Hi all,

Please note that's a 3-point MATCH

Complete cube action? Thank you



XGID=-a-B-DE-Ca----b-abbb-bb-A-:0:0:-1:00:0:1:0:3:10

Although it's a 3-point match, let's start out by deciding what we would do for money, and then move on to the match score.

Money game: The take looks clear. Black has a big lead in the race, and White has only 4 rolls (66, 33, and 64) to complete the 6-prime. In addition, Black will be able to attack White's back checker in a lot of variations, which may gain time to let his other checker get to the 20-point.

How about the double? That also seems clear. White will have threats to make a full prime for a while, and his rear checker will mostly get out. Once he makes a prime, the race is irrelevant. So I like the double.

Now we move on to 2-away 3-away. The take seems even clearer than before since White loses all gammon chances. (He doesn't win a lot of gammons, but he wins a few.) If Black takes he automatically rewhips to 4 and this becomes a DMP game.

What about the double? Here I'm a little less sure that I want to play this game for the match. Might be right, but I would tend to wait.

It's in fact a marginal (but correct) double and a massive take.

But I still can't figure out why it's a take. I manually rolled out the position and in fact here black wins on average 30% of the times but anytime with massive jokers for example white rolled bad and black rolled 4-4 with easy win , or 4-5- miss- and good roll for black. Or white escapes, black closed out and then black hit a flying shot during bearoff and gg for white.

But in "normal" circumstances black as I expected has no counterplay and even if he goes to white's 20 point remains a lot of pick and pass shot and/or hit and point numbers.White straggler escapes very easy, black home is terrible.

Is the take equity based mainly on the fact that is a take for the match (=better than playing a 2-0 crawford?) than on black's position potential?

Even against worse players is a "comfortable" take? I think here white has little potential of blundering, so by taking we hope only to "roll good". Isn't better to play a new game based on checker play to try to put in some skill by winning the crawford game and then play ftw on the last game?

Looks like your opponent could have used the free drop.

But coming back to the cube decision, even if Black indeed wins 30% of the time, isn't it still a trivial take, because at 3-away 1-away Crawford, he would win around 25%?

In a word, no. Your checker play edge in the next game probably can't begin to make up for the huge chunk of equity you tossed by dropping. Passing positions that you know are takes just turns you into the weak player, not your opponent.

That is a great line.

I have a question on this though.

Let's say I travel all of the way to Vegas to play in a big tournament and I end up in the finals and the match is 22-21 to 25. I'm ahead and my opponent sends me a dangerous cube that has high gammon potentials. It is correct to take the cube by lets say .080. Can a case be made for lowering variance in these positions and dropping the cube? If this was a money game then of course it's a take even if the error would only be .005 to pass, because I will play lots of money games over my life and it will even out in the end. But maybe I will make only one or two finals in my life? Should I reduce variance by dropping the cube?

Or is this a bad way to think and I should always make the correct decision?

If you think you know the right play, just make it. Let the variance take care of itself.

In 1981 I went to Monte Carlo for the World Championships. The finals were Joe Dwek against Lee Genud in a 25-point match. Dwek was then considered to be one of the top 3 or 4 players in the world. I was sitting next to Paul Magriel while he did the commentary and got to record the whole match.

Dwek thought he was a big favorite and decided to 'reduce variance' by dropping Lee's cubes if she had any gammon chances. He cost himself so many points with bad drops that he ended up losing by a solid score. That turned out to be his only chance at the title.

A good cautionary tale.

This thread has so much good stuff in it. Thanks to all.