Game 4, move 5: ah_clem 3-2

[diane]

[ah_clem]

Hmmm.... I could make the four point, but I think I'd rather block sixes for the nonce, plus the herd would love to escape a man with tempo, so the ensuing blot on the 7 is a bad idea.

I could bring one down from the midpoint and slot the back of the prime.  I think that's better than bringing two down - strewing four blots around could come back to bite me.  Granted I have the better board and therefore an exchange of hits works in my favor, but my board isn't that much better so I don't think a blotty play is correct.

My next objectives are to build the prime and escape the runners.  This roll doesn't give me much of an option to build the prime, so I'll get my runners moving.  There are a couple of ways to do this, but it seems like 20/15 leaves the fewest good rolls for the Herd.  The main problem I see with it is that the Herd really wants to unstack the midpoint and providing an excuse to hit from the midpoint with tempo may be sub optimal.

That steers me towards 24/21 13/11. The direct shots are in the inner board so the Herd will be hesitant to hit loose.  I see ten good rolls for the Herd if I make that play (11 22 33 44 31 32 64) but all of these except 64 and 22 are also good if I play 20/15.

So 24/21 13/11 it is.  Start to escape, unstack the midpoint, make a small step towards filling in the prime (although 61 is duplicated).  Seems like this move does the most work at the least risk.