Position 379

 How should White play 63 here:

You can play completely safe here, by playing 10/1:

Some unknown wise person said “sometimes the greatest risk of all, is to take no risk”. This move may seem safe but by next roll Black will probably have covered the blot on their 2 point and it will be much more risky to leave your 20 point anchor. If you roll 33, 32, 31 or 11, you will damage your prime next roll.

Consider 20/11:

Black has no active builders above your blot on the 20 point. An active builder is a checker that can be used to hit or make a point without it giving up the point is on. Here if Black hits from the 8 or 7 points they will have to give up that point unless they roll 22 or 11.

It is a good time to run because Black has the blot on their 2 point. However, this roll leaves three blots around the board, so that if things go wrong for you here as White, Black could end up putting all three of those checkers on the bar and winning more Gammons.

It is good to leave Blacks 20 point, but consider doing it by playing 20/14 10/7:

You have left Blacks 20 point, but have only two blots around the board. Because your board is stronger than Blacks, and Black has an inner board blot, this is the correct move.


Let’s move Blacks builder on their 3 point back to their 6 point:

Now Black has an active builder on their 6 point, and now this is enough to make the safe play of 10/1 correct.

If instead we use that builder to actually make Black’s 2 point, Black’s board would be equal to yours:

It would be easy to imagine Black attacking after you have left your 20 point here. Black is also more brittle and has TMP (Too Many Points). Leaving your anchor now let’s Black off the hook, so just play 10/1.


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