9/5 9/8 ?

9/5 7/6 to make White crunch a bit more?

What is the goal? I guess force white to throw away checkers or give up the 23 or 24. Therefore I would keep the checker on the 10, forcing white to hit supporting the goal. Open up the 9 point gives him playable 5 too that are in his favour. If you wont give up a point 6-1 is the only remaining move. And if the 6 is rolled and hit on the 23 you may recirculate another checker...

My reasoning was similar to bgblitz -- I wanted to keep the block on but probably want to be hit if my opponent rolls a 6. So I think 6/1 is right -- it gives White the best chance to end up with more dead checkers on his low points. But the eval and rollout favors playing 7/6 5/1 leaving a blot on the 5 point!?

I was thinking maybe this causes White to make some incorrect hits and so that's why it's favored in the rollout despite being wrong. Or maybe it's good for Black if White hits with a 2 or 3? But the play is still the same, or at least it's close, if you push a spare back from the 4 point to the 3 or 2 points (based on evaluations). I'm guessing it's something like that though, the computer is trying to get White off the 22 or 23 points.

The machine wants you to break your 5 point? I will never be good enough to find this play.

Yes, I had the 8th best play!