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How do you play and why?

Posted By: Stick
Date: Wednesday, 8 December 2010, at 6:44 a.m.

In Response To: How do you play and why? (nori)

The first thing I note in almost any position is the race. It has a long reaching arm on the impact of your choices. Here we will be up 18 pips after the roll which should signal you to look at plays that disengage contact and allow you to close in on a cube. We have one such play so immediately it should be the frontrunner of your choices unless it gets debunked for another reason. Let's look at all the candidate plays.

  • 18/11 - The play at the head of the pack being ahead in the race and trying to push this to your opponent only having a 22 point holding game. This play leaves 17 shots of which 5 hit and cover [64 63 33]. This play gives us playable checkers for the rest of the game if we get away with it. If we don't the game is still far from over as we often have immediate return shots or can simply enter low and wait to hop out still roughly even in the race.

  • 13/10 13/9 - This play leaves 15 shots only 2 of which hit and cover [63] though the double hitting [61] is already pretty serious. This play may appear to slot the back of the prime which we might have a chance of making but that possibility is largely diminished because of how our upcoming rolls will play. Some numbers we'll use instead to make the 5 point (also good) and other number will play too awkwardly to keep the prime. The biggest strike against this play in my mind is that when your opponent hits he accomplishes two good things, he hits and escapes one of his back checkers. None of the other direct shot blot leaving plays have this issue. Also, you lose the most ground in the race when hit here compared to other plays.

  • 13/6 - Only 13 shots with 3 numbers that hit and cover [11 31]. If our sole concern was safety this play would likely be my choice. For instance, in the variation where our opponent has a made 3 point instead of a blotted 3 point I believe this play would come out ahead based on safety alone. Here that chink in our opponent's position allows us to play a little more freely than this over stacky inflexible play.

I also considered other plays but didn't find them worth discussing in depth. Bottom line, 18/11 is clear.

Stick

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