Holding cube while up 6-0 in match to 9. Roll 4-3. Easy decision, right? - Backgammon Forum - Discuss Backgammon Strategy, Clubs and Books

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Holding cube while up 6-0 in match to 9. Roll 4-3. Easy decision, right?

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10-20-2017 , 07:29 AM

fullerene

centurion

Join Date: Oct 2017 Posts: 122

White - Pips 183. Match Score 0/9

Black - Pips 60. Match Score 6/9
Black to Play 4-3
Created with www.BGdiagram.com

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10-20-2017 , 11:55 AM

_Z_

adept

Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 720

Over the board, I'm sure I would just bear the checker off.

One thing that could be going on though is if you are going to leave a shot, you'd rather leave it early while White still has a lot of checkers up on the bar. So if 7/4 6/2 is only a hair more likely to be hit long-term, it would be right to play that, because the shots tends to come earlier.

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10-20-2017 , 07:46 PM

fullerene

centurion

Join Date: Oct 2017 Posts: 122

Quote:

Originally Posted by _Z_

One thing that could be going on though is if you are going to leave a shot, you'd rather leave it early while White still has a lot of checkers up on the bar.

If you bear off on 4-3, what ensuing roll leaves a shot?

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10-20-2017 , 08:23 PM

thecantonkid

grinder

Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 515

In poker, there´s a thing called Fancy Play Sindrome aks FPS. The only play here is to minimize our chances of leaving a shot. With this in mind, we bear a man off.

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10-21-2017 , 07:30 AM

jjpregler

old hand

Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 1,974

All you have to do is bear off safely. 7/off leaves no shots on your next roll, while leaving your spares on the highest points. Can't really do much better.

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10-24-2017 , 03:03 AM

fullerene

centurion

Join Date: Oct 2017 Posts: 122

Yeah, bearing off appears obvious, doesn't it? That's what I thought. There is zero risk on the ensuing roll. However, 2-ply yields a 130-error for 7/off (it's "bad"), whereas the rolls with greater equity present some bad combos next time around. I don't understand.

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10-24-2017 , 04:50 AM

Eric

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 13,852

Quote:

Originally Posted by fullerene

When I put the position to GNUBG, the cubeful 2 ply result was clearly 7/off. I'm not sure why your result would be so different. Did you set the cube correctly? The opponent would have to drop pretty much any recube; whereas they might be able to take an occasional cube from center. That's the only thing I could think of.

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10-24-2017 , 06:52 AM

jjpregler

old hand

Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 1,974

Quote:

Originally Posted by fullerene

XG on ++ gives 7/off as the best play. (++ on XG is a mini-rollout) The issue is your program at 2 ply is just wrong. In fact XG gives 7/3 6/3 as 0.61 error.

Last edited by jjpregler; 10-24-2017 at 06:59 AM.

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10-24-2017 , 08:56 AM

fullerene

centurion

Join Date: Oct 2017 Posts: 122

Thanks, guys. This is odd. I set the board just as it was before, and 7/off is now listed as the best play. I don't have a clue why GNUBG yielded the equities it did before. Because the analysis confused me so much, I checked, re-checked, and triple-checked to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Nothing on my end explains the error. I guess I'll just chalk it up to a computer glitch.

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