just watching a mochy/ed o match and after 31 62split mochy rolled 65 and brought 2 down instead of hitting two. I know he's the third roll master but could that be correct? score 2-2 to 7

I never learned 3rd rolls, but the play looks conceptually correct to me, and I would have played the same.
I think It is more important to put a spare on the 8-point than it is to hit a second checker. Now if in this position there was already a spare on the 8-point than I think the double hit is probably correct.

Popeye has the right idea. If the 8-point already had three checkers, then the double-hit would be correct by a big margin. But with just two checkers on the 8-point, bringing two down and creating a spare on the 8 is slightly better.

The early part of the game is full of little nuances like this. You have to pay attention to literally every feature of the position before making a play where there are two reasonable choices.

The other important thing is that you have your 5pt. That means you can make a four-point block by filling in your bar point. That's why you play two down (from the midpoint). You want spares on the midpoint and 8pt available for covering the bar point.

You are not committed to making the block. If the dice dictate it, you can still launch a blitz in the follow-up.


Suppose, however, that you had your 4pt, rather than your 5pt. In that case, it would be less important to make your bar point. Even if you did, you would have an all-important gap on the 5pt. For that reason, you should go ahead and hit two.

Thanks for that 42 62 65 play. I had decided I was going to hit 2 against top players in the 31 position. Now I'm even happier with my decision. I suspect you make a four point block more often by hitting two in the first position, even without the 8pt builder. I could be wrong and don't know how to figure it out. Certainly you make the barpoint more often hitting two.

You're not giving up much equity by hitting in the 31 position. My rollouts show that hitting twice loses about 20 millipoints of equity (i.e., about 0.02) compared to playing two down.

I question, however, whether hitting twice will lead to building a four-point block more often than playing two down. The easiest way to build such a block is to fill-in the bar point, while retaining the 8pt. The best way to do that is to have spares on the 8pt and midpoint that target the bar point.

Another issue is game plans. When you hit twice, you are more committed to an attacking/blitzing game plan than when you play two down. This means you will often end up covering the blot you have on the 1pt. The time and checkers spent in the attack are time and checkers that were not spent making the bar point. Furthermore, in an attack, you don't need the bar point. You just need to make inner board points.

In real-world play things are not so cut-and-dried. Either approach can lead to a blitz; either approach can lead to making a prime. On balance, however, playing two down should lead more often to a successful priming game than hitting twice will.

Mike I rolled it out 0.022 in favor of 65D after 1296 games on XG, idk how to post that on a message board.

this makes sense:

13/* 6/1* G=25.1%

65D G=21.6%


It's so close it's for all practical purposes a wash, a style preference. I wasnt aware of this error-I always hit 2 in the past. I'm going to play XG starting with this sequence for a while and see how it plays out. Good practice exercise.

while i'm not a big advocate of play the player-i look for the best play 99% of the time, this might be a opening that I would use the standard hit 2 against certain people. This is a exception like 32 sometimes i split sometimes 2 down,same idea.


Mike hope your well, i missed the Bay Area tourney(along with every tourney this year-been busy at the wrong time )

Hi Eric!

Yeah, I would have liked to see you at the Silicon Valley Open. The good news is that the inaugural edition was great success. There is every reason to suppose it will be back next year, and for many years to come.

To post a rollout, you have to export it to "Text" in XG. Next, at TwoPlusTwo, click "Go Advanced," and paste it inside CODE tags. (Click the # icon to insert CODE tags.)

If you want to go the extra mile, you can delete the board diagram XG draws using X and O, and insert a link to an image that shows the board diagram.

Here is my rollout of 31P-62S-65, i.e., 31-point, 62-split, 65:

White - Pips 159

Black - Pips 163
Black to Play 6-5

In the rollout above, hitting twice gives up 28 millipoints of equity compared with playing two down. That's more equity than I recommend surrendering in a gambit, even one against a top player.

Note that my rollout is for money play. Trailing in a match will cause the double-hit to rise in equity. As Eric points out, that's because hitting twice nets more gammon wins than playing two down. I am not sure where the break-even point is, i.e., I am not sure what match scores have the two plays tied.