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Live by the Sword

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Monday, 1 February 2010, at 9:29 p.m.

In Response To: Live by the Sword (Stick)

I'm more curious about your rules than about the position. It seems that there are many possible rules that could apply here.

One rule could be, "when in doubt, make a home-board point." But making the 4-point doesn't look right here. It's certainly important to make home-board points when attacking or preparing for an attack, but Black is anchored. We should be thinking about racing and priming. 6/4(2) doesn't do a great job of blocking or priming Black's back checkers. It only blocks Black's 1's and it makes a point that is six away from an existing point. One could argue that the spare checkers on the 6-prime belong on the 4-point, so why not put them there? However, Yellow is sufficiently advanced that there's a good chance that dumping behind Black's anchor will be necessary at some point, so keeping a spare or two around is not a bad idea.

Another rule could be, "when in doubt, make another point in your budding 6-prime." Here that would suggest 10/7 8/7, making 5 out of 6 points. The trouble is that it's going to be difficult to make the 6th point. The gap happens to be the 6-away point, which is the most important blocking point to make. 10/7 8/7 looks better than 6/4(2) but I still think it looks too inflexible.

A third rule could be, "When blocking, make the 6-away point when you can." That suggests 10/9(2) for the first two 1's, and then we need to find two more 1's. Surely 6/5 is the third 1. There are several candidates for the last 1: 22/21, 10/9, 8/7, 5/4. Being so far ahead in the race, I think that 8/7 and 5/4 are unnecessarily bold. I slightly prefer 22/21 because it duplicates Black's 4's. The rolls that hit the blot on the 10-point (6-1, 4-3) would be good rolls for Black anyway after 10/9(3) 6/5.

I like 22/21 10/9(2) 6/5 best so that's my play.

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