1. i make the anchor with 24/20 22/20. if i take care of this right here it can set up nicely for me on the other side of the board to be aggro and take it to him, as well as covering his outfield. i can make the 4 point later.

2. i don't like making the anchor that deep on his 3 point. i'd rather be on his 5 or bar point. so i'd threaten that with a quiet move of 24/18 13/11.

24/18 13/11 seems bad to me. Leaves us exposed to a lot of double hits for not much gain.

there's not alot of double hits in there that hurt us. 33/63/64 allow for both of our back men to be hit. 2 of those leave a blot for him which would suck for him if we rehit entering. 33 would be a killer roll for him. but the others are just hitting our guys in back.

with that move we bring up a builder to make a point on our side next time or we can make an advanced anchor on his bar point or we can run off of the 18. 62 is sort of a sucky roll and we have to find something to make the best of it. we have to do something with the 6 and slotting our bar point just leaves a chance for him hit to there which is a harder hit racewise for us, likewise 13/5. 8/2 to me makes no sense. i don't really like to anchor on his 3 point unless we have to and we don't have to yet. we can always anchor there while reentering worst comes to worst.

the other legit option is to run out a back checker which is ok too imo. the 13/11 checker needs both dice to make a nice point and if we are using one die to reenter it can just hang there for a few rolls and be hit by a back white checker racing out, which would suck for us.

I cant help but think that 24/18 is a tad to ambitious. Since our board is not developed white will be hitting loose with any 6, any 3, and the rolls of 6-5,
6-4, 6-3, 5-1, 3-1, 3-3 , 1-1 are all double hits. Your trying to outrun all those shots to make the 6 point ? I cant see it happening.....i think you would have to be very lucky to make the bar point after a series of rolls, and the more likely senerio would be a vastly inferior position.

a) 8/4, 6/4. Make an inner point early on in the game.

b) 22/16, 13/11. This one jumps a back man out of white's home board and slots the 11 point, in preparation of making it easier to make the 5-point in the next few rolls.

When he has two home board points, you're going to fail to get both checkers in 20/36 times (more than half the time). And you're only going to hit the blot 11/36 times (about one third of the time). You're not exactly in "good" shape here with two on the bar against two points. Even if you manage to hit, you're still not "ahead" by any stretch of the imagination. Much of the time, you'll both have one on the bar facing two home board points, but he has the advantage of rolling next.

The gammon opportunities from the double hit are huge, and I don't think you're giving it enough weight.

meh, you are probably right upon further consideration. gammon ops are big(ger) for white when we go 24/18. i would still go 22/16 13/11 tho rather than anchoring or leaving a blot on my 5 or 7 pt.

a) making your inner four point is way less important than making your opponents five point. By making the five you allow yourself to play aggressively for the rest of the game, by making the four you pull even with your opponent in position, and are still chasing one roll behind.

b) IMO its always better to allow yourself to make aggressive moves, thereby winning you more gammons, and putting you in positions to double. Making the five point does exactly this. Would like to hear Robertie's thoughts as I don't see any move other than making the 20 as good for roll 1, but I'd like him to clarify...

I'll have a crack at it.
1) With the 42 u have 3 options: make anchor on 20, point on 4 or anchor on 22 and bring one down 13/9. Making the 4-point was my first intuition. however, white already has a stronger board and a roll like 33 could be devastating. So I want to make an anchor. The better anchor is obviously on the 20-point, however that leaves us with a stacked 6- and 8-point, so my choice would be to make the anchor on the 3-point, and bringing down a builder to keep the pressure on in your home board so you can unstack those points and build a prime.
2) 24/22, 13/7 seems best to me

Tried not to look at the other answers...

a) make the 20 point, far better than making the 4 point

b)not sure what the notation for Backgammon is but 24/16 if that makes sense, but am not so sure that's def the right move

i was thinking this the day the problem got posted.
making the 20 points actually helps us to easier make our 4 point ( or the better 5 point) in the future. while making our 4 point will not help us make a 20 point anchor later.

+ what you say about chasing, i don't like the idea of chasing either (Marty storer would call it a 'catch-up-play'.

so in my opinion too, 20 point is clearly best (Hey, they don't call it the Golden Point for nothing!!)

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problem 2? i don't know, i guess i would anchor and slot the 7 point, eventhough i am not a fan of slotting the bar point. but at least you anchor, the second best anchor you can get right now, and the other plays (the running plays) leave some sort of a double or triple shot, and my play only leaves a single direct shot.

4-2:

Black should make his point 4. Because the position is nearly symmetrical it's easy to see that Black has two advantages then: a builder on point 8 (Whites 8 is stripped) and his last checkers are split, ready to run or to build an anchor. The only points Black doesn't control then are 14 and 15. So it's difficult for White to bring builders in position.

6-2:

Here I think 22-14 is the best move. Escaping with one back checker is a big achievement. If White misses Black will be in good shape.

(a) 24-20 22-20
(b) 13-5

1) I'd make the 4 point for sure.

2) Someone mentioned this, 24-18 13-11 is by far the best move I see.

I don't feel like any of these are even close, JMO.