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BGonline.org Forums
44 vs Neil
Posted By: Nack Ballard In Response To: 44 vs Neil (Keene)
Date: Sunday, 20 December 2009, at 1:35 p.m.
Hitting two checkers instead of covering an inside point is usually wrong, because the swing on the entering hit (in this case a 4) that would otherwise fan or miss you is so big. There are exceptions, but this position can't be one of them, because the double-hit would both break an anchor and leave Black's board better than White's. Hence, I eliminate K (Kill, Bar/21(2) 21/17* 8/4*) in direct comparison to C (Cross, Bar/21(2) 8/4*(2).
Two other plays look plausible: @ (anchor, Bar/17*(2)), and B (Both, Bar/21(2) 13/9(2)). These are both better distributionally than C, which breaks the 8pt and deprives the 6pt-stack checkers of one of their natural destinations (the 4pt).
OTOH, pointing inside is normally the dominating play, and it even has 5 duplication (or quadruplication, if you like) going for it, and if the 8pt checker is hit White will have diversified 5s hitting back (that she can't enter with), so that blot isn't so bad.
There are two useful second roll position comparisons. One is to 32S-44 (opening 32 played 24/21 13/11, with 44 in reply), where B (Both, 24/20(2) 13/9(2)) is a borderline whopper (-.100) compared to C (Cross, 24/20(2) 8/4*(2)), in spite of the former having a prettier distribution.
The other comparison is to 43Z-44 (opening 43 played 24/21 13/9, with 44 in reply). If we ignore the overwhelmingly best play that hits two checkers and points on the 4pt (not available to us in your posted position), C (Cross, 24/20(2) 8/4*(2)) beats @ (anchor, 24/16*(2)) by around .070.
I expect C not to have as large an edge (.100 or .070) over B or @ in your posted position, because there are more checkers back and it will be difficult to use the 6pt checkers efficiently when Black makes the 22pt anchor, but C still looks best.
In short, I'm going with C (Cross, Bar/21(2) 8/4*(2)).Nack
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