Position 364

 How should White play 51 here:

A lot of players think that the opening roll and replies are pretty easy and not worth studying but I disagree. I am constantly amazed at good players making incorrect second roll replies.

Although the difference between the two moves is not massive here, it is the principal that is important.

Years ago, the Israeli player known as Falafel was giving a seminar and an audience member pointed out that there wasn’t much difference equity wise between the two plays. Falafel replied that the numerical difference wasn’t the important thing, the important issue was to understand the principle and not get too caught up with the size of the difference.

A lot of players would simply play 13/8 which is obviously right, and then play 24/23:

It has been drilled into me that when your opponent makes their Bar point you need to split, before they prime you in. This is a really good principle, but it does not exist in isolation to what else is happening over the board.

Your opponent has 10 checkers in the zone, and that is enough to attack and end up making a 5 point board. For that reason, you should not split here, but instead play 13/8 6/5:

This is frontloading your 5 point, but you are not giving Black an opportunity to attack your split checkers. This move is correct because Black has 10 checkers in the zone.

If Black only has 9 checkers in the zone:

Then they can only make a 5 point board if they blitz and the blitz is successful, so now you should very clearly split 13/8 24/23.

As a general rule, you want to split in the early game when your opponent has less than 10 checkers in the attack zone, and avoid splitting when they have 10 or more checkers in the attack zone.