How to play 44 holding the cube and with opponent holding cube?
9/5 11/3 10/6 looks fine wherever the cube is. Holding the cube, Blue can cash after the 4-4 minidisaster.
Is it too good?
From the starting position there are no market gainers, not even 5-5 which is worse than 4-4. But if Blue doesn't double now, most of the time Blue will cash at some point. The rollout's ND 90% wins and ND 6+% gammons are both erroneous, cubeful -- they're both estimates the bot makes in the rollout when it cashes, which may be as early as Blue's next roll (but not always, since Gnubg may think it's still too good to double, as it does in the starting position).
To reach a position that is truly too good (meaning gammon we actually will win outweigh losses we actually will lose, not just there are no market gainers), Blue has to roll fairly well, achieve one of the better bear-off positions (no blot-leaving doublets possible), and White has to stay on the bar.
The problem with not cashing now, despite there being no immediate market gainers, is that already in the starting position we have numbers as innocent looking as 6-1 (for which I think 11/5* 9/8 is better than the bot's play 11/5* 10/9), which gives this:
| White | 36 |
|---|---|
| |
| Blue | 125 |
Position ID: /z8AAAjQdrsBAA Match ID: UQkSAAAAAAAA | |
Now the bot evaluation still says "too good" but there's no good way to play 4-4!
So a cube in the original position although not technically necessary may be as little as only one roll early and, with the game far from its cubeless end, sure saves a lot of time and puzzling over future cube actions.