Note: All ‘cash game’ problems assume the Jacoby Rule is in effect. That is, you can’t win a gammon unless the cube has been turned.

This is a fairly simple problem, but it illustrates a common theme which occurs in some degenerate prime versus prime games. Let’s take a close look.

Here both Black and White got stuck in an ace-point game behind a prime. Although White had more men back, Black’s prime actually collapsed first as he couldn’t release his back men. Now Black has lost his 6-point, and White is thinking about doubling.

Currently White trails by 57 pips in the race (166 to 109) and has a checker on the bar. Those might sound like big drawbacks, but in fact they don’t matter much at all in these positions.

The following three features are the crucial ones:
(1) Black has four dead checkers, while all White’s men are in play.
(2) The game will go on a long time.
(3) On his next roll, Black has 16 numbers (5-3, 5-2, 4-3, 4-2, 3-2, 3-1, 2-1, 3-3, and 2-2) that kill one or more additional checkers.

It’s incredibly hard to play a game with eleven checkers against fifteen; the longer the game, the harder it gets. Here Black has not only lost the use of four checkers so far, but he has more breaking numbers than escaping numbers, so his game is likely to get worse.

White has no break numbers on his first turn, and he has to be very unlucky to ever roll a breaking sequence at all. Add all these factors together, and Black’s in terrible shape. The position is already a big double and an easy pass.