Today’s position comes from one of my own matches online against DavidPrimo on GridGammon, playing one of the All Backgammon Group’s five-point tournaments. I’d gone 2-0 down after suffering a bit of a reverse in the first game leading to a redouble, and I suspect there was a certain degree of chagrin still involved as I played 13/8 22/21 hoping to take a rather speculative potshot at getting a third man back.
As I picked through the game log at the end, I couldn’t actually remember considering any alternatives here, which is a bad sign whether or not it was the right thing to do. (And I’m going to post positions where the contributor makes the correct play – you certainly can’t assume they all derive from errors!) So, over to you…
Answer
Perhaps this one didn’t lead anyone astray because it was a Position of the Week. It was certainly not easy to find over the board – and a salutory lesson in looking at all the possibilities for the whole move, not playing an “obvious” number first. Once you’ve played 13/8 and are looking around for whether 24/23 or 22/21 makes more sense, or if there’s another ace that helps, you’ve gone wrong – but from there it’s a bigger mental leap to put the man on the 8 back again and reconsider than it would have been had you surveyed the whole board at the start. Our silicon expert says:
All the signs are there for a strong play – Black once on the bar with two other men vulnerable and no offense to speak of; Blue has a really quite healthy three point board. You can’t afford to let Black anchor on your 5 and see a promising position fizzle out into a long holding game – it’s time to go for the jugular with 6/5* 6/1.
Other than your original idea, Julia the only other play I can see is 6/1 6/5*.
I think this position should have been cubed before rolling.
That would have made the 5-1 much easier to play, because after the cube (assuming black took) we need to blitz blue to death by playing 6-1, 6-5*
6/1 ; 6/5