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Bearing In: Is This A Double?

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10-11-2009 , 04:58 PM

Al Mirpuri

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 5,485

OK. You are bearing in: you have a solitary checker on your 13pt and have a 5pt home board with your opponent having a high anchor on your 5pt. You are ~20pts ahead in the race. You also have points 7 & 8 made (between them they have five checkers). Your opponent has a 4pt/5pt home board.

You are on roll: as long as you roll a 5 or 6 or anything totaling 5 or more you successfully clear your solitary checker. Is this a double at cash/or match score (I doubled and my opponent took with it being 1-1)?

Many thanks in advance.

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10-11-2009 , 07:27 PM

mute

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 11,815

Sounds like double/clear pass to me.

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10-12-2009 , 07:48 AM

uberkuber

veteran

Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 3,048

Quote:

Originally Posted by Al Mirpuri

You also have points 7 & 8 made (between them they have five checkers).

For the record, you probably meant 4. If you have 7 made points (1 through 4, 6 through 8) and a lone checker on your 13-point, that's already 15 checkers.

Btw, I agree with mute, looks like a double/solid pass.

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10-12-2009 , 09:18 AM

Al Mirpuri

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 5,485

Quote:

Originally Posted by uberkuber

Yes. There can only be 15 checkers.

I do vaguely recall five checkers on pts 7 & 8 so possibly I had a four point home board with the opponent having the 5pt high anchor.

The thing is: as long as I get the solitary checker on my 13pt safe by rolling a five or six or any number above five I was safe and I thought to end the game by cashing it with a double which would be refused.

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10-13-2009 , 10:25 PM

Taper_Mike

adept

Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 1,030

Forgive me for citing Bill Robertie's Advanced Backgammon so often in these messages. I am some sort of backgammon intermediate, having just returned to the game after a twenty-year layoff. (Even worse, my early training focused on 1970s techniques.) Unlike most posters, I don't have a large bank of experience to fall back on. I have to check an authority.

Anyway, Robertie's Problems 201, 202 and 260 cover just this sort of circumstance. In Problem 202, Robertie concludes that even if your opponent still holds his midpoint, this is a clear double/pass.

By the way, you should keep this opponent. He's way over the pass line!

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