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Match to 5, 3-4 backgame, juicy shot, cube action?

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Tuesday, 12 April 2011, at 6:23 p.m.

In Response To: Match to 5, 3-4 backgame, juicy shot, cube action? (ah_clem)

My instinct is ND/T but let's try to analyze this a bit.

For money, it's often right to hold the cube when a shot materializes, even if you have more hitting numbers than you have here. The reasoning is that if you miss the shot you might get gammoned and if you hit the shot the win isn't guaranteed; this typically works out to a ND/T. What factors distinguish this particular position from a "typical" situation? First, your five-point board works in your favor, giving you a high win percentage after you hit, not to mention good gammon chances since your opponent still has 7 checkers to bear in plus a blot on the ace point. What about your chances of getting another shot later if you miss this one? White's position isn't perfect but she does have a lot of covering numbers if you miss. The downside of your beautiful board is that your timing is shaky, so if you miss you'll probably have to break one of your anchors. There's some chance you'll get another shot and hit it but it looks to me like you'll have to be pretty lucky for that to happen. Overall it still looks like ND/T to me at a normal match score.

Now what about the effect of the score? Backgame cube action at short match scores can be quite different from the money-game cube action. See for example this article where I briefly discuss the 3a3a score. In Kit Woolsey's article on the five-point match, he explains that at 4a4a, both sides will usually be slower to double than for money. I haven't studied backgames at 5a4a specifically but my guess is that similar considerations will apply. Ignoring gammons, White can take a little more deeply than for money. On top of that, White's gammon value on a 2-cube is elevated. So I think White's take is even easier ATS than for money. Given that I thought it was probably ND/T for money, I'm going to go with a big ND/T ATS.

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