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A tough one for me to explain

Posted By: Nack Ballard
Date: Friday, 15 January 2010, at 6:46 p.m.

In Response To: A tough one for me to explain (Phil Simborg)

Phil: "...[with 24/16] you force him to play in his outer board instead of giving him the freedom to play in your inner board or his inner board where he can do the most long-term damage."

David: "...one of the things a player should always see is an opportunity to profitably leave blots in front of stripped points. Train your students to see this when looking for candidate plays. If you are going to be hit, you would like your opponent to sacrifice something when doing so... After [24/16], you will either have a good opportunity to escape both checkers or your opponent will have forfeited the outfield.

Nack: I think both your reasons and David's are sound. I further elucidate on David's point by saying:

It is a very strong play to run the last checker into the outfield -- even when joining a second blot that could have been safetied -- when the opponent has a stripped midpoint (or other outfield point) and all the more so when she has no advanced back checkers (that control part of the outfield and can hit with indirect numbers).

Here, if Opp hits, you will have lost the other half of the roll (you could have made a point) and a bit of race, and you will occasionally fan, but at least you still have only one checker back. If, in hitting, Opp keeps the other checker on the midpoint, you can either (enter and) hit it or run safely past it (Opp has no checker directly aiming at your outer board).

If Opp misses, your gain from escaping your last back checker is huge. And most of your subsequent rolls play relatively safely, thanks to Opp having no other checker in direct range of the outfield.

It is also worth noting in this position that by running you create a big negative swing for Opp's 66 65; that helps to ameliorate the cost of getting hit twice with 43 31.

David's suggestion to compare this position to an altered position in which Brown has a third checker on the midpoint (take it off the 6pt) is excellent. It may still be right or close for Yellow to run out (for most of the reasons stated above) but the counter-hitting variations largely don't exist and/or more pressure remains on the blot that is not hit.

Hope that helps,

Nack

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