+24-23-22-21-20-19------18-17-16-15-14-13-+
| X O | | O X |
| O | | O X |
| O | | O X |
| O | | O X |
| O | X | |
| |BAR| |
| | | O |
| X | | O |
| X | | X O |
| X X | | X O |
| X X | | X O O |
+-1--2--3--4--5--6-------7--8--9-10-11-12-+
Pipcount X: 157 O: 141 X-O: 44-46
Cube : 1
X to play 54

jiks

[IMG]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/51/jipj******[/IMG]

ah nice i played the move shown, why is it a blunder to make the opponents 5 point? i totally dont understand it

You're giving him a pretty free hand while you're down in the race. He'll be up 7 and on roll. If you shuffle spares around to give yourself the race lead, making the 20 would be way the best, but as it is, you have to maximize contact.

You don't want to give black a spot to dump his checkers, keeping a blot on 24 prevents that.
b/20 13/9 is the best move.

If the checker on Black's 14-point were back on, say, his 24-point, your play of making your 20-point would be clearly right. But here Black has pretty much escaped, which changes things a lot. After Bar/20 24/20, you're down 7 pips in the race, and Black has only 4 numbers that leave a shot (22, 11, and 52). So you're settling into a holding game where you're trailing, making you something like a 60-40 underdog.

After Bar/20 13/9, you're tring to hit a Black checker on the next turn, with the option of anchoring on the 20-point at a later time. Now Black has 12 numbers that leave a shot (55, 22, 64, 63, 61, 52, and 41) so you'll hit him about 11% of the time next turn. Not a bad deal, and if you miss you'll probably get a holding game later anyway.

thank you so much for the advice!
this part of this forum is awesome!