break for as long as possible. 9/1 seems to do the conservation as well as any other, and it makes a homeboard point too.  10/8 7/1 also works, and I could easily be persuaded to do that instead.

What we don't want to do is move two checkers into the homeboard.  Save those sixes!

[/spoiler]

[ah_clem]

Voting closed two hours ago, and we have a result, so here's a rollout

[spoiler]
According to gnu 0-ply, the Herd picked the best move.  The runner-up (9/1) is very close, almost within the margin of error. 

Actually, it's hard to go too far wrong here no matter you do as long as you don't play off the 18 (analysis gives a .7 error) or touch any of the homeboard checkers.


    1. Rollout          8/6 7/1                      Eq.:  -0.021
       0.503 0.044 0.000 - 0.497 0.020 0.000 CL  -0.021 CF  -0.021
      [0.001 0.003 0.003 - 0.001 0.001 0.000 CL   0.003 CF   0.003]

    2. Rollout          9/1                          Eq.:  -0.032 ( -0.011)
       0.499 0.039 0.000 - 0.501 0.021 0.001 CL  -0.032 CF  -0.032
      [0.001 0.003 0.000 - 0.001 0.001 0.000 CL   0.003 CF   0.003]

    3. Rollout          10/8 7/1                     Eq.:  -0.033 ( -0.012)
       0.503 0.046 0.001 - 0.497 0.027 0.001 CL  -0.033 CF  -0.033
      [0.001 0.003 0.001 - 0.001 0.001 0.000 CL   0.003 CF   0.003]

    4. Rollout          9/3 8/6                      Eq.:  -0.035 ( -0.014)
       0.498 0.042 0.002 - 0.502 0.022 0.001 CL  -0.035 CF  -0.035
      [0.001 0.003 0.001 - 0.001 0.001 0.000 CL   0.003 CF   0.003]

    5. Rollout          10/4 8/6                     Eq.:  -0.037 ( -0.016)
       0.497 0.037 0.000 - 0.503 0.022 0.001 CL  -0.037 CF  -0.037
      [0.001 0.003 0.000 - 0.001 0.001 0.001 CL   0.003 CF   0.003]

    6. Rollout          10/8 9/3                     Eq.:  -0.042 ( -0.021)
       0.495 0.032 0.001 - 0.505 0.022 0.000 CL  -0.042 CF  -0.042
      [0.001 0.003 0.001 - 0.001 0.001 0.000 CL   0.003 CF   0.003]

    7. Rollout          9/3 7/5                      Eq.:  -0.045 ( -0.024)
       0.495 0.042 0.000 - 0.505 0.025 0.000 CL  -0.045 CF  -0.045
      [0.001 0.003 0.000 - 0.001 0.001 0.002 CL   0.003 CF   0.003]
        Full cubeful rollout with var.redn.
        1296 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 900566437 and quasi-random dice
        Play: 0-ply cubeful prune [expert]
        Cube: 0-ply cubeful prune [expert]


[/spoiler]