Game 4, move 5: Herd 4-1

[diane]

Position ID: bOZggA2wuxkDAg
Match ID: cAmmABAAGAAA

[ah_clem]

Spoiler

Run the backman.  If he misses (13/36 to hit) then we're in good shape to safety the blot next move, and if he does hit his timing for the backgame is wrecked.

[close]

[Krazula]

Spoiler

Run the backman.  If he misses (13/36 to hit) then we're in good shape to safety the blot next move, and if he does hit his timing for the backgame is wrecked.

[close]

Spoiler

15rolls hit if you play 20/15. If you play 20/16 6/5 only 14rolls hit. If we're not hit only 6 rolls won't safety our checker with 20/16 6/5, if we play 20/15 only 4 rolls won't safety us. So we need to decide if 1 more hit is worth 2 fewer rolls making us safe. It is not so I vote for 20/16 6/5.

[close]

Edit: In simple positions (this is a simple position because our goals are obvious, immediate goal of getting our back checker safe, and our next goal of clearing the midpoint and bearing in safely) there is an easy and usually accurate method of determining the best move: simply counting the number of good rolls each of our options leaves for our opponent, in this case rolls that hit. We can stop the proccess there or we can continue and count the number of good rolls we will have on our next turn. Here if we continue the proccess we see that one play gives our opponent fewer good rolls, but that play also gives us fewer good rolls our next turn than the alternative. Even though the play I chose gives us 2 fewer good rolls next time and only 1 fewer good roll for our opponent it is still the better play because even if we roll one of the rolls that doesn't safety us our opponent hits fewer than 1/2 the time (only about 1/3) so its better to have 2 fewer rolls making us safe and have 1 fewer immediate threat of being hit. This is a simple accurate method of determining the best play and can often be used in simple positions like this, it takes a little bit of time so if you're playing a clocked match you might not have time for it. But here you're not on a clock and no one even knows how long you're taking to think, so there is no reason not to use this proccess for fibsboard matches.