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DQ: Three to the bar or the 5 point?

Posted By: hominid
Date: Friday, 17 April 2015, at 1:41 p.m.

In Response To: DQ: Three to the bar or the 5 point? (leobueno)

Few will see this post which perhaps is a good thing. I will not irritate those posters who find my approach to backgammon irritatingly simple. It's always but always about the roll odds. Many aeons ago I used to go fishing to catch carp with very little success. The reason being of course that carp are very smart consequently only a few very astute anglers had the necessary skills and knowledge to master these wiley beasts. Today I know differently the real problem was there were not that many carp about, nowadays they abound and anyone can catch. This is how I see the history of backgammon. The playing field has been equalised to a certain extent by the advent of XG. There is no need for anyone to pose the question "why is my checker play wrong" if you own a copy of XG.

Over the table my knee-jerk play was BAR/24 8/7(3) for what I felt were good reasons. There are nine plays that make points as compared to 4 if one plays to the five point. Also this denies some big escaping doubles which after all is what white wants to do most. I also enjoy denying the five point god, just a personal thing lol.. As is always there is more than this involved in the best play which denies whites escaping rolls. Get your XG out select the plays select dice distribution. Copy the best rolls for both plays, mark the duplicates pulldown the balance left for each play. Study them and you will have an eureka moment. At a glance the best play denies six escaping rolls. Furthermore I find that a 51 roll will be whites top play and furthermore I can work out why.

The probability is I will not benefit from such wisdom as I play so seldom but there are a few that will if they can get their head around roll odds. In musing moments I like to think I have a little credit in stimulating Xavier to to enhance this great feature. Time to get back to my fishsim its got more decimal points than one can shake a stick at .

Messages In This Thread

• DQ: Three to the bar or the 5 point?
  leobueno -- Wednesday, 15 April 2015, at 3:07 p.m.
  • DQ: Three to the bar or the 5 point?
    neilkaz -- Wednesday, 15 April 2015, at 5:02 p.m.
  • DQ: Three to the bar or the 5 point?
    ah_clem -- Thursday, 16 April 2015, at 1:57 p.m.
  • DQ: Three to the bar or the 5 point?
    hominid -- Friday, 17 April 2015, at 1:41 p.m.
  • DQ: Three to the bar or the 5 point? *Rollout*
    leobueno -- Friday, 17 April 2015, at 7:29 p.m.