🚀 go-pugleaf

>24 23 22 21 20 19 | | 18 17 16 15 14 13     +-+
> X  X  O  O  O  O | |  O  O  O              |2|
> X     O  O  O  O | |  O  O                 +-+
> X           O    | |
> X                | |
>                  | |
>                  | |
>                  | |
>       X  X       | |
> X     X  X  X    | |
> X  O  X  X  X    | |
> 1  2  3  4  5  6 | |  7  8  9 10 11 12
>
>Money game:  X to play 3-1
>X played 5/2* 24/23 !?  Any comments?

Dick King and Mark Bisgeier like the play, trying to salvage a back game.

Who are you guys kidding?  This isn't a back game, it's a disaster.  It's
much better not to put any more checkers back, and try to save the gammon.
Play 24-23, 4-1.

A related case is Position 191 from Advanced Backgammon, volume 1,
by Bill Robertie.

24 23 22 21 20 19 | | 18 17 16 15 14 13
 X  X     O  O  O | |  O  O  O     O
 X  X     O  O  O | |  O  O
 X                | |
                  | |
                  | |
                  | |
                X | |
             X  X | |
    X        X  X | |                 O     +-+
    X  X  O  X  X | |                 O     |2|
 1  2  3  4  5  6 | |  7  8  9 10 11 12     +-+

X to play 4-1
X played 5/4* 5/1

   "This play looks clever but in fact it hardly ever works.  The usual result
is that Black gets a couple of extra men hit, his men reenter, his board
collapses anyway, and his chances of being gammoned increase because he now
has 7 men back instead of 5."
   "Black has to understand that his timing is gone and he can't restore it.
His only rational goal is to minimize his chances of being gammoned in a very
bad position.  His best play is the simple 24/23 6/2."   --Bill Robertie


-- Marc Ringuette (mnr@cs.cmu.edu)