Obviously there's some unavoidable quiz factor here, in that I'm posting this position because I got it wrong, but I'm interested in how you approach this checker play decision. This is at 0-0 in a match to 5. I'll post the solution in a bit.

Ok. I will take a crack at this. My answer may embarrass me when you post the bot results. First of all, I hate the two-point anchor. I fight very hard to avoid said anchor which is not much better than the one-point anchor. This seems to be a prime vs prime scenario. Who ever has the better prime has a great chance to win. Also, you hope that your opponent’s prime crunches faster than your prime. 13/11 13/10 is my play to assist in improving my prime next play.

You don't have a great play with the 3-2, and your opponent has lots of rolls that will improve his already good prime by making the 4-point or 3-point or 9-point next turn. You need to stop him from doing that, so hit with 6/1* and take half his roll away.

Hitting loose on the one is the type of Bot play that I always intentionally discard. A few months ago, I made the conscious decision to abandon many loose hit plays in my inner board. It creates a game which I do not play very well. Thus, I decided to avoid said game and my win rate increased but my error rate worsen slightly. Whenever I evaluate my matches with Extreme, I find cases where I misplayed the move according to the Bot. I know the Bot is correct. But, I also know that I am not good at certain tactics. Thus, sometimes (not most of the time), it does not bother me to not make the best Bot move. I am a decent 2300 rating player. I just started playing again because my favorite backgammon author informed me of Backgammon Galaxy. Fifteen years ago, I was better. I have never been and will never be a world class player. However, is it possible that an expert player simply cannot play certain style as well as a world class player? Is it possible that it is wise to avoid the best play if it creates a scenario which I play poorly?

Although, it may be right. Let him build his board with his full roll. I will try to improve my prime and let’s just wait and see.

Stanley E. Richards

6/1* and 13/11 13/10 were also the two main options that I considered over the board. It turns out that 6/1* is second-best (-0.011), 13/11 13/10 is a blunder (-0.086), while the best move is 8/5 6/4!

I have to admit I have trouble rationalizing this one. Perhaps it's an attempt to distract White from extending his prime, since it looks like he is supposed to hit with all of his 2's and 3's on the next roll rather than covering his 8-point or making his 4-point. Another possible justification is that if we can't extend our prime soon while he escapes a checker or extends his own prime we're getting into pass territory anyway, so we might as well try to extend our prime as directly as possible by slotting the 4-point to give us some chance of staying in the game. Anyone have any other insights into what this play accomplishes?