I won't wait for some pervert to pick a number this time. I will post the first one which is likely more babbling than the last one since I haven't yet grown tired of looking at 300 EGB positions.
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| XGID=abB-B-B-BA--dD---cAe----A-:0:0:1:00:0:0:3:0:10 | |||||
| Blue on roll, cube action? | |||||
| Analyzed in Rollout | No double | Double/Take |
| Player Winning Chances: | 68.19% (G:27.50% B:2.89%) | 67.90% (G:27.87% B:3.09%) |
| Opponent Winning Chances: | 31.81% (G:5.90% B:0.24%) | 32.10% (G:6.01% B:0.27%) |
| Cubeless Equities | +0.606 | +1.210 |
| Cubeful Equities | ||
| No double: | +0.884 (-0.074) | ±0.009 (+0.875..+0.893) |
| Double/Take: | +0.958 | ±0.015 (+0.943..+0.973) |
| Double/Pass: | +1.000 (+0.042) | |
| Best Cube action: Double / Take | ||
| Rollout details | ||
| 2592 Games rolled with Variance Reduction. Dice Seed: 89610590 Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: XG Roller | ||
| Double Decision confidence: | 100.0% | |
| Take Decision confidence: | 100.0% | |
| Duration: 1 hour 43 minutes | ||
64S-31X-32H-52Z-44K-21-D 51S-44A-F-C (D .020) The first line is how it arose OtB and the second line is what I would use for a reference to try to better understand the position OtB. The easy way I remember it's a cube by .020 after 51S-44A-F-C is because I know the second roll [44] was misplayed and that misplay was wrong by .020! The cube should be crystal clear to you as we have another man in the zone, our back checkers have a nice big split going on, and the opponent instead of having a fourth man on his eight point has a guy on the bar. Of course the opponent also has anchored on the 24pt limiting our blitzing chances but he still loses a decent amount of gammons from an ace point game and as long as he's on the bar or entering poorly we can keep the attack up. This is clearly stronger than our reference position so double. As for the take it's tough. I am over simplifying here but an extra man in the zone is worth at least .200 and every point the back checkers are split is worth ˜.020. If we take that at face value this position would be worth at least +.320 more than the original position which would make it a bordliner take/pass decision. Now factor in that that Black is anchored but he lost the man from the 8pt and those pips, which is more important. The fact that he is anchored I think compensates for the loss of man on the 8pt and the extra pips meaning it should be a take though not a happy one exactly though the extra. That's one way to go about it. Another way is purely on feel which is what you'll have to do in a lot of these early game blitz positions. The more you look at the more at ease you'll feel with your decision and the more you'll be able to distinguish between details you may have overlooked before. You can make so many seemingly small changes to an early game blitz position and those changes will have a big effect. Once you get accustomed to picking out all the details it will make your decision making process so much easier. Making early game estimates should be an essential part of your process also. All those early game reference positions will give you a ballpark (and check my .html file I sent you) so you'll be able to better estimate the win and gammon breakdown. This becomes hugely important according to score. Since we're anchored here we know the gammons lost won't be obnoxiously high and our gammons won will fall into the normal range. (5-10% but on the low end) A last thing you may want to ask yourself is how hard is each side to play out? I'm not saying it matters in this position but it definitely can in some blitzes. The person getting blitzed generally has an easier time I think. |
eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.10