This position came from Sean Clennell, from the final of the most recent Bucksgammon High Rollers tournament. Sean is Blue against Anna Price (Black), and it’s only the third move of the game so we’re in a position that probably comes up regularly for most of us. Before reading on, decide what you’d do with the cube…

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After a brief break for the May bank holiday, we’re back with another position from the same match as last time. We’ve moved the score on a bit and it’s the third move of the twentieth game. This one left me scratching my head as while I blundered over the electronic board, and accepted that XG would ding my PR for it rather badly, my second choice also would have provoked the bot’s ire. What do you make of it?

A reminder – please do send in your best positions, we’d be delighted to feature them here, especially those with an interesting backstory!

Over on DailyGammon, Arthur Wright organises an annual series of international team challenges – 25-point matches between six teams of thirteen, starting in early January, with the final games wrapping up usually around Easter time. I was delighted to make the cut this year for the British Bulldogs and today’s position comes from my match with Perfect-Celle (Marcel) of the German Wunderbars, this year’s overall champions. A rather undeserved win for me, but sadly a 7-6 team loss.

Usually I simply run a match though eXtremeGammon and locate all my blunders as a way of finding positions for this column – but today it’s Marcel playing Blue in a position I would probably have missed over the board if the sides were swapped. Can you do better?

 

I’ve just spent a very pleasant weekend watching the live streaming from the Nordic Open, and in particular today’s final between Henrik Bang (Denmark) and Elias Kritikos (Norway). Many congratulations to Henrik for winning the tournament – one of the toughest – and to both for playing better than PR 4 over a very long match. Sadly there wasn’t a lot of British success to shout about this time. It’s notable that the Nordic leads the way in live streams with top quality broadcasts, all streamed matches available on Youtube after the event, expert commentary right from the opening round, and interviews with the players after the match.

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I returned from a delightfully laptop-free holiday (guaranteed to protect me from the temptation to check up on what’s going on at work!) to find – predictably – a big pile of emails. So apologies in advance that the analysis for the last couple hasn’t happened yet… I’m working on it.

However, that doesn’t stop me digging up another position from my win-less BMAB tournament in March this year. Once again I’m blue, I’m playing Lawrence Powell and with one point under my belt I haven’t yet caught sight of the PR carnage ahead of me.

The question is as always, what’s the best move in what appears to be quite an innocuous position. Although you could well ask, how could I possibly foul this one up?