Ran across this scenario which is similar to the problem of the week.

I roll a 6-3 to start the game and move 24/18 13/10.
Villain rolls a 3-1 and makes his 5-point.

Now I roll a 5-1 and am faced with two very good options.

A. I can make my own 5-point with 10/5 6/5
B. Or, I can make an advanced anchor on his bar point with 24/18.

What to do and why??? (btw, it happened during a 15 pt match where I led 13-2, so i suppose that *might* matter somehow?!? or does it?)

2 more things:

1. I'm a noob with bg lingo. If I make the bar point, that's called an advanced anchor, correct?
2. I'm on a different computer than normal and I absolutely cannot figure out how to post an image anymore. I know how to do the imageshack side of it but I don't know where to turn on this foreign computer to get something imageshack compatible. I find an sgf and something else, neither will upload. If someone could help me with that it would be much appreciated for future postings. I have another position I wanted to post, but it will be worthless without images. Actually, if someone could post an image of my above position, that would be helpful.

I would think both moves are close. In this case , being up 13-2, i would make my opponents bar all day long. Your chances of being gammoned are less owning that spot early, i think your prime concern should be defense first.

I'm not a big fan of making the 18 point under most circumstances so I would play 10-5,6-1 under most circumstances but with such a dominant lead in the match here I would make the play which leads to the fewest gammons for your opponent, which is 24-18.

Here is an image of the postion along with Gnu's analysis
[IMG][/IMG]

I'd make the 5pt at that match score, getting gammoned and going down 13-4 isn't a concern. Your opponent's 8pt is stripped, so if he hits with a 1 he potentially leaves an indirect return shot. I also hate making the bar point.

so i guess match score plays a bigger part here than i first thought.

why the hate for making his bar point?

It frees up your opponent to do whatever he wants in his board and tends to leed to pure race games which i don't enjoy as much as an all out bloodbath hitfest. but you have to make the best plays available and this one happens to be the bar point.

Also when i set up the position on Gnu i also did an analysis at a match score of 2-2 and it changed the percentages a bit but 24-18 was stil the best play so i don't think match score is as important as I 1st thought in this case.

Snowie rollout at 13-2 shows 24/18 as clearly best (10/5 6/5 -0.119). In a money game it's closer (10/5 6/5 -0.063) but 24/18 is still clearly better.

Yup, as nice as the point is from a defensive point of view, in the following holding game it often boils down to the question of who rolls the first double...

But of course this is just a personal feeling.

As for the move. In a cash game I would make my 5-point. If I'm hit I'll have an indirect return shot and don't lose much ground in the race anyway. If I'm hammered by a strong double, I can't get gammoned because of Jacoby.

I don't know about match play. I tend to make the bar point because Jacoby is not in effect, so I'd believe one has to be a bit more cautious.

EDIT: Ah, Snowie says making the bar is better even in a money game. Ok, it's close apparently. but it leads me to believe that I'm playing way too aggressive at times...

btw, i finally figured this out. the mspaint on here was hiding in plain sight. i for one would like to see more positions discussed in this forum so here's what you do if you have gnu (i don't know about snowie or w/e but it's probably the same).

--ctrl + alt + print screen of the gnu board.
--paste image into mspaint and save (to desktop is easiest imo)
--go to imageshack on the web, hit browse there and find the image you just saved on your desktop and upload it. imageshack will create a link which you can then post here using the "insert image" icon.