Problem of the Week #150: Solution


Cash game, center cube.




Black to play 3-2.



Note: All ‘cash game’ problems assume the Jacoby Rule is in effect. That is, you can’t win a gammon unless the cube has been turned.


The Squat Zone

In the 1970s, the New Yorkers invented a term for the new style of backgammon they were playing, a style based upon aggressive hitting and slotting. They called it pure play. The essence of pure play was the willingness to take risks in the race to build a crushing prime quickly. If the plays worked, you had a winning prime. If your opponent got lucky and hit you a few times, you just had to outplay him in the resulting back game/holding game. (Since the top players played these complex positions very well, this was usually no problem.)

While they were naming their own style, the New Yorkers also coined a name for the opposite style – the beginner style of playing safe and stacking up your checkers. They called it playing squat.

Playing squat isn’t the same as playing conservatively. A conservative player may be uncomfortable with aggressive slotting, but he has enough experience to know that stacks are weak and that sometimes slotting and other risk-taking is necessary to keep your position from becoming unplayable. A squat player doesn’t know that. He’s a beginner, and he thinks the goal of the game is not to be hit. When you believe that, you’re going to create some big stacks before your game falls apart.

Players who study the game even a little learn the basics of taking small risks to improve their position, and avoiding big stacks. As a result, they create normal, good-looking, balanced positions, and they gradually learn the rules of handling those positions. They don’t see many squat positions in their own games, unless they come about by a freakish set of rolls.

But here’s a little secret about squat positions: like back games, they have their own logic. As your position becomes more and more squat, you lose the ability to fix it by making what would be normally aggressive developing moves. In a flexible, well-balanced position, you’d rather not be hit after a slotting play, but your game is strong enough that you can survive and play on. In a very stacked position, being hit and falling behind in the race can be a disaster. Thus we get to the squatting paradox: the more stacked your position, the more you may have to make ugly stacking moves.

I call the positions that fit these conditions the squat zone. When two decent players play each other, they may never see one of these positions. Real beginners, however, practically live in the squat zone.

Problem 150 is a classic example. Black didn’t necessarily do anything wrong to get here – he may have just rolled an ugly set of boxes at some point. But however it happened, his position is a mess, with a big stack on the 6-point and a smaller stack on the midpoint. He’s clearly going to enter and hit with his three, and then he can choose among three different deuces.

In a more normal position, the obvious choice would be between 6/4 (unstacking and slotting a good point) and 13/11 (safer, and forcing White to break a good point in order to hit.) In this squat zone position, however, both these alternatives are too loose. Black doesn’t gain enough when the plays work, and he loses too much when his blots get hit.

His best choice is the bizarre looking 8/6, putting a seventh checker on the 6-point. His game plan is to try to capitalize on his big racing lead by running his back checker home, while trying to avoid leaving any extra blots. In the squat zone, 3-2 almost qualifies as a perfecta! It hits, gains ground in the race, and plays safe. What a shot.


Solution: Bar/22* 8/6

LOL, this is the move where you can apply perfectly Magriels save vs. bold criterias.
Why is it so hard to find? OTB I would have played 13/11 after the hit- because of QF I thought 6/4 would be the one.

So did i, coming up with 8/6. But in chapter 16, Magriel wrote “anchor”, in the summery at the end of the chapter, it transformed to “advanced anchor”. Any ideas? Was it an oversight by Magriel? I have settled for “anchor” and will not look for it’s quality in the evaluation process. Even at BGO, no one said something to it. And on GridGammon, X-22 only told me the difference between an advanced anchor and other anchors. Or is my question just irrelevant?

Of what I remember reading, 4-pt, 5-pt and bar point anchors are advanced anchors, 1-pt and 2-pt anchors are low anchors and 3-pt anchors are somewhat in the middle.

Sry, Higonfive,
I don't exactly understand what you mean with 'anchor' and i borought the book to a friend. But here really many of Magriels criterias apply, don't they?
Up in the race, weaker board etc.

Hey, HGF, I did see your post at BGO, but did not reply because I have no information.

I do understand the distinction you are trying to draw. My interpretation is the same as yours. I generally go with the any anchor of the chapter. As I recall, Magriel gives two supporting reasons why any anchor is better than none.

1. Sans anchor, your opponent will often attack your blots in his inner board, especially when he has no effective way to counter your bold play elsewhere.
2. With an anchor, no matter how badly your bold play fails, you cannot be blitzed off the board.

In some ways, it is a matter of degree. When all other things are equal, I can be bolder with an advanced anchor than when my anchor is farther back. When there is a danger of being primed in the event that my bold play fails, then an advanced anchor may allow risks that should not be taken with a low anchor.

@Uberkuber: You fell into the same trap as X-22. At least you are in good company.

What do you mean by trap? Did I say something that wasn't true?

Edit: Do you mean that I didn't really answered higonefive's question, which was why did he use 2 different terms ("anchor" and "advanced anchor") in a same context?

Right. As I understand HighGoneFive’s question, he already knows the definition of high anchor. He is asking only why Magriel does not use the phrase advanced anchor in the body of Chapter 16, where he explains the criteria for safe-versus-bold play. According to HGF, that phrase appears only in the summary given at the end of the chapter.

If you read the chapter without reading the summary, you will think that holding any anchor increases your impetus for bold play. HGF wants to know Magriel’s intent.

Marty Storer purports to give a vertatim quotation of Magriel’s critera in the Introduction to his book Backgammon Praxis. You can read them for free on page 20 of the excerpt posted at Fortuitous Press. Storer’s citation is evidently taken from Magriel’s summary.

Having reviewed them today, I am inclined to reverse myself. Yesterday, I opined that Magriel meant any anchor. While still emphasizing that I cannot say anything for sure, I am more receptive now to the advanced anchor interpretation.

Thanks Mike, makes sense.

Is Pure Play better than Conservative play, or are they equal?

Thanks Mike. You are the first to see the dilemma. I am interested in Mr. Roberties opinion as the ejector of Magriels "Backgammon". There are germans, who translated it. I will post my question there too.

Not sure what an "ejector" is, but I'll take a shot.

Any anchor makes a "bold" play more likely to be correct, but the higher the anchor, the more helpful it is.