Being anchored at the edge of the prime with no opponent checkers lurking in the rear, you are pretty much guaranteed to escape one of the checkers anyway. So here you can get the best of both worlds.
Perhaps that's true against a bot, but a human will play it much better, breaking the 14pt, 13pt or 12pt (while making the 9pt and/or slotting the 8pt) and/or slotting the 16pt with an ace, playing for an immediate trap. Bots greatly underuse their available resources in prime-creeping positions.
Agree on the trap, but my point was really that trap or not, one of the checkers was going to succeed in getting past the prime. Yes it might have to clear a single straggler in the process, and true, there could be a few small numbers that double blot, but I considered that to be a minor detail. With the alternative of running home with one, until that checker is safely on the ace point, there are numerous chances of white recapturing the "escaped" second checker anyway.
Minor detail? It is much easier for Blue to get one checker to the ace point with 15/7 (see first diagram below) than it is with 23/15 (see second diagram below), assuming White plays it right. After anchoring, Blue will probably be forced to hit something the first time he is able to move -- which means giving White an immediate goal-keeper, and Blue's prime-escaping (or sometimes-prime-trapped) checker, if not hit immediately, won't have the full roll to get to the ace point, because the other checker will be hit. To reach the one-checker-home status of the first diagram, Blue pretty much has to roll 62, 63, 64, or 65 both before he rolls a smaller-number forced hit and before White rolls an ace.
Perhaps it comes down to semantics, but the characterization, "[by anchoring] you can get the best of both worlds" doesn't resonate with me. We agree that anchoring is right and probably by a lot (though not remotely as much as the bots think), but I see it a tradeoff whereby one play gets one checker home considerably more often while the other play hopes more for the slimy two-fisted variations with the payoff of winning a gammon.
Nack
| White | 184 |
|---|---|
| |
| Blue | 40 |
Position ID: wGTbTQD/AwEAAg Match ID: cAn5AAAAAAAA | |
| White | 184 |
|---|---|
| |
| Blue | 40 |
Position ID: wGTbTQD/AwADAA Match ID: cAn5AAAAAAAA | |
