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hit or bear off?

Posted By: Daniel Murphy
Date: Friday, 11 November 2011, at 4:47 p.m.

In Response To: hit or bear off? (DanielP)

You have three choices here, not two -- not "hit or bear off," but "hit, bear off, or slide."

I wouldn't bear off two checkers because (1) a second checker off will make little difference in your winning chances if you are missed or hit, but (2) the second exposed blot might make a big difference if the other blot on the 6 or 5 point is hit immediately.

If I weren't hitting, I'd play 6/off 2/1.

But at the score or in a money game 6/off 6/5* looks very clear. The gammon count ("the minimum number of pips a player needs to roll to bring all his checkers home and bear off his first checker"1) is high enough to make gammons quite likely if you do not hit, but not high enough to make a gammon win nearly assured. Your hit costs opponent 5 pips -- about half a roll. You should win a handful more gammons by forcing opponent to play an immediate 6 from the bar, and you should win many more gammons whenever opponent loses a full roll every time he fans.

Hitting has to be more dangerous since you face no repeating shots if you don't hit, but the additional danger is small. It requires a parlay: the main line is that opponent must fan, you must roll a number that either leaves 2 checkers on the 4 point and 3 checkers on the 3 point or clears the 4 point leaving 3 checkers on the 3 point, opponent must fan again, you must blot on the 4 point or 3 point, and opponent must hit. A long and unlikely parlay, perhaps a less than 2% chance, and then of course opponent still has to win from there.

Stick raises the question of the best play at DMP. It's not clear to me because the parlay required for hitting to prove additionally dangerous is very small. In other words hitting must be more dangerous but cannot be very much more dangerous. So considering the race alone but not opponent's position, I would expect the best play at DMP to be 6/off 2/1, but in this particular position the best play might be 6/off 6/5* for one reason only: opponent has a spare each on his 6 and 5 points and an open four point, so by hitting you are no longer vulnerable to 1-1, opponent's one particularly irritating joker.

1 http://www.bkgm.com/gloss/lookup.cgi?pat=gammon+count

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