Strategy and TacticsI am posting two rollouts below: one for money, and the other at DMP.Initially, I suspected that playing down was all about tactics rather that strategy. Tactically, playing the 6 down takes away the opponent's return hit when he roll 6 from the bar. Posts by Casper and David reinforce the importance of this tactical influence. It is somewhat surprising, therefore, that hit-and-split is the slightly better play at DMP. The potential gammon wins cited by Tim and Nack must be part of the reason. But note, in the money game here, and also in the variation posted by Nack (repeated below), nobody is going to win a gammon until the cube has been turned. The fact of the Jacoby rule may explain why the XGR++ evals mentioned by Nack are so close.
Over the board, of course, I misplayed this. I went for the hit-and-split. Strategically, I think hit-and-split is the better move. Bidding for an advanced anchor in the early game is good strategy. Doing so while your opponent is distracted with entry from the bar is good tactics. Turz alluded to this when he stated his preference to split (after hitting) on rolls of 43 and 32. And that is what the DMP rollout is telling us. It shows that the strategic advantage of splitting to the opponent's bar point outweighs the tactical disadvantage when you offer a return hit with 6s. In a money game, it is the reward of the gammon that elevates tactical considerations above strategic ones. Please send an email if you would like copies of the XGP rollout files. Mike | ||||||||
Rollout for Money
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.01
Rollout at DMP (Double Match Point)
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.01, MET: Kazaross XG2