Game 6, move 7 and 8 : Forum next and Blitzxz 6-5

[diane]

Forum rolled 3-1, and move 12-8 seemed pretty nextish..

Blitzxz rolled 6-5 and has that to move [again pretty nextish, but I will get his input..]

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[blitzxz]

11/6 11/5. And I'll hope forum doesn't roll six.

[blitzxz]

What the hell? ? ? ? I just checked this out with gnu 0-ply rollout and the best move is 21/16 21/15 by small margin. This makes no reason at all to me. Any insights on this one?

[diane]

Hmmm, try higher ply?  I def didnt get that same decision when i checked to see how nextish your move was.  Your chosen move agreed with my gnu on 2 ply.  Cant say why moving from 21 would come out well anywhere on this roll...

[dorbel]

21/15, 21/16 is what I call a look-ahead play. White leads by a healthy 18 pips after the roll, so he doesn't have the timing to stay on the anchor and wait for a better chance. After the obvious (and reasonable) 11/5, 11/6, Blue will jump out with sixes and 5-1 and play everything else into his home board. Then White will face the same problem. He has to go sometime and this may be the best chance that he will get. Basically, he can't win without leaving some time or other.
Snowie 3-ply will try this play, a short 2-ply rollout demoted it to a small mistake. Fascinating play, it might be right.

[ah_clem]

Another factor  is that holding the 11 point helps to contain our runner - it's almost like the midpoint, but not as good.  By abandoning it, rolls of 6-2 6-3 and 6-4 play much better for us.

That said, it takes big brass ones to offer a double shot with 21/16 21/15.

[dorbel]

Yes the risk involved in staying (and giving up the 11pt) is almost as great as giving 23 shots, just of a very different kind. Of course if the cube was available to Blue or gammons counted, this play wouldn't be feasible but at dmp it becomes possible. I think 11/5, 11/6 is probably best (truncated snowie 3-ply rollout says so) but the double runner is very close. If nothing else, we'll be on the look out for this sort of thing another day.
Students of the hand rollout should try to play these variants and see the different sort of games to which they lead. Note that when Blue can't hit (13 numbers), he can't step out with 6-1 or 6-2. When Blue can hit, he gives up his midpoint. One for the connoisseur.

[ah_clem]

Of course if the cube was available to Blue or gammons counted, this play wouldn't be feasible but at dmp it becomes possible.

Hmmm.  Are you saying that after white moving 21/16 21/15 it would be a double for us were the cube live?  To avoid getting sidetracked by variations due to match score, let's assume money play.  I'm not seeing it as a cube - yes, we have almost a 2/3 chance of hitting, but with only a 2 point board and our runner needing a six to escape I don't see the hit as dispositive.

[diane]

I lied..gnu at 2 ply also picked moving from the 21 as the best move too.  That must have been the reason I put it out for your input, It wasn't a move I wanted to make without consulting to see if you chose it.

[dorbel]

Hmmm.  Are you saying that after white moving 21/16 21/15 it would be a double for us were the cube live?

No, it wouldn't, but we probably couldn't survive a bad sequence. However, I've been playing this quite a bit and actually 21/15, 21/16 is a pretty hot play wherever the cube is! To me that is even more surprising than that it should be good at dmp. If you ran analysis on a match including this, it wouldnt be marked as an error whichever play you made, so if you just played the standard 11/5, 11/6, you'd never notice this play waiting in the wings. I still think that I would play 11/5, 11/6 but leaving the anchor is very close for money or match regardless of where the cube is and if you are looking for a play to raise the difficulty level, 21/15, 21/16 will do that for sure. Thanks blitz for spotting this one.