Position 423

 How should White play 41 here:

Stick Rice always advises his students to work out what the DMP play is, then to factor in the Gammons won and Gammons lost to determine if another play is better.

Here the obvious play, and the DMP play is to play 4/off 4/3:

The XG rollout says that this move will win 100% of the time. There is no roll that will leave a shot this roll. But this move is wrong. Because you have 7 checkers left, the fewest rolls that you can have all your checkers off is 4 rolls.

Consider the correct play of 4/off 1/off:

This roll is correct because of several factors.

Firstly, you leave only 6 checkers remaining, meaning that you can have all your checkers off in 3 rolls. That means you will win 11% more Gammons, and that is significant.

Secondly, you will win a high number of games by making the more aggressive play. Usually when a player has 7 or more checkers all off, their opponent must hit a second checker to win. Because you now have 9 checkers off, you win most games.

And lastly the factor that most players overlook – duplication. After the correct move Black will need a 2 to hit White’s blot and cover one of their blots. If you got rid of the duplication by moving the checker on Black’s 7 point back to their 9 point, then 4/off 4/3 would become correct.

If Black had a 5 point board by moving a checker from the 1 point to their 5 point, then again, the safe 4/off 4/3 would become correct.





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Position 420

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 How should White play 54 here: It is always disappointing to miss when you have a double shot at a blot. But there is nothing you can do about that; you missed so you need to focus on finding the best play. The safe play is 6/1 6/2: But this is just too safe. You need to hit a blot as you are so far behind in the race, and when you hit that blot you need a board that has no blots in it. This move changes your board from a 4 point board to a 3 point board with a blot. You could minimise the chances that your opponent will hit you by playing 18/13 18/14: But to win, you need to hit and to hit you really want to maximise contact. This move does the opposite and minimises contact. You need to be aware that Black’s board has 2 open points. That means if you are hit, with one checker you will enter on 20 numbers or 56% of the time. Consider 13/8 13/9: This move retains your 18 point, which is back far enough that it will take many rolls for Black to get their 2 checkers on their...
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