🚀 go-pugleaf

Marc.Ringuette@GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:

>>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)
 
Notice, though, that in the Robertie example 0 has the outside prime
building, making it much tougher for X to get out and therefore more likely
that his board will collapse in any event... in our example it's not quite
so tough for X, possibly giving him more time to wait until 0
collapses/blots... plus, with one or two more men back, X can hit and still
keep both 0's 1 and 2 points...  but maybe you're right anyway :) ...

-- 

Mark Bisgeier              mdb@netcom.com

        ...Let your mind wander...