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BGonline.org Forums
Mythbuster failed – Two Variants
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: Mythbuster failed – Two Variants (Taper_Mike)
Date: Friday, 7 October 2016, at 4:08 p.m.
Taper_Mike wrote:
I have heard it said that spreading blots around in the home board can backfire, because an opponent might make the mistake of volunteering a shot. If he runs off his anchor, for instance, you may feel obliged to hit, even though your board is not made up. I understand the concern, but I don't buy the logic. If a blotty play gives me the highest possible equity, that is the play I should make. If my opponent is supposed to play safe, in spite of my blots, but chooses to volunteer a shot instead, then my equity goes up, not down.
That's only true if you trust yourself to make the correct decision about whether to hit the shot or not. If you sometimes make the wrong decision then what bot calls your "equity" is not your actual equity in real life.
Also, sometimes your opponent might correctly volunteer a shot when your board is blotty, and you've just set yourself up for a difficult decision that you might be more likely to err on than if you had made the non-blotty play.
In your question (1), you are suggesting that XG is one of those opponents that will needlessly volunteer. My experience is that XG errs less in this regard than GnuBg. As stated above, my educated guess is that XG's handling of this position will be fine.
It may err less than GNU, but it certainly does make blotty-board errors systematically. They're not always "needlessly volunteer" errors; sometimes it should volunteer but doesn't. And sometimes they're errors about whether to hit after the other side volunteers.
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