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Rollout

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Sunday, 2 September 2012, at 4:15 p.m.

In Response To: Rollout (RealNick)

Nice position; thanks for the rollout.

This is what I call a "buy now or buy later" position. (Maybe not the best term, but it's what I've settled on for my own study purposes.) If you don't hit now, you're counting on getting a hit later when your board is better.

If you want to adjust for the opponent, I think you need to have a fairly good understanding of what kinds of misplays your opponent will make. If you hit now, what decisions might your opponent mess up? In the immediate future, your opponent may have several forced or obvious decisions, entering from the bar and hitting in your outfield. However, I've seen players screw up the game as follows: they get carried away with hitting, and start hitting even when they ought to be playing safe/running their back checker/minimizing contact. They see their stronger board and think they should keep attacking, and forget about trying to preserve their race lead.

If you don't hit, what decisions might your opponent mess up? They still might make the same kinds of mistakes as above, but in general I think it's more likely that they will play safe when they can. If you initiate a blot-hitting contest, they may well join in, but if you play quietly, I think it's more likely they'll play quietly. That's how human psychology tends to work in my experience. Playing quietly is generally what they ought to do, so that's bad for you. Also, you're basically up the creek if you don't get and hit the later shot that you're counting on. So I think this path is somewhat riskier. On the plus side, once you start building your board, your opponent may well face some difficult pay-now-or-later decisions which they may screw up badly. If the cube were in play (which it's not at DMP of course), you might be able to send an unpleasant recube after things turn around, and your opponent may screw up the take/drop decision.

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