the dorbel daily

Wednesday 28 July 2010

Even More Is Possible Sometimes



The score in the position above is Red 1 White 6 to 7 and it is of course post-Crawford. What this means in practice is that the cube is dead and the gammon threat is one way. Winning a gammon here is hugely important for Red, effectively getting him to DMP and losing one is irrelevant.
As in the previous position the More Is Possible flag is up and the score is shining a spotlight on it, not to stretch the metaphor too far! When this play came up I made the "obvious" play of 20/9, as I expect many would have done. Snowie analysis preferred 20/14, 20/15, which was startling to say the least! What, give up the golden anchor and leave three blots? It's pretty obvious that White isn't going to mount a blitz if she can help it, so the blots are fairly safe for the moment, but where's the gain? It works like this.
Positions where you hold an anchor in your opponent's inner board and a point in her outfield (more usually her bar point) suffer from two major flaws. The first is that they don't produce anything like as many shots as you might think and the second is that it is very rare to have the timing to keep both points for as long as you need. When you have to run from one of them, the opponent can often hit her way home. Here the race is relatively close, 112-123 after the roll, so Red definitely hasn't got the timing to keep them both. It makes sense to break one now, while White can't take the risk of hitting and the 20pt is the one to break! Why? Because if you keep the 20pt, then it won't pose any great threat to the White checkers on the 8,7 & 6pts and White can run the lesser risk of leaving indirect shots on her 13 & 14 pts. If you keep the 16pt, then White will face the herculean task of safely clearing her four rear checkers against an anchor perfectly placed 6 pips away.
It's rare to see a play that can be described as brilliant, but any player who made this move over the board is probably world class. When I first rolled this out some years ago, I did the rollout with Snowie 3 and it made 20/14, 20/15 clear best, with 20/9 a blunder. However Snowie is not ideal for this as it doesn't roll out keeping the score in mind and a recent Gnu rollout shows that the two plays are in fact fairly close, although 20/14, 20/15 is still best. Anybody like to run this through ExtremeGammon? Incidentally, yes I did think of 16/5 and it isn't a large error, but it can't quite match the other plays, as it gives up what is clearly the best anchor.
I hope that this has demonstrated the usefulness of the MIP flag. These oportunities to find an exciting and effective play come up fairly frequently, so let me know if you come across one IRL. Until the next time, enjoy the game!

Friday 23 July 2010

More Is Possible.



Before you read on, take a moment to think about this position. It's a seven point match and White leads 2-0, with Red holding the cube. How would you play Red's roll?

If you played 18/11, you are in good company, as that is what I played, but it's a blunder. Because of those two blots in White's home board, Red can play to get a double shot after White's next 6 and try 18/15, 5/1, or 18/15, 7/3. This works particularly well when White throws 6-3 and has to expose four blots! It's quite a rare position, I made this mistake years ago and haven't seen anything quite like it in the interim. It's rare for Red to still have the luxury of a spare on the anchor. However, similar positions do occur fairly regularly and when the side bearing in has butchered his board and has a couple of blots hanging about, I like to raise a flag over it, to remind myself "More Is Possible", to prevent myself from making the hasty, "obvious" and safe play. Note that the two blots don't always make it right to expose a blot, but you do need to give it some serious thought.
I hope to be posting more regularly now, so until the next one, enjoy the game!