Game 5, move 12: ah_clem 6-3

[diane]

[ah_clem]

bar/16. On iPod so I must be terse.

[ah_clem]

Well, I think I might have simply played bar-22, 24-18.  The Herd had 3 men back, so there seems less reason than usual to hang back, particularly as you'd be in big trouble if the ace point were to get made, with that blot going upstairs.  Stacking your 22-point at least would have given better coverage of the Herd's outfield, with the spare on the bar point.

My initial impulse was to slot the 4 point.  That's the next point I
want to make, and if I make it, great, and if I'm hit I just recirculate
and improve my timing.  This is a classic tactic for a backgame.  The
problem is that after slotting the four point, any five plays really
poorly - either I abandon the bar point anchor or dump checkers on the
ace.  So I dismissed 10/4.

Then it was between 24/18 and 22/16, and this was a real dilemma - 24/18
is safer, but I wasn't sure about the viability of a 7-3 backgame
structure and moving off the ace diminishes the contact, and I want to
kep as much contact as possible.  So I went with 22/16.

I wasn't worried about being hit on the ace, since that means the Herd is dumping checkers behind the action, and it's way too early for that. 

gnu 2-ply analysis dinged my choice, liking 24/18 better.  Rollout shows
the opposite, but not by all that much.


1. Rollout          bar/16                     Eq.:  -0.268
       0.366 0.091 0.016 - 0.634 0.446 0.154 CL  -0.268 CF  -0.268
      [0.005 0.005 0.003 - 0.005 0.008 0.008 CL   0.010 CF   0.010]

2. Rollout          bar/22 24/18           Eq.:  -0.295 ( -0.027)
       0.352 0.090 0.017 - 0.648 0.441 0.112 CL  -0.295 CF  -0.295
      [0.004 0.004 0.004 - 0.004 0.008 0.007 CL   0.008 CF   0.008]

3. Rollout          bar/22 10/4             Eq.:  -0.337 ( -0.069)
       0.331 0.076 0.020 - 0.669 0.476 0.158 CL  -0.337 CF  -0.337
      [0.006 0.005 0.003 - 0.006 0.009 0.008 CL   0.011 CF   0.011]
        Full cubeful rollout with var.redn.
        1296 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 908927534 and
quasi-random dice
        Play: world class 2-ply cubeful prune [world class]
        keep the first 0 0-ply moves and up to 8 more moves within
equity 0.16
        Skip pruning for 1-ply moves.
        Cube: 2-ply cubeful prune [world class]