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| XGID=-----aCaC-a-aC--bbbbbaBAC-:0:0:1:33:0:0:0:1:10 | |||||
| Blue to play 33 | |||||
eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.10
Agreed! Fascinating and illuminating playing this out many timesI've tried numerous first roll options / game plans and it looks like to me at least that the most promising is to aim to hit all white's blots starting with 13/10*/7* 8/5*(2) (rather than hitting on the 21 which can wait) the idea being to keep white busy entering checkers whilst we hatch two plans either build a useful mini prime (hence hitting on the 7 rather than 21) hoping white will enter low shifting the timing more in our favour causing him to break his own prime or blitzing keeping white busy enough for us to try and spring our own checkers.
Some difficult choices revolve around which checkers to hit i.e. the 21 the 12 or loose (especially on our 4 point which seems worth the risk) when white has entered.
Also difficult is when the above two options aren't going completely to plan and having to decide when a timing adjustment play or full backwards mode is needed and how to play it.
Going backwards from the start rather than a last resort doesn't look nearly as promising. The danger is getting too many of the kamikaze induced blots sent back behind white's prime simply causes our front position to crash prematurely and of course a competent opponent like XG won't hit the blots if it knows it will improve our timing and simply focus on completing and maintaining it's own prime until we do crash.
Michael