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BGonline.org Forums
How to avoid oversights in checker play?
Posted By: happyjuggler0 In Response To: How to avoid oversights in checker play? (John O'Hagan)
Date: Thursday, 10 April 2008, at 3:51 a.m.
I agree with John that one needs to divide the oversights into two categories. The first is ones you'd easily make if you had seen it, the second is if you might see it but dismiss it for some reason.
As far as the first category is concerned, I have some ideas. Note that some, including yours truly, think that bg ought to be played quickly, but quickly is a relative term. You want to play quickly, but not hastily, i.e. not before reasonably ascertaining you have made the best play according to your understanding of bg.
1) Don't hastily play big numbers like 65 or 63 or doubles. If you have a checker on each of the 22 and 24 points, and your opponent has one on your 11pt, and you roll 65, it can be quite easy to miss 22/11*.
2) Don't hastily play an "automatic roll" like 42 or 65. Sometimes the easy great play is second best (or worse) due to a blot somewhere else or a priming type of play somewhere.
3) Pay attention to your opponent's plays. Any time he does something unusual, try to take a mental note of it. One example of something unusual for some people is slotting the 5pt (something that beginners don't expect to see), meaning that you should usually "root" for 4's, although even then don't automatically play the 4 with 24/20*, maybe there is something better, although there usually won't be. For most of us, something unusual is more like blotting on the midpoint. If you know that your 24pt is 12 pips away from the midpoint, you also know that 66 44 and 33 hit, assuming they aren't blocked by intervening points of course, and you should make a mental note of that unusual blot. I guess a good rule of thumb is when your opponent breaks a point that is usually there (the mid, 8 or 6), or has been there for a while, pay attention. You might miss it due to a mirage where you "see" a point there.
4) It is tempting and logical to play the obvious half of your roll first and only then look around for how to play your other die. Doing this however can lead to missing something like 9/7* 7/1 with 62 when you can only move 6's from the 9pt in the current position, i.e. you might play 9/3 and look around for the best 2. Therefore if you do in fact play half the roll first, just double check first to see if you don't have a chance to play the nonforced number first, followed by a continuation with your "forced" die.
5) A classic error is during the bearoff to automatically bear off the big number and move the little number, when sometimes you might be better off to move the little number, and only then bear off the big number. If the little number can fill in a gap or an underfilled point, then it is worth exploring whether or not to do that instead.
6) Alternatively if you are very behind in the bearoff race a common mistake is to fill in gaps when in fact maybe you should be stacking to let you bear off more checkers with the doubles that you need to have a chance at winning.
I'm sure there's a lot more in the "oh, why didn't I see that" category, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head.
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