The article “Bearing in Safely” by Kit Woolsey explores the idea of “trouble” numbers during the bear in and bear off. After this turn, for instance, our trouble number on the next turn will be 5. That’s the number we will fear while we are trying to clear the 6pt. When we roll a 5, we will be forced to play from the 5pt. If we roll too many 5s before clearing the 6pt, we will be forced to open up a gap. The solution is to stack the 5pt during the bear in, so that there will be no shortage of playable 5s when we are trying to clear the 6pt. Playable 4s are not such a big problem. Right now, we can play 4s from the 6pt, and by the time we clear the 6pt, we may well have reinforced the 4pt with spares. All this is a long-winded argument in favor of the counterintuitive 7/5 4/3. The resulting position strips the 3pt and 4pt, but leaves 5 checkers on the 5pt, and only three checkers on the 6pt. The more normal-looking 7/6 5/3 leaves 4 checkers on the 6pt, and only 3 on the 5pt. From there, if we roll two 5s before clearing 4 checkers from the 6pt, we will open up a gap. In this case, I think normal is good. Were there another checker on the 4pt, however, so that we did not have two “phantom” gaps after moving 7/5 4/3, I would favor putting an extra checker on the 5pt. Anyway, thanks to Kit for getting me to think about trouble numbers. My vote: 7/6, 5/3 Mike | ||||||||||||
