This is a position where I think we'd get a mix of plays OtB and would probably start a nice little chouette argument if consulting were allowed.
When we hold a higher inner board anchor (20pt or 21pt) and we also hold the 18pt we usually give up the 18pt when convenient. The reason for that is multifold but some of the main general reasons are we can't hold both points because we have to have pips to play somewhere and in leaving the 18pt it isn't often the case that the man we leave behind can be easily attacked. Here is a perfect example of the opponent not wanting to break the points in front of us with many numbers in order to hit so that checker is relatively safe.
With positions like this where we have a roll that can played in a multitude of ways I try to identify all the potential candidates and then start whittling them down one by one. Here for eg I looked at hitting 9/2* and looked at 13/6. The hit seemed like we didn't have enough men in the zone to ever successfully carry out the attack and also we have a nice compact prime, that's what we should be working with. My issue with 13/6 is it overruns the position in the sense if the opponent pops out we have no coverage. Also, I'd like to make the back of the prime and by playing 13/6 this idea gets totally thrown out the window.
I briefly glanced at the plays that included 24/18 but it's a shame to give up the coverage of the opp's inner board when he's likely to have some issues playing his upcoming numbers cleanly as long as we don't allow him to play behind us.
That leaves the plays the bot leaves on top, all involving 18/12. I don't even know what I played OtB other than I didn't move up 24/23. Not a fan of that play in general unless there's an obvious reason to do so. (like the opponent holds the bar point and we're trying to escape)
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| XGID=--a-BBBB-A---Abb-bBfbB--A-:0:0:1:61:0:0:3:0:10 | |||||
| Blue to play 61 | |||||
| 1. | Rollout1 | 18/12 13/12 | eq: -0.021 | |||
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| 2. | Rollout1 | 18/11 | eq: -0.024 (-0.003) | |||
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| 3. | Rollout2 | 24/23 18/12 | eq: -0.036 (-0.016) | |||
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| 4. | Rollout3 | 24/18 13/12 | eq: -0.065 (-0.045) | |||
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| 5. | Rollout3 | 24/18 9/8 | eq: -0.069 (-0.049) | |||
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| 6. | Rollout3 | 9/2* | eq: -0.078 (-0.057) | |||
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| 7. | Rollout3 | 13/6 | eq: -0.122 (-0.101) | |||
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| 1 5184 Games rolled with Variance Reduction. Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: XG Roller 2 2592 Games rolled with Variance Reduction. Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: XG Roller 3 1296 Games rolled with Variance Reduction. Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: XG Roller | ||||||