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Jacoby rule

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Friday, 7 August 2015, at 10:36 p.m.

In Response To: Hit or Anchor (RobertFontaine)

Robert Fontaine wrote:

I can't be gammoned at this point in the game so why am I positioning to accept a loss?

This comment exhibits a common but fundamental misunderstanding of the Jacoby rule. I tried to give a detailed explanation here. The main point is that of course you can't be gammoned now but only for the trivial reason that you can only be gammoned now if your opponent has already borne off 11 checkers. The chances are still high that you will soon be faced with a cube that you'll be forced to take, and then you'll be gammoned. The Jacoby rule only protects you if your opponent would otherwise be too good.

Colin points out that many people misunderstand the Jacoby rule and so the above reasoning may not apply. In particular if your opponent is very timid with the cube and doubles only when it's an obvious cash then your reasoning that you can't be gammoned may actually be correct. However, in my experience, intermediate players tend to double more aggressively when Jacoby is in force. So it may be risky to count on your opponent forgetting to double at the right moment.

Along these lines, a lot of players worry too much about gammon losses compared to wins. If this is true of you and if incorrect reasoning about the Jacoby rule helps you counteract this tendency, then you may not want to "correct" your reasoning!

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