| |
BGonline.org Forums
BQ: Stay back or run? *ROLLOUT*
Posted By: Timothy Chow In Response To: BQ: Stay back or run? *ROLLOUT* (leobueno)
Date: Tuesday, 3 May 2011, at 11:35 p.m.
I'm surprised that breaking the back anchor comes out on top or nearly on top. (By the way, it's not the "golden" point; that's the 20pt.) However, there are a couple of ideas I have about why it's a strong candidate here.
1. The score means you don't care about gammon losses. One thing I'm gradually learning is that in many situations, getting blitzed doesn't lose as many games as I used to think. A high proportion of your losses will be gammon losses, but blitzes can fail, and if you survive, you are often left with reasonable winning chances. That seems to be the case here. White can attack with good rolls, but she is not so eager to go all-out for the blitz when a return hit can dissipate her advantage entirely, due to your decent front position.
2. You have four checkers back but you're not that far behind in the pip count. This means your rear checkers are under pressure to get moving soon anyway. If you hold on to your back anchor now, you may be forced to break it soon anyway under even less favorable circumstances.
3. There's some duplication of 4's and 1's so it's not quite as vulnerable a play as it seems at first glance. And if you're not hit and are able to safety your blots next roll then you will have solved one of your problems (extricating your back checkers safely).
Despite these suggestions, I'm still not sure I fully understand the anchor-breaking play here. I think I'd need to play around with variations of the position to get a better feel for it.
| |
BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.