Position 454

 How should White play 31 here:

The American backgammon author Mary Hickey has a saying “Beware of Captain Obvious”. What she means by that is sometimes there is an obvious play, and the danger is just settling for that and not seeing if there is an even better play.

Here the Captain Obvious play is 3/off 3/2:

This takes off a checker and leaves Black with no shots. Indeed, this is the move that wins the most games so at DMP this would be the move that you should make.

To avoid Captain Obvious, you need to consider the whole board. Black’s board is weak. I would call it a negative board as it has a blot on it which Black may not be able to safety next roll. Because of this, we can increase the amount of Gammons that we win by 5% by playing 4/1* 2/1:

Now on 9 rolls Black will stay on the bar. This means you will win more Gammons.

The number of Gammons you could win is sometimes more important than playing safely. You win 5% more Gammons here and you are not risking much. If you are hit, you will come in with 20 rolls or 56% of the time. You could also pick up Black’s blot on their 4 point.