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Blitz or Consolidate?

Aug 1, 2022 | ,

Cash game. Black owns the cube. White on move.

White to play 3-3.

White’s off to a good start in this position. He’s already made a three-point board, whereas Black hasn’t yet made a new point, and White has hit a blot, leaving him 17 pips ahead in the race. Black, meanwhile, is still scrambling to make an anchor. Last turn White offered an aggressive double, and Black quite reasonably took.

Now White throws one of his best shots, 3-3, and has three game plans:

(a) The consolidation play with 14/8 13/10(2), leaving him firmly in control with a nice edge, or

(b) Consolidation plus a little attack with 24/21 14/8 6/3*, or

(c) All-out blitz with either 13/4*/1* or 13/4* 6/3*.

What’s the right idea?

Here’s the general approach for handling these sorts of positions. If your opponent has no structure, and the cube has already been turned (activating gammons), then the blitz dominates any safe game plan. If the blitz fails, White can just drop back into some sort of holding game where he holds a slight edge. If White makes one of the solid plays, he’ll reach those holding games anyway since almost all of Black’s rolls will anchor somewhere. White will be slightly better off if he goes for the holding game right away, because of his racing lead, but the difference is small. But if the blitz succeeds White wins a gammon, and with the cube already turned that’s a quick four points and a huge swing.

As Black acquires more structure, the blitz drops in value. If we alter Black’s position and give him his 5-point (as though he had rolled a 3-1 at some time), then the blitz plays are only slightly superior to the consolidating plays. If we give Black two extra points, say the 5-point and the 3-point, then the blitz plays become pretty big errors and the consolidating plays becomes correct. (There’s very little difference between Play (a) and Play (b) no matter what structure Black has.)

So we’re blitzing. Next question: what’s the right way to blitz?

What makes this problem especially interesting is that White has two distinct ways to blitz: the obvious 13/4*/1* and the obviously riskier 13/4* 6/3*. Problems with two plausible blitzing moves are rare, but we can choose between them by noticing that the double-hit with 13/4*/1* exposes only one blot in the board, and a hit may only allow Black to get an ace-point game later. If White hits on the 3-point and 4-point with two checkers and Black then throws a three or four, he may get a good anchor quickly. The two blitzing plays are close (and far superior to the non-blitzing plays) but the play that exposes only one inside blot is slightly better.

 

 

Where to Leave Blots

Jul 14, 2022 |

Both positions: Cash game. Center cube. White on move.

(a) White to play 5-4.

(b) White to play 6-2.

In Problem 140A, White has no way to safety the blot on his 16-point. In fact, he can’t avoid creating a second blot as well. He has a few reasonable plays: 13/4, 16/11 13/9, 16/11 6/2, 13/8 13/9, and 6/1* 13/9. None of these plays look terribly strong. How should he decide among them?

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Bearing In Against the Ace-Point

Jul 1, 2022 |

Cash game. Black owns the cube. White on move.

White to play 5-1.

When bearing in against an ace-point or other low anchor game, you generally have two goals in mind. The first is safety; you want to create formations that are less likely to leave blots as you bear off. The second is winning a gammon; you’d like to maximize your chances of winning a gammon if you can.

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Split or Run?

Jun 15, 2022 |

Cash game. Center cube. White on move.

White to play 5-2

The early part of a backgammon game is dominated by two key goals: hit blots and make points. The easy moves are the ones where you can only do one good thing. The hard moves are those where you can do two good things, and you have to make a tough choice, or no really good things, and you have to decide how best to arrange your checkers for future action.

This position is an example of the latter situation. White can’t make any points with a 5-2 roll, and his only hit, 6/1*, doesn’t accomplish anything good. So he has to shuffle his checkers around somehow and get ready for action next turn.

My cardinal rule in these positions comes from the medical profession: “First, do no harm.” In backgammon terms, that means don’t try plays that make your distribution worse rather than better. Here, I’ll reject 13/8 for just that reason. After 13/8, White has gone from a nice position with a spare on both the 13-point and 8-point to a position with a small stack on the 8-point and no spares on the midpoint. That’s not an improvement, so let’s reject all the plays involving 13/8.

Since we’ve already rejected the awful 6/1*, we’re now left with just two candidates: 23/18 13/11 and 23/16. Running all the way out and trying to escape with 23/16 is the safer play: fewer ways to get hit and fewer blots. Since Black has a better board right now, extra safety is not a bad idea.

The alternative, 23/18 13/11, tries for a bit more. White creates a new blot and exposes himself to more hits in return for a chance to make a great anchor on Black’s bar-point. The problem with the move is a bit subtle. The purpose of the new blot on the 11-point is to give White some extra chances to make his 5-point with rolls like 6-3 and 6-1. However, White won’t have a chance to execute those threats because he’ll most likely be on the bar next turn. Black is going to hit on his bar-point with all his ones and sixes, and he will probably hit on his ace-point with fives as well. In fact, Black’s only non-hitting numbers are 4-3 and 4-4, and 4-3 actually makes White’s 5-point, rendering the blot on the 11-point somewhat useless!

Here’s a quick rule of thumb: a move like 13/11 is excellent when you have an anchor somewhere, so the blot on the 11-point is a useful builder immediately. It’s not so useful when a hitting contest is about to ensue on the other side of the board. As long as the battle for Black’s bar-point is unresolved, a blot on the 11-point is really just an extra target. Play the simple 23/16 instead and try to escape a checker.

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