FIBS Board backgammon forum

We're still 40 pips behind in the race and if she anchors she'll have a decent chance to win going forward and our gammon chances vanish.  So, prevent her from anchoring by hitting loose.  If she hits back we're in even better shape than when we doubled, so there's not that much risk.  Since we're not slotting the front of the prime it'll be a bit of a challenge extending the prime, but it should be doable; if she anchors, we definitely won't be able to extend it.

24/18 6/3*

i favour 24/15 as we must be patient, but if we get trapped (lots of doubles) we could collapse,  and if we hit loose, she could still anchor on the 4, whereas if she doesn't, then we will have perhaps more chances to hit, but with an opponent's board perhaps lessened -- let her roll more i think

At the score, gammons aren't worth as much as normal (each gammon won is +15%MWE, each loss from the extra risk is -35%) and we only get one if we can close out those two men, or pick up more. We may be 40 pips behind but Patti can't play 6s at all, and other numbers waste pips in the home board. Finally, if Patti does anchor we are well set up for a trap play. So I think we are overestimating our need to prevent the anchor.

Secondly, if we play passively Patti anchors with a 1. If we hit loose, she anchors with a 4, 31, 22. More ways to do it. We're also hitting loose on the rear man, so we're making the job of rolling that prime forwards harder. If we had a deuce, to knock the man off the edge of the prime, I'd be up for it. As it is, I'll bide my time with 24/15.

Julia makes the very astute observation that hitting makes it more likely that Patti can anchor, so it doesn't do what I thought it did.  Hitting is not awful, but it's incorrect by .06.





    1. XG Roller++ 24/15                        eq:+0.525
      Player:   78.25% (G:14.98% B:0.31%)
      Opponent: 21.75% (G:1.27% B:0.01%)

    2. XG Roller++ 24/18 6/3*                   eq:+0.465 (-0.059)
      Player:   76.67% (G:13.74% B:0.24%)
      Opponent: 23.33% (G:1.68% B:0.02%)



eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.03, MET: Kazaross XG2

Tim Chow opined that 18/9 was his play.  I didn't even bother to look at it since nobody voted for it, but it does surprisingly well in the rollout, within the margin of error.  XG thinks there's a 20% chance it's the best play.

The reason it does so well is that leaping out is not as much of a priority as it may seem.  Patti's board will crunch, and if she rolls one of the many forced hits we're on the bar again with great timing.  Meanwhile 18/9 aims another builder at the 4 point, where we would hit loose if we could.


Note that if our roll was 62 the correct play is to roll the prime forward, not escape the runner.


    1. Rollout¹    24/15                        eq:+0.568
      Player:   78.92% (G:14.24% B:0.77%)
      Opponent: 21.08% (G:1.35% B:0.01%)
      Confidence: ±0.007 (+0.560..+0.575) - [80.0%]
      Duration: 6 minutes 33 seconds

    2. Rollout¹    18/9                         eq:+0.562 (-0.006)
      Player:   78.74% (G:16.84% B:1.02%)
      Opponent: 21.26% (G:2.43% B:0.02%)
      Confidence: ±0.011 (+0.551..+0.573) - [20.0%]
      Duration: 7 minutes 09 seconds

    3. Rollout¹    24/18 6/3*                   eq:+0.507 (-0.060)
      Player:   77.12% (G:13.05% B:0.79%)
      Opponent: 22.88% (G:1.74% B:0.03%)
      Confidence: ±0.010 (+0.498..+0.517) - [0.0%]
      Duration: 8 minutes 04 seconds