This week’s one is fresh off the internet – having a FIBS League fixture against Christopher Osborne (COsborne) to play before getting down to write, this position kicked off a bit of a discussion. Don’t ask how I ended up with a 4-cube, nor how close I was to getting gammoned at the very end – I was just grateful not to fan at this point! Something’s got to give here. It would be great to come on Black’s 6 point, but then do you step out into the firing line, leave a second shot, or break up a board which might come in useful very soon? Or do you hang back on Black’s acepoint and risk not being able to get moving?

[Read more…]

After a bit of a hiatus while on my travels, we are back with another position from the St. Albans chouette courtesy of Sean Clennell. Andrew Fotiadis is captain of a team of five, and has just rolled a 64:

All the team argued for running 21/11, leaving Black seven pips up on roll and with a big pile of cubes ominously to his left. Chouettes are not democracies, however, and Andrew held back for a shot, even though it would likely need a 7 to hit (Sean didn’t say if he played 12/2 or 12/6 5/1 – if you think there’s a worthwhile difference between them then do comment!). Who was right? Would a creative combination, stepping out to Black’s eight-point to pick up some direct shots, be any better? The floor is yours…

[Read more…]

This week’s offering came from the final of the All Backgammon Group‘s recurring Champion/Challenger tournament – an interesting twist where every few days a group of four challengers play a small round-robin for the right to play the Champion in a 9-pointer. If the Champion wins, the defeated challenger joins the next three names on the list for the subsequent attempt to unseat him; if not, the Challenger takes over and the ex-champion drops to the back of the queue. Anyway, I’m Blue defending my position against Richard Furborough (furbster) and this one came up…

Unlike last time, the right play is really quite obvious, so there’s no need to look too deeply. However, there are also two wrong plays that are also quite obvious. The three possibilities are also thematically very different, so you’ll need to know what you are trying to achieve to get this one right. For extra brownie points, rank the top three plays in order…

 

POTW #5 may be delayed as I’ll be at the UK Open at the Ricoh Arena all next weekend… 

[Read more…]

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. 

Spoiler alert – if you haven’t read Position of the Week 1 already, you might wish to go back and see that before reading to the bottom of this post!

Graham Davidson writes:

I am a member of a small backgammon club in Sydney. I recently posted a problem which I thought was pretty interesting – but didn’t get much feedback 😊  Now it could be that it is too flaming simple for the typical backgammoner mind, lol – or it could be that I posted the answer after XG analysis, and no-one wanted to add to that.

[Read more…]