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"free drop" a clear error

Posted By: Jim Stutz
Date: Tuesday, 5 October 2010, at 5:31 a.m.

In Response To: "free drop" a clear error (John O'Hagan)

These free-drop decisions are more subtle than I thought. The concept is indeed simple: keep your free-drop powder dry in case something worse than 47%-53%, 11% gammons, comes along in the one or two games that remain in the match. What's tougher is judging which underdog positions are good enough to play on with when a free drop is available. A big part of the answer -- as is so often the case with these subtle cube decisions -- is gammon risk. Here is another 47%-53% dog position in which not using the free drop at the same score is a 0.9 blunder by Blue:

Match to 7, Blue leads 6-1
White on roll. Cube action?

XG Roller	162
Natural Dog	162
GNUBg Id: 4HPKATDgc+EBKA:MAHgABAAMAAA XGID=-b----E-CA--cDaa-c-e---AA-:0:0:-1:00:6:1:0:7:8

The difference is that Blue loses 16% gammons from this position instead of 11% from the earlier position. So I learned something (which is not to say that I'll remember it tomorrow). Thanks for explaining.

Messages In This Thread

• "free drop" a clear error
  Jim Stutz -- Tuesday, 5 October 2010, at 2:52 a.m.
  • "free drop" a clear error
    Stick -- Tuesday, 5 October 2010, at 3:14 a.m.
    • "free drop" a clear error
      John O'Hagan -- Tuesday, 5 October 2010, at 4:04 a.m.
      • "free drop" a clear error
        Jim Stutz -- Tuesday, 5 October 2010, at 5:31 a.m.
        • correction
          Jim Stutz -- Tuesday, 5 October 2010, at 7:48 a.m.
          • correction
            Stick -- Tuesday, 5 October 2010, at 7:53 a.m.
          • correction
            Stein Kulseth -- Tuesday, 5 October 2010, at 10:18 a.m.
            • Corrigendum
              Sam Pottle -- Tuesday, 5 October 2010, at 4:32 p.m.
  • "free drop" a clear error
    Sam Pottle -- Tuesday, 5 October 2010, at 3:16 a.m.