Game 1, move 8 : Patti 6-1

[diane]

The herd rolled 2-1, and I thought any vote on the move was sure to end up with 6/4, 5/4..so I skipped ahead..

Patti up again

[Patti]

My first instinct is to play 12/5.  That leaves one guy back in case the herd decides to go stampeding, and gives me ammo back home.

But wait!  I can make the 9 point.  If I were the herd, I wouldn't want me to do that, so it must be a good play.

I suppose I can also play 15/8, but that feels worse than 15/9 10/9, so I'll ignore it.

If I stare at the board for a long time and play analytically rather than intuitively, I'll also spot 12/6 15/14.  This might actually be a better play because it leaves one fly shot (55) instead of two with any of the others, but it offends my sense of aesthetics.  I don't like piling two checkers on the six point, since flexibility seems valuable.

Oh, I dunno.  Maybe I should throw darts at a dartboard?  I'll just play 12/5, since it's the first one I saw.  It might be the wrong play, but I doubt it's a whopper of an error.