🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <C0D3oC.KD4.1@cs.cmu.edu> Marc.Ringuette@GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
||  24 23 22 21 20 19 | | 18 17 16 15 14 13
||   O  O  O  O  O    | |
||   O  O  O  O  O    | |
||   O           O    | |
||               O    | |
||                    | |
||                    |X|
||   X  X             | |
||   X  X             | |
||   X  X  X  X  X    | |                       +-+
||   X  X  X  X  X    | |                       |2|
||   1  2  3  4  5  6 | |  7  8  9 10 11 12     +-+
||
||  Money game:  O to play 1-1
||
||  O (a good player) played 24/off 24/off 24/off 20/21, which I think
||  is a horrible play.  He couldn't be right, could he?

Some thoughts:

 1: O is going for gammon, and bearing off as many men as possible. If
    X enters on 24, he may not be able to escape immediately.  Still, I
    the odds aren't enough in favor of gammon for O to risk an unlucky
    next roll (6-5) and be hit.

 2: O wants protection from 6-6 as next roll from X, which otherwise
    would bring X only two men behind in bearing off.  But then again,
    only one roll out of 36 is a 6-6, and two men behind is too much to
    stand a reasonable chance of winning.  This is even worse than
    option 1.

 3: The money game is really a *virtual* money game, and O is not
    paying attention, or O is not such a good player after all.  :-)

No, I can't find a real reason either to bear off three men from 21.
I'd safely play 20/22(2), or, if I didn't feel 5-5 or 6-6 for my next
roll as a threat, 20/21 20/22 24/off.                          Vincent.