🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul20.165729.1263@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, jrk2v@galen.med.Virginia.EDU (John Robert Klein) writes:
|> In article <1992Jul17.221118.9478@walter.bellcore.com> pbf@inoms.bellcore.com (Phil Franklin) writes:
|> >
|> >Money game, even opponents. 
|> >
|> >     24 23 22 21 20 19   18 17 16 15 14 13 
|> >    ---------------------------------------
|> >    |X  X  O  .  O  O | | O  O  .  .  .  X|
|> >    |X     O     O  O | | O  O            |
|> >    |X              O | |                 |
|> >    |                 | |                 |  
|> >    |                 | |                 |
|> >    |               X | |                 |
|> >    |   X  X     X  X | |                O|  [2]
|> >    |.  X  X  O  X  X | | .  X  .  .  O  O|      
|> >    ---------------------------------------
|> >     1  2  3  4  5  6     7  8  9 10 11 12 
|> >
|> >a) X to play 2-1.  
|> First of all forget about improving your
|> your timing for a 1-2  backgame.  By far your best chance is to win the
|> game forwards.  To that end hitting on the 11 point is much better than
|> hitting on the 4.  X has to keep O busy coming in, not just for 1 roll but
|> for lots of rolls so trying to hit both checkers is best.  
|> With either play if O
|> rolls a 4 you're hurting so you should make the move that gives you the
|> best position when O misses.

Okay, I'm willing to accept that the backgame is pretty hopeless.
However, it seems to me that even with a forward-looking strategy,
hitting on the 4 is better.  If I assume O is going to dance next
turn, then I prefer to have 4's to cover the 4-point and 2's and 3's
to move up in O's inner board, rather than 2's and 4's to *slot* the
4-point.  If O dances, then I can pick up the blot on 11 later.  And
he's much more likely to keep dancing with a 5-point board.

|> >b) X to play 5-1.  
|> I agree with Joli again.  Again, forget about timing a 1-2 backgame from
|> this position.  Its almost impossible.  X should be trying to get off the
|> gammon while keeping alive some slim winning chances if he gets lucky.  SO
|> he should pick up his blots and hope to escape from one of the backk points
|> before his board breaks, while keeping the  other back point in the hope
|> of getting a shot at O.  Btw, one other possible move is 13/8, 6/5 so X can
|> step up with both 2s and 3s and not have to break the 1 point. But I prefer 
|> making the 2 point which may actually be a better point to hold while O is
|> bearing her checkers in. In other words if X has a choice of giving up the
|> 1 or the 2 point he should probably give up the 1 point. 

Granted that playing for the backgame is pretty hopeless, then 13/8
makes good sense (though this was not Kansil's point).  I agree with
you about the value of O's 2-point in this position -- it could save
the gammon!