I was surprised at the correct cube action in this position. 5-point match, White Leads 1-0. White on roll, cube in the centre:



What are your thoughts about the cube action?

Not sure at all, but I'll venture a hesitant No Double/Take.

But what's your thought process? At the board I was thinking White has a big racing lead, and only 3-1 is leaving a shot right away, while there are definitely some market-losing sequences. It seemed like a pretty strong double to me.

Then again, Black has a pretty good forward position and hitting a shot for Black will usually win the game. How do you think through a position like this?

Oh it's White who leads 1-0, thought it was Black.
Nonetheless, if Black hits, there are good chances that he wins a gammon, which would put the score at 4-1 Crawford. And if the gammon doesn't pan out, Black can redouble you and you might be in a tough spot.

Take that with a lot of salt as I'm no expert at all!

Seems like there is a lot of good contact left so I would take. Less sure about the cube, but I think it's OK to double as the score argues for being a little aggressive.

All doubles except for 66 have a chance to lose the market, I think, since White will hit with 11 22 33, and 55. And 44 puts the position together nicely giving Black lots of problems. That's not many potential marker losers, but it's tough to get to a position where you are really very sorry you doubled (you have to get hit basically) so it's sort of volatile on the upside but not on the downside -- that often means you can double with very few market losers. It's like you have a chance to lose your market now, and if you miss, you have a chance to lose your market on the next turn, and then on the next and so on. So you may want to double before getting one of these lucky rolls that you will have many shots at.

Similar concept going on here:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...=#post54626937

Interesting. I thought the double was clear and wasn't sure about the take because the race is so bad, but in fact Gnu says small no double (0.01) and huge take (0.2 blunder to pass) . In the game I did ultimately take, reasoning that White doesn't have too many immediate threats and I'm a favourite to get at least one shot while I still have a dominant board.

I guess having 5 men stacked on the 11 point is pretty bad for White because it makes doubles (except 55) less of a threat..

I think the key feature to recognize is the 6-pips-away contact between Black’s 20 pt anchor and White’s 11 pt. Clearing the point 6 away from the anchor is very awkward and this provides a lot of contact value to Black, especially when White’s other points are all stripped and the only landing spots are on the 8 and 6.

Agreed, I can see passing if the point was 5 away from the anchor, especially at the score.

Yes, with the 5 checkers on the 10 and not the 11, a rollout says that's take for money, pass at the score. Very big take for money though, barely a double, so this 4-away 5-away match score has a big effect in this position.

One thing going on with this match score is there is an argument for Black taking deep since he gets really powerful recubes. It's just that the fact that White is 4-away tends to be a bigger factor at this score so the 5-away player should be conservative when deciding whether to take (at least generally). And in this position specifically, the powerful recube factor is minimized since when Black turns the game around, it's often because he hit a shot and is now almost 100% to win the game. So he's not getting a lot of value from the recube there. If he's 99% and it goes double/pass, OK he gained 1% from using the cube. But if he's 70% and it goes double/pass (as it should at the score, or it's close to that), then he gained a full 30% from using the cube.

I bet if you move a spare from the 11 somewhere else and maintain the lead it becomes a double. Threat to lose market would come from the opportunity to clear the 11 with 1 roll, which you can't do with 5 checkers on it.