The resuling position after 7/3 3/OFF is a dog's position. The flat board will bear off slowly and may give a shot. Therefore we have to seek an extraordinary measure - that is the bare in - 7/3,6/3* . Resulting in: a man on the bar against a 5 point board, a better board and having 2 opponent blots to shoot from the bar if he enters at all. Now two bad things can happen to him - to enter or not to enter. I found for me these bare-in and bare-off plays back in 2002 or 2004 reading the match between Chris Ternes and Gery Grandell. Nobody discussed the possibility to bear-off one more man and leave a blot thus reaching a similar to this situation. Being behind in the race and having (taking into account the EPC) the bold bare off plays come on top. Now, we do not have an OFF play as the favorite here, but the idea is the same - put him on the bar and force him to either stay and get back in the race or hit and give lots of return shots. I call this sort of positions bare-off and I have collected hundreds of bare-ins and bare-offs. |
