Position 404

 How should White play 65 here:

After entering with the 5, you see that you can hit 13/7*:

Although this leaves you ahead in the race, it also leaves you with 3 blots around the board and you have given up your midpoint. Losing your midpoint is very bad here, as you now have no bridge between your back checkers and your board checkers.

Your midpoint is a long-term asset, giving it up for a short-term gain is not worth the loss.

Consider bar/20 16/10:

16/10 leaves only one blot, but it leaves it in front of Black’s rear most checkers. Black would love to hit from either their 20 or 18 point (your 5 or 7 points) and move those checkers closer to home.

Bill Robertie wrote in Modern Backgammon “apart from counting shots, you want to leave blots in front of points your opponent least wants to hit from”. This play does the opposite of that, and leaves the blot in front of the points Black most wants to hit from.

Consider bar/14:

Now you are leaving your blots so that they will be hit with direct numbers from Blacks midpoint. At the very least if Black hits from the midpoint, they will be removing their last spare. If Black were to roll 42 and hit 13/11 13/9, they would have to you give up their midpoint.

This is the move with the most long-term potential.