This position came up while practicing with XG. The program said that this is a double and drop. I'm playing black.

I was completely baffled. My home board doesn't seem that strong, neither is my opponents though. I see that I have a better anchor than he does, but I'm behind in the race although slightly. If I roll an 8 or 5 I can hit the checker on the 16point but my opponent can escape my home board easily.

So, what gives?

You have a really good chance to make a nice block and his timing will be godawful for any kind of defensive game. He has no offense because of your high anchor and no defense.

Defensive game, as in he stays back with his checkers in my home board, tries to build up his home, then attack me later when I'm bearing off etc? He'll be forced into breaking his home board because he can't escape with his men back in my home, right?

Offensive game would mean he tries to quickly make his home board and hit my checker to try and make me dance / continually hit my checkers to keep me from escaping, right?

Offensively, he could make the point on 23 and then later 24point but I'm in no hurry to leave his home board and can avoid leaving blots for him to hit, right? That's the purpose of the advanced anchor (my 3 checkers on 21), giving me leisure to leave whenever I please, right?

Still trying to learn these basic concepts, get them right, still fuzzy on them. Please bear with me

His game is completely busted.

1) He has no connectivity. His front checkers and his back checkers have 14 points between them.

2) He cannot choose an offensive plan as he only has 11 checkers to play with offensively.

3) He cannot play a defensive game due to his horrible timing.

One question my coach taught me to ask myself when someone gives me a cube is "how can I win this game?" If you can't see how you can reasonably win this game, you cannot take.

Yes this position looks deceiving for all of the reasons you listed, but there are just 3 basic ways to win a backgammon game: racing, blocking, or hitting. Here racing cannot win even though he has a slight edge in pip count, because there is still so much contact and he has no connectivity. His blocking game has no timing and his hitting game doesn't have enough ammo.

When you get to a position where XG's evaluation seems to make no sense (as here) the best way to proceed is to sit down with a real board and dice and force yourself to play the position out by hand 30 or 40 times. You'll then see how the position is most likely to develop, and XG's evaluation will start to make some sense.

In this position, for instance, Black will mostly make four points in a row right away. Then Red will often break up his front position before he can release his back checkers, and he's toast. In some games Red will release some back checkers, but even then he will only have an even game.