sol2022m.htm | Gammonline - Backgammon Resources

Alan Alsop: 13/9(2).
How to play this one is a bit tricky. Balancing between holding White and achieving a strong position. Breaking up the prime to roll on I think will weaken the position for Blue. Moving up the back men is a possibility as White will need to unstack the 6 and 8 points to make his own prime. As yet White has not achieved too much apart from being ahead in the race White will also need to extract his back man soon. It is up too White to make good decisions shortly. Therefore I like the move of bringing two men down sealing Whites escape route and threatening to make the prime next move

Chuck Bower: 8/4, 5/3(2)*.
8/4 looks automatic -- improve the homeboard and finish a 5-prime withoutblots. After that Blue has a decision: work on the defensive side or theoffensive side. Given that the defensive gains are marginal, and in some caseseven dangerous, the offensive attack [5/3*(2)] has a lot going for it. 25% ofthe time White fans, and 6/36 enter forcing a new blot elsewhere. MoveWhite away from an easy escape route and take away half his roll, withlittle downside. Two problems down and two seemingly clear moves. I'vebeen a member of this panel too long to bask in selfish contentment....

Steve Clark: 8/4, 5/3(2)*.
5 point primes are the basis of winning backgammon. Of course 6 in arow is better but it is not so frequently achieved; 6-primes are nicebut 5-primes are the everyday winners. Here we can make a 5 prime andgive up everything else. White will be well prepared to point on us orto escape with his remaining back checker. If he escapes we would thenhave a 5 point prime which contains nothing, which, unfortunately is thebasis of losing backgammon, not winning backgammon.
How about making the 4 and 3 points on his head. Putting your opponenton the bar against a strong board is the basis of winning backgammon.5-primes might be the basis of winning backgammon on some other problem.

Doug Doub: 8/4, 5/3(2)*.
Obviously if I don't play 8-4, 13-9(2) is the move.However the 'rule' goes 'attack a blot, prime an anchor'. If we make the9pt, the White can hit with an ace, and will have good attacking chanceswith other numbers, and our three back men will be rather stranded. I'mgoing to start by covering the 4pt.
After doing so, 5-3*(2) looks like the right way to go. This preventsWhite from escaping with 6's and developing his postion with many of thisother throws. Sure, I would like to keep the 5pt, but 5 out of 6 is verystrong, as is putting White on the bar against a 3pt board.

Ray Fogerlund: 13/9(2).
Block 6s. Threaten White with a 6 prime. An ace willonly bring White to the edge of the 5 prime. Alternatively, if you make the 4 point, White is already at the edge of it! White dies without an ace, basically. So, I make a play that forces her to roll well to survive.

Ilia Guzei: 24/22(2), 8/4.
Double twos is often hard to play as there are many alternatives to consider. The 8/4 is clear. White is well poised to make another blocking point in his home board or to attack me, therefore I would love to rob him of a half roll by playing 5/3(2)* but the five prime is my only asset in this game. Hence, I am advancing my back checkers. Now it's up to White to perform.

George Klitsas: 8/4, 5/3(2)*.
It's not obvious, but Blue lacks flexibility. For that reason, 8/4 24/20 looks to me better that 8/4 24/22(2). For the same reason, 13/9(2) is weak. For that play to have a chance, White must not roll an ace (25/36) and then Blue must cover with a four (less than 15/36, depending on flexibility) a combined chance of less than 375/1298, or about 29%. By far the best play is 8/4 5/3*(2), which turns up the tables, creating some awkward entering rolls (apart from the 9 dancing ones) for White, like 1-3, 5-3 and 2-6.

Laila Leonhardt: 13/9(2).
It's not an obvious A play; there are some bad scenarios that can come fromthis with. Situations where Blue will get stuck behind a prime, run out ofplayable numbers have to break and destroy the prime he risked all this for-It was a close decision if to keep the midpoint or not here, I am still notsure that this is best move especially not with the cube on White's side.

Snowie: 8/4, 5/3(2)*.
White is threatening too much to let him play his full roll. My playputs him on the bar, stops him from escaping with a six, and leavesno direct shots. I have a strong inner board and he has one checkerback, so attacking is thematic. Other plans just don't work.

Marty Storer: 8/4, 5/3(2)*.
The structure after this play isn't so good, but it gives Whitesome bad responses. Not only does he fan with 9 rolls, but his16, 26, 53 and 31 are very bad. 51 and 21 aren't great, either.Apart from that, hitting is the best way to forestall White'sthreat to improve on his side of the board. Covering the 4and hitting loose on the 3 seems too risky, as does 7/3*(2).

Bob Stringer: 24/22(2), 8/4.
I was briefly tempted by 13/9(2), but decided it was bad because itcan easily go wrong. White has a good structure, and so it won't beeasy for Blue to escape his remaining three checkers. Even if Bluemakes the 6 prime it won't necessarily hold, and if White hits theblot, he's right up against the edge of the 5 point prime andtherefore in a position to escape while Blue has an army that'sdivided in half with *four* back men to worry about. I reject 8/4,7/3* for similar reasons - Blue doesn't appear to have enough to workwith offensively. Same for 8/4, 5/3(2)*, which gives White a hole onthe 5 to use to escape. I think Blue's priority should be to keep aneye on White's remaining back man, but to get his own back men moving.The remaining two plays do this. Since White has a threateningposition, I prefer the safer play of anchoring on White's 3 point;leaving blots on White's 4 and 5 points gives him too many good rolls.

Casper van der Tak: 8/4, 5/3(2)*.
Attack a single rear checker; don't prime a single rear checker. Attack when the last rear checker threatens to escape. Both apply here. The play has additional merit in that it gains a bit in the race; prevent White from making additional points, and gives Blue a tempo for building an advanced anchor. And finally White's entering numbers may be awkward (61 62 32 31 21 and to a lesser extent 52 51 53 all do not play too well).
13/9(2) is what I would have played in my younger years - it is pretty bad though. 8/4 24/22 (2) and 8/4 24/20 both have some merit, but the switch is much better.

Kit Woolsey: 8/4, 5/3(2)*.
There are two impotant themes here. One is to not let the opponent havean easy escape with that last back checker. The other is to attack a loneback checker rather than prime it. The shifting play follows both of thesethemes. Non-hitting plays leave White too many good things to do.

Chris Yep: 8/4, 5/3(2)*.
Blue has 3 back men to White's 1. White has 11 builders on the other side of the board in position to build. Blue has a stronger board. These three factors point toward an attacking play. I believe Blue should be hitting on the 3 point. However, hitting loose and leaving two extra blots is overkill. 8/4 7/3* keeps the 5 point, but breaks the bar point in the process. I prefer 8/4 5/3*(2), creating a broken 5-prime and leaving no blots up front.

Summary: Twenty years ago I would bet there would have beenan almost unanimous vote for 13/9(2) among experts. Primes wereeverything. The bots have shown us that this approach isn't as effectiveas we had thought, and that the lone back checker should be attacked,not primed.