Three Giants voiced their opinion on this play at the time it was made, none found the right play.
One chose 24/23* 13/7, one chose 13/7 3/2, and the other was undecided between those two plays.
Based on the roll-out, it seems the key feature in this position is to not allow your opponent to anchor, if you are not going to make a six-prime.
Six-primes in positions like this are usually wrong for the reasons discussed by Michael Nielsen; 'Too passive. Doesn't win enough gammons and gives white the opportunity to counter-prime.' But white has such an inflexible position with four men on the three-point, counter-priming will be very difficult for him and he will often be gammoned after having another man sent back along the way.
What surprised me most was the strength of 7/1* 2/1, as I thought this play inferior because the open two-point seemed like it would be a 'PITA for a long time', as expressed by Michael. The fact that it comes in 3rd and is only .036 behind the top play illustrates the importance of preventing white from anchoring.
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| XGID=-aACBBBA----bA--bb-cA-daB-:4:-1:1:61:0:0:3:0:10 | |||||
| Blue to play 61 | |||||
| 1. | Rollout1 | 7/1* 3/2 | eq: +0.847 | |||
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| 2. | Rollout1 | 13/7 3/2 | eq: +0.835 (-0.012) | |||
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| 3. | Rollout1 | 7/1* 2/1 | eq: +0.811 (-0.036) | |||
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| 4. | Rollout1 | 24/23* 13/7 | eq: +0.795 (-0.052) | |||
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| 1 2592 Games rolled with Variance Reduction. Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: 4-ply Search interval: Large | ||||||
eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.01
In the actual game, blue played 24/23* 13/7, white danced and blue rolled 6-2, making his ace-point, leaving white on roll in the following position:
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| XGID=bB-BBBBA----bA--bb-cA-dAA-:4:-1:1:61:0:0:3:0:10 | |||||
| Blue to play 61 | |||||
eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.01
White proceeded to roll 2-2 and blue was gammoned for 32.