In early game positions, the 21pt is typically a more desirable point to make than an outer board point. However, the 10pt also blocks/primes White's anchor. Moreover, White has only seven checkers in the zone (whereas she has eight in the undeveloped opening position, and often has more), and her 8pt is stripped; she will break it if she hits with a loose 4. (The 5 duplication offered by 24/21 11/10 may be noteworthy but hardly impressive.) Therefore, in this situation, I prefer making the 10pt.
Frequently, however, the devil is in the details. Chuck's position (first left-hand position below, with a roll of 31) gives rise to additional variants. There are two positions diagrammed below, and in each you have a roll of 21, 31 or 41 to play. In which of these six situations do you anchor, and in which do you make the outer board point?
Below the two diagrams is an "answer sheet" for anyone who might wish to respond to any or all situations.
|
| ||||||||||||||||
- 32S-41X-31H-53@-21 (#1a): ____
32S-41X-31H-53@-31 (#1b): ____
32S-41X-31H-53@-41 (#1c): ____
32S-54H-31H-54@-21 (#2a): ____
32S-54H-31H-54@-31 (#2b): ____
32S-54H-31H-54@-41 (#2c): ____
If you choose to use Nactation (saves typing), P uses the entire roll to make an outer board point, @ uses the entire roll to anchor, and B/b both covers an outer board point and moves up a back checker (B for the lead checker, b for the trailing checker.)
You can double the number of variants by changing the second roll (White's inital hitting reply) from 41X or 54H, to either 21X (call it Position #3a, #3b, #3c) or 52H (Position #4a, #4b, #4c), other ways to alter White's 8pt/6pt distribution. You can double them again to twenty-four variants by changing the first roll to 43Z (Positions #5 through #8) if you don't mind that the fourth roll play 54@ may become an error. Feel free to guess some of those situations as well if six isn't enough. :)
Nack