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bearing in problem

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Saturday, 18 August 2012, at 12:20 a.m.

In Response To: bearing in problem (Robert Andersson)

Casper and John have already given a good explanation but I recommend remembering the lesson here as, "Greed is good!"

You might be thinking here, "I'm winning the race and I just want to bear off my checkers as quickly and safely as possible." Instead you should be thinking, "If I close out White's checker then I'll really squash her winning chances." Don't be satisfied with a good winning plan if there's an even better one available.

Of course you still need to do a bit of calculation to see if playing for the closeout is worth it, but my guess is that the closeout wasn't really on your radar screen in the first place. If I'm right then you need to adjust the way you "see" this position. I'd even go so far to say that 6/1* should be on your list of candidate plays, even though you'd of course quickly reject it.

Messages In This Thread

• bearing in problem
  Robert Andersson -- Friday, 17 August 2012, at 6:25 p.m.
  • bearing in problem
    Nick -- Friday, 17 August 2012, at 6:36 p.m.
  • bearing in problem
    Casper van der Tak -- Friday, 17 August 2012, at 7:37 p.m.
  • bearing in problem
    John O'Hagan -- Friday, 17 August 2012, at 7:41 p.m.
  • bearing in problem
    Timothy Chow -- Saturday, 18 August 2012, at 12:20 a.m.
    • bearing in problem
      Nick -- Saturday, 18 August 2012, at 2:36 a.m.
      • bearing in problem
        garyo -- Saturday, 18 August 2012, at 5:33 a.m.
  • bearing in problem
    garyo -- Saturday, 18 August 2012, at 5:40 a.m.
  • bearing in problem
    Taper_Mike -- Thursday, 23 August 2012, at 7:50 a.m.