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Othello Quiz 2012
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: Othello Quiz 2012 (othello)
Date: Wednesday, 10 October 2012, at 3:03 p.m.
O.K., I'm going to try to answer these a la Caryl/ah_clem, without any external input.
1. We're far enough behind in the race that I don't think that leaving White alone with 6/2 is the right plan unless there's really nothing better. We can make the 5pt, or hit (with 6/3*/2 or 10/9 6/3*), or prime (with 13/9 or 13/10 6/5). The 5pt is the 5pt but here 8/5 6/5 gives up a valuable blocking point; 55 53 52 51 are turned from poor rolls into excellent rolls. I don't like it. Hitting gains a few pips in the race but 6/3*/2 doesn't do much to improve our position even if we're missed, and 10/9 6/3* looks too loose. We're left with priming. Slotting the 6-away point looks better to me than slotting the 5pt; White's 66 65 63 and even 62 are pretty good rolls anyway, and I think we gain a lot more by making the 6-away point than by making the 5pt. Taking a last look at 6/2, I still think we can do better by risking a direct shot. 13/9.
2. Breaking anchor looks very wrong; we're far behind in the race and we need the anchor as insurance. OTB I doubt I would take the time to laboriously count shots for all the possible plays, but this is a quiz so I have that luxury. Hitting on the 3pt looks more natural than hitting on the 1pt, but if I've counted correctly, 8/2 6/1* minimizes shots, and also unstacks our two tallest points. It looks like the best of a bad bunch. 8/2 6/1*.
3. This is the problem that I feel I understand least well. My first instinct is that we have to leap the five-prime with bar/14, but at first glance that allows White to hit with everything except 44. A second glance reveals that White will surely play 24/17 with 61 or 43 rather than hit. Hmmm, so White's 3's are duplicated to hit and to step up the back checker. How bad is it to get hit anyway? It doesn't look too bad; White has no board and it doesn't look like it will hurt our timing significantly more than after the other plays. I think we want outfield coverage to harass White's blots. 7/1* misplaces a checker and 13/7 minimizes shots but at the cost of poor coverage and connectivity. 11/5 adds a builder for the 4pt. But I still can't get around the fact that 20/14 leaps the five-prime. Not at all sure but I'll stick with bar/14.
4. Even though White has a spare I think we have to try to trap. Everything else looks like we'll just run out of time and allow White to win the race. 19/13 8/7.
5. The race is close and White has an advanced anchor, so it's thematic to split. S or Z? Typically, 64S is better than 64Z in the early game, but not necessarily when White has an advanced anchor. 64Z duplicates White's 3's and I think we'd prefer an anchor in White's inner board anyway since she has the stronger board. 24/20 13/7.
6. Because of QF, I cast around for a reason not to hit, but can't find any. So, 22/20* is the 2. After that I don't see a productive 3 on our side of the board whereas 21/18 starts to escape. This seems too easy so I'm probably missing something. 22/20* 21/18.
7. We're ahead in the race so it's thematic to break anchor with 20/9, but that does give White chances to attack our straggler, so we should look at the alternative of attacking, especially since White has another blot in the outfield that we'd love to hit. If we play 6/1*, what's the 6? Both 20/14 and 13/7 look too loose. That leaves the dilly-building 8/2, which looks weird, but it leaves only 11 return shots and one blot. If White misses, I believe we will usually have a powerful double, and even if we're hit, we still have our anchor and equal board strength. It looks like we gain more than we risk compared to 20/9. So I make the same play as in Problem 2: 8/2 6/1*.
8. This is the only problem where taking extra time didn't make me think twice about my autopilot play. So it's probably a whopper. :-) Step up to the edge of the prime and get more cover numbers for our home-board blot. 23/21 5/1.
9. This feels similar to Problem 1, shifted over a pip. I find myself using similar reasoning to reject making the 4pt or hitting. But here there's no way to slot the 6-away point so I'll go with 20/17 5/4.
10. It seems at first that there are many options here, but eventually I settled on a simple and logical line of reasoning: We should unstack and make another point with 13/11(2), and then it's thematic to keep the rear checkers far back, so 6/4(2) falls out as the rest of the play. Simple and logical doesn't always mean correct, but it's what I'll try here. 13/11(2) 6/4(2).
Now to go off and check my answers...
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