FIBS Board backgammon forum

You've got me in the chair now! Over to you with a 2-1, elmicho...

And thankyou to stog for running the game up to now... enjoy your break!

Choices are:
b/23, 24/23 - making a hopeless anchor with nowhere to improve the position
b/24, 6/4 - maintaining flex in the herds homeland, aiming for their 22-point or even better their bar-point + unstacks my 6-point
b/22 - attacking the herds 22-point and the their bar-point + challenges the herd to cover the blot on 16 or improve  their position by making their bar or 22-point.

I like unstacking my 6-point, but think I have to attack a position that will enable me to improve over the next few rolls. Either by hitting or making one of  the defensive points.

Move: b/22

The herd has 10 checkers in the zone and you have no board.  That seems to invite loose hits unless you can anchor up.  The deuce point anchor will allow you to be in the game until the end, with a bit better chances than being on the ace point.  But it's kind of a dead end - once you make it those checkers are probably going nowhere and  you'll be playing a poorly timed deuce point game. If the score were reversed I'd say make the anchor for sure, but since gammon losses mean nothing the DMP play is probably best.

Stepping up to the edge of the prime with bar/22 seems to give the best chance of winning, so I'll concur with that.  Rollout forthcoming.

XGR++

Spoiler

Interesting in that anchoring doesn't save that many more gammons, but i presume that this is because X won't try very hard to win them since they are meaningless.  I've included a variant below with the score and cube reversed - in that scenario X goes for gammon much more aggressively, and anchoring is correct by a big margin.


XGID=aa--BBB-CA--cB---bbfC-----:1:1:-1:21:4:1:0:5:10

X:Player 1   O:Player 2
Score is X:4 O:1 5 pt.(s) match.
+12-11-10--9--8--7-------6--5--4--3--2--1-+
| X           O  O |   | O  X             |
| X           O  O |   | O  X             |
|                  |   | O  X             |
|                  |   | O                |
|                  |   | 6                |
|                  |BAR|                  |
|                  | O |                  |
|                  |   |                  |
| O           X    |   |                  | +---+
| O           X    |   | X  X  X          | | 2 |
| O        X  X    |   | X  X  X        O | +---+
+13-14-15-16-17-18------19-20-21-22-23-24-+
Pip count  X: 149  O: 154 X-O: 4-1/5
Cube: 2, X own cube
O to play 21

    1. XG Roller++ Bar/22                       eq:-0.309
      Player:   29.77% (G:4.56% B:0.13%)
      Opponent: 70.23% (G:22.31% B:0.89%)

    2. XG Roller++ Bar/24 6/4                   eq:-0.380 (-0.071)
      Player:   26.66% (G:4.15% B:0.12%)
      Opponent: 73.34% (G:22.59% B:1.13%)

    3. XG Roller++ Bar/23 24/23                 eq:-0.405 (-0.096)
      Player:   25.93% (G:3.66% B:0.10%)
      Opponent: 74.07% (G:21.22% B:0.86%)

eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.10, MET: Kazaross XG2

//////////////// variant reversed score and cube /////////////////


XGID=aa--BBB-CA--cB---bbfC-----:1:-1:-1:21:1:4:0:5:10

X:Player 1   O:Player 2
Score is X:1 O:4 5 pt.(s) match.
+12-11-10--9--8--7-------6--5--4--3--2--1-+
| X           O  O |   | O  X             | +---+
| X           O  O |   | O  X             | | 2 |
|                  |   | O  X             | +---+
|                  |   | O                |
|                  |   | 6                |
|                  |BAR|                  |
|                  | O |                  |
|                  |   |                  |
| O           X    |   |                  |
| O           X    |   | X  X  X          |
| O        X  X    |   | X  X  X        O |
+13-14-15-16-17-18------19-20-21-22-23-24-+
Pip count  X: 149  O: 154 X-O: 1-4/5
Cube: 2, O own cube
O to play 21

    1. XG Roller++ Bar/23 24/23                 eq:-0.815
      Player:   24.46% (G:3.90% B:0.12%)
      Opponent: 75.54% (G:14.49% B:0.53%)

    2. XG Roller++ Bar/24 6/4                   eq:-0.902 (-0.088)
      Player:   24.91% (G:4.29% B:0.15%)
      Opponent: 75.09% (G:19.10% B:0.85%)

    3. XG Roller++ Bar/22                       eq:-0.910 (-0.095)
      Player:   30.81% (G:5.85% B:0.21%)
      Opponent: 69.19% (G:25.07% B:0.74%)



eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.10, MET: Kazaross XG2

[close]