Check the high level XG rollout below before reading the discussion. Note I rolled out the turn before so the opponent arrives at the position as originally shown with a checker play. It seemed the best way to do it.
As you can see according to XG the player with 13 off is actually a slight dog speaking of strictly winning chances and about even in terms of equity. Estimates for this position were wildly off across FB. I think the main culprit is people don't realize how often we close out both checkers. (and therefore probably don't understand how this game plays out)
So I played this out manually 36 games and from that I will draw all the conclusions I want and then some. First, it takes a minor miracle to not close out both checkers. Out of 36 games I closed out both checkers 32 games and 1 of the remaining four games I closed out one checker while the other guy snuck to his ace point and I was never able to pick it up. If we use these rough and tumble numbers and extrapolate it means that we close both of the opponents' checkers just shy of ~90% of the time.
While they were both closed out almost that often I did not keep track of how our spare distribution ended up. Needless to say it won't always be perfect so I think the 68% estimate can't be used. I'd be ok using 65%. That would mean we win about 58% of the time.
As we can see per the XG rollout below it thinks we win about 51.5% so now I leave it to your own wild judgement whether I'm playing it out better than XG, whether it's due to variance, or maybe my math is a little off or some combo of these things. I can tell you at times XG absolutely hates my plays. Sometimes it's dead wrong, other times it has a point. When playing it out against XG all too often I'd see my play in bright blood red then it would analyze deeper and be just dandy.
When playing this out you learn the following (if you didn't know it already)
- There is hardly ever even a hint at snaking primes as many feared.
- About the only time you prime is when you're trying to pick up the second checker that slipped through like a watermelon seed. Otherwise you may prime for a turn but you will quickly break that prime to force the opponent out + attack + close out checkers
- You will not leave the 24pt unless absolutely necessary. If you have checker(s) there the opponent can basically never get by without the penalty of at least a shot
- Most of your play will be geared towards getting men in the zone and then smashing like Hulk
If anyone has any more questions I might have the answers to feel free to ask. Seems like I should have more to say but it's hard to put into words how the opponent just can not get two checkers around the board and off against your fifteen checkers. It takes some super freak of nature almost immediate sequence for that to happen otherwise he's cooked.
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| XGID=a---B-C-----ABAa----A-C-AA:1:1:-1:16:0:0:3:0:10 | |||||
| Blue to play 16 | |||||
| 1. | Rollout1 | Bar/18 | eq: +0.008 | |||
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| 1 648 Games rolled with Variance Reduction. Moves and cube decisions: XG Roller++ Search interval: Gigantic | ||||||