What happens to your overall win probability if you are trying not to lose to a gammon? Eg imagine the score is 10-8, match to 11, he has doubled and you have taken and now cannot afford to lose a gammon so you need to adjust your game to not only avoid chasing gammons yourself as they are irrelevant but also to avoid losing a gammon as well and instead extending things to a new game. Are you now sub 50% to win the current game because of that concern? Or are you still around 50% with just the distribution of how you win altered?

Additionally now from the perspective of the opponent does it make sense to try to take risks and play even slightly bad (locally seen) in order to win with a gammon knowing that the opponent doesnt want that? At which point giving up a bit of simple win probability to increase gammon chances becomes the correct idea?

For example if at some position (match score 10-8 to 11 cube at 2) you consider how to play and you have 55% chance to win overall and 7% is with gammon, doesnt it make sense to convert this by playing it riskier to even as low as 43% chance to win but 21% now is gammon?

ie you compare 0.21+0.22*0.5=0.32 with 0.48*0.5+0.07=0.31

Or do you simply exploit the fact opponent will play very carefully and simply aim to maximize your win probability and not chase gammons on purpose during the game unless they become rather very likely near the end when the dilemma appears?

Somebody should have this.

The score you specify is the same as gammon-go (GG) for the trailer and gammon-save (GS) for the leader. Those two usually arise in the Crawford game when the match score is 2-away, 1-away. Because the cube is dead at 2, however, and a single win for the trailer will tie the match at double match point (DMP), while a gammon win will win the match outright for him, your 10 vs. 8 in a match to 11 is the same thing.

As the trailer, you should not make “locally bad plays,” but you should make the gammon-go plays.

Near the end of your post you give some numbers. They look good to me. Play the numbers; that's what gammon-go is all about.

Mike

In the large majority of positions, there is a "best play", whether gammons count or not. So even though the incentives for winning or losing a gammon are different for both players, they will still mostly be making the same plays as in a money game.

There will be exceptions, however. Some will be very minor, where one play is slightly better for money but the other play is slightly better at the match score because it either wins more gammons or loses fewer. And there will be a few plays where the difference is huge. Plays that could lead to a successful blitz will be stronger than usual for the trailing player. Plays that pass up making an anchor for some other consideration will be weaker for the leading player.

Finding these plays over the board are difficult. As the trailer, you might make a super-aggressive play that breaks a point to hit a couple of checkers, only to find later after analysis that you went over the line and the normal play was actually correct.

The best approach for improvement is to play a lot of 5-point matches, then review them carefully and compare the best play at the score to the best play for money. Over time, you'll start to develop a sense of how risk and reward change at different scores.

Now as to your original question. The answer is "yes". A player looking to avoid gammons will win slightly fewer games overall.