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BGonline.org Forums
Was XG on Drugs?
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: Was XG on Drugs? (RealNick)
Date: Tuesday, 18 October 2011, at 11:32 p.m.
This is known as a trap play. It comes up often when you have your opponent's anchor primed and your opponent has a big race lead. If you just bring your checkers around and break your prime from the back, your opponent has a good chance of just leaping your prime and winning the race.
Your best chance of winning is to force your opponent to break anchor so that you can then attack your opponent's blots, hopefully closing at least one of them out. To do that, you have to open up a point in your prime so that your opponent will be forced to break anchor when she rolls the appropriate number. Of course, doing so carries the risk that your opponent may jump out with doublets, or that you may not be able to attack successfully even after she breaks anchor, but in many situations (such as this one) the risk is worth it.
Deciding whether to trap and how to trap is one of the trickier decisions in backgammon. Do you keep some rear guards to catch the fleeing checker or do you pile up on your priming points to maximize attackers for the checker that stays back? Which point of your prime do you open up? The older bots were not so good at this kind of play but I think XG and GNU are pretty adept at it.
In the specific position you posted, you can break the bar point and put a spare on your 6pt, which is close to the ideal trapping play. The only downside I see is that your rear checker is a little too far from the action. You'd like to have all your checkers in play, ready to pounce on something. So 21/15 is a candidate, hoping to trap next turn. The trouble is that you might start to run short on time waiting for another good trapping roll. And even if you do roll 41 or 51 next time, White might not roll a 3 for a while and you may again run out of time.
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