BGonline.org Forums

Who Woulda And Coulda Known This?

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Saturday, 20 December 2014, at 5:10 p.m.

In Response To: Who Woulda And Coulda Known This? (Paul Weaver)

There's another comment I wanted to make about these positions, again borrowed from Zare's article. Although these positions are difficult, I don't think they're quite as intractable as Paul's subject line might suggest. Notice that the winning chances after the hitting play 8/5 8/3* are pretty much the same across each position pair. What changes are the winning chances after the safe play, 7/4 7/2. Thus the main reason for the sensitive dependence on pip count is that racing vig is sensitive to pip count. But we do have formulas for racing. O.K., admittedly it's not a pure race, but racing formulas should still be of some assistance.

In other words, I could imagine mastering these positions by using two separate thought processes for the two options—assessing the safe play using racing formulas, and assessing the hit by splitting into two cases depending on whether you're hit back immediately or not. It's still not easy but it's within the realm of human possibility.

Note that Taper_Mike's position is a bit different because I agree with his hypothesis that board-cracking is the key factor.

Messages In This Thread

• Who Woulda And Coulda Known This?
  Paul Weaver -- Monday, 8 December 2014, at 5:26 p.m.
  • Who Woulda And Coulda Known This?
    Keene -- Monday, 8 December 2014, at 6:15 p.m.
    • Contrasting Variants
      Taper_Mike -- Wednesday, 10 December 2014, at 12:00 a.m.
      • Contrasting Variants
        Timothy Chow -- Thursday, 11 December 2014, at 2:36 a.m.
        • Contrasting Variants
          Taper_Mike -- Thursday, 11 December 2014, at 10:11 p.m.
  • Who Woulda And Coulda Known This?
    Timothy Chow -- Saturday, 20 December 2014, at 5:10 p.m.