Hi Bill
Firstly having just discovered this forum and a former subscriber to Inside Backgammon it's great to be able to read your excellent analysis once again.

I came across this interesting position and maybe you could analyse it for us?
Thanks.

At a glance, making the 5-point looks hugely right. But I'll do some more work and if there's more to the problem I'll stick in the Problem of the Week queue.

Thanks Bill.
Interestingly at least one Bot agrees with you even to the point that it thinks the candidates are not worthy of further analysis at it's default highest ply.
What's the old adage? You can't make the best play if you don't see it.
(I didn't).

OK, this really is interesting.

Snowie likes making the 5-point on its 2-ply analysis and thinks all other plays are huge blunders, so it never bumps the analysis up to 3-ply. Rollouts, however, show that 24/23* 7/5! is right by a lot. Wow. I'll try fooling around with the position a little bit and see if there's some general principle involved here or if the position is just freakish for some reason.

maybe just that green has a very big racing lead, so he wants to try to escape as soon as possible, and 24/23* 7/5 gives him a direct number to escape. so it helps achieve his main goal, and it has the added bonus of sending a white checker back and gives 6s next turn to send another checker back if white whiffs, which significantly increases gammon chances. on the other hand 7/5 6/5 doesn't do anything to aid in the extrication of green's back checker, which is the main goal at this point. plus 7/5 6/5 lets white easily make the 2 point next turn, which will make it much harder for green to escape.

Obviously the main theme is that Green needs to escape that back checker. Making the 5 point is nice enough but doesn't really help with that goal, and is less important when White already has an advanced anchor.

As djk pointed out, stopping White from making the 2 point is also an important goal. If White hits back and Green rolls onto an anchor on the 2 point, that will be a decent result, giving some extra timing so a mutual holding game might be reached.

There's also a sizeable chance of sending back a second checker next turn, either hitting with a 6 with the back man, or blitzing the blot on the ace point. Gammons could be in the offing.

The final thing is that the slot is not nearly as dangerous as it appears. 5s hit obviously, but the only other rolls that hit are 44, 41 and 11. Note the neat duplication of 4s and 1s.

This is an interesting little spot. My first reflex was to make the 5 point because... well... it's the 5 point. But then the quiz factor kicked in because there's no way this is an interesting spot if you just make the 5 point. Once I realized that, then 24/23* 7/5 jumped out at me.

I'm halfway convinced that it's a tempo play and halfway convinced it's just a matter of escaping. It's both of course, but I would like to think that one of these is the primary factor and the other is secondary.

For tempo, Black (green) is going to be hurting next roll if white rolls a 4 or 6 and makes the 2 point. The rolls are about to get a bit awkward and he's really not going to be happy leaving shots anywhere against the 4 point board with no anchor. Furthermore, white's not going to have too many problems bringing his checkers around. Black really needs to do *something* now to buy himself some time and space. Yes, getting hit on the return isn't so good, but white's 3 point board isn't too scary just yet.

For escaping... well, it's pretty clear that the back checker is about to turn into a liability for black. It's going to take two rolls to escape, and if white makes the 2 point then it's going to require exactly a 2 followed by a 5 or 6 to escape. In the meantime, blacks spares are somewhat awkwardly distributed. The 10 point is going to be hard to break and it's definitely a blot-leaving liability. 6s play a bit awkwardly, and 5s and 4s are going to cause the position to become front loaded.

There's also the cube to consider. Black has a decent cubing opportunity coming up after the hit. White has an anchor and a decent front structure, so there are enough reasons to take, but the gammmon opportunities have gone way up for black (especially if that other blot didn't get cleaned up), which might make it too good and a drop. Since I don't know whether it's a take or drop, it must be a double (and let the other guy figure it out).

I look forward to seeing a fuller analysis when it becomes available.

Also, making the five point is a little passive-looking in this position. A lot of whites rolls will be very good for him. After the obvious play White has free hands to make a broken 6-prime or send green on the bar making it easier for him to get his back checkers going, having the anchor he will just hit loose if the dice dictate. So escaping and putting white under pressure is the things making the surprising play best, I think.