Position 387

 How should White play 52 here:

After this roll you will be 85 pips behind in the race. That means that the only way you will win this game is to hit Black’s checker.

When you hit Black’s checker, you want your board to be as strong as possible so you consider 8/3 4/2:

Although this improves your board, if you do manage to get a shot and hit it, unless you then roll 65 or 66, it will take you at least two rolls to cover the blot on your 2 point. And with black having a 5 point board, that hit could be fatal.

You considered the safe play of 20/13:

As Black has a 5 point board this seems like a wise move to make. This does align with Paul Magriel’s advice about playing more safely when your opponent has a stronger board than you.

But that was only one of Paul Magriel’s criteria for whether to play safe or bold. He also suggested that you should play more boldly when you have more checkers back then your opponent, as you do here and play more boldly when you have an advanced anchor as you do here. Mochy suggested that being behind in the race should make you want to play more boldly.

If you do make the safe play, you will get a single shot if we rolled 44, 22, 62, 53, 42 and 51. You will also get a single direct shot, and some indirect shots if Black rolls 11. That is a total of 11 rolls or 31% of the time. Let’s assume that we hit 31% of the time, that means that we will hit 9% of the time overall. That translates to roughly 3 games. This sounds good but you will only have a 3 point board and an inner board blot.

Consider 8/3 20/18:

First the bad news, you will be on the bar with this roll, and you would not be on the bar with previous move is if Black rolls 33, 22, 62, 51 or 42. That is 8 rolls or 22% of the time. Any other 6 would have already been bad news as Black would play the blot on their 13 point into their home board, so you do not need to count these rolls.

So, what do you get an exchange for those bad rolls? Now if Black rolls 44, 11, 53, 41, 32, 31 or 21, then you will get a double shot at a black blot. That means with 12 rolls or 36% of the time you will get a double shot. You will normally hit a double shot with at least 20 rolls or 56% of the time. As you could get more than 20 rolls, this means you should hit at least 7 games out of those 12 rolls where Black gives you a shot. And as you will have a 4 point board, so Black will stay on the bar more often.

You will then be able to spread your checkers out more in the outfield, making it harder for Black to get her last checker home.

When I am playing, I always ask myself how I intend to win from any position. The passive play of 20/13, is too safe in does not meet the demands of the position.

Note that you will still not be the favourite here, but you will win 5% more games from making the correct move.





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