the dorbel daily

Friday 29 April 2011

The Big Quiz, Part 4



In the match I played bar/22, 13/10*, 6/3(2). It's a huge blunder. I was seduced by the better disribution of builders when the 6pt is unstacked, but the play has fatal flaws. It leaves 7 numbers to hit the blot on the 10pt instead of 2 and it doesn't make the 5pt. Not only is the 5pt a far better point to own than the 3pt, but also four points made in a solid block are superior to 4 points made out of six. The best play is clearly bar/22, 13/10*, 8/5(2) making the best point, keeping the return shots to a minimum and damn the bad distribution. Bar/22, 13/10*(3) is also a blunder. It threatens to make points it's true, but making points always beats threatening to make them and the midpoint may yet be valuable. 2 points for making the 5pt and nothing for any other play.
The rest of the game was very dull. White entered hitting my blot on the 3pt, I entered awkwardly got attacked and closed out and just about saved the gammon.

Game Two, White 1 Blue 0 to 5.

I play first with a 6-4.



How do you play this? We'll find out tomorrow. Until then, enjoy the game!

3 comments:

ah_clem said...

4-away 5-away is quasi gammon go. If you can turn the cube and get a gammon, you've won the match. At gammon-go, making the 2-point should be correct. However, you have to play sharply to extract all the extra gammons that you theoretically win according to the bots.

At DMP or when I'm 1-away, I'll run with an opening of 6-4, but I've always made the two point at other scores. Lately, I've been experimenting with splitting to the bar point (24/18 13/9) since this is the historically "correct" play and is very very close according to the bots (and I'm beginning to realize that I don't play sharply enough to get all those extra gammons the bot thinks I should) Here, I make the 2.

RickrInSF said...

i like 24/14 always, am probably wrong here, but i will go with it.

kamikaze said...

(24/18 13/9) is what i usually go for and bots often recommend. sometimes i also like to make the 2 point, but am being a bit more wary of making advanced, unconnected points early in the game.

recently i've experimented with the very aggressive (13/7, 13/9) especially when the scores are low. probably a huge blunder, but when you dont get hit, usually great opportunities present themselves: making important points, prime building and unstacking can be there for you on your next roll. getting hit hurts, but is not a certain mortal wound this early in the game - if the gamble goes really wrong and i get cubed then i just drop the single point.

for this particular quiz i will go with this last (kamikaze) option, just to be different :)

--kamikaze