| |
BGonline.org Forums
Why is hitting so bad here?
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: Why is hitting so bad here? (channingW)
Date: Saturday, 28 March 2015, at 9:40 p.m.
First order of business is to count shots. If you rip 2 then White has 27 hitting rolls. If you hit, then White has 26 hitting rolls. A difference of one hitting roll is not always completely negligible but it is small, and can easily be outweighed by other factors.
The key observation here is that you're probably going to get hit, and if you get hit, having an extra checker borne off will increase your winning chances significantly. It's good to be familiar with your winning chances with one checker closed out. Particularly useful are the percentages for 5 checkers off, 8 checkers off, and 11 checkers off, since these are close to the take/pass thresholds and the 50/50 threshold. Here you're close to the 50/50 threshold, so an extra checker off makes a significant difference in winning chances (of course you're not necessarily going to be closed out in your position even if you get hit, but it's still a good starting point for assessing your chances).
Hitting does increase your gammon chances and, since your opponent has 4 checkers in your home board, your backgammon chances. Sometimes the tradeoff between wins and gammons/backgammons can be tough to evaluate. You can get some feeling for this tradeoff if you vary your position by varying the number of checkers Blue has on his 1pt. Here, as already noted, being close to the 50/50 winning-chance threshold means that winning chances are likely to dominate gammon chances.
Finally, the cube location can make a difference, especially if you're close to a take/pass borderline. I don't think that the cube location matters that much in your position, though.
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.