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  • A question about the classic holding game

    From pepstein5@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 10 05:48:27 2022
    You see it time and time again. The opponent holds the midpoint and
    your 5 point and you have a racing advantage. You're hoping to win
    by racing home without getting hit. Typically, you double if you're 20 points ahead or more. If it's not too much more than 20, it's an easy take. Sometimes, while you're waiting to double, you lose your market with
    big doubles. Okay, these are a few mundane observations, but where's
    the question? Well, I just asked one in the previous sentence didn't I?
    Okay, but do you have an actual backgammon question?
    Yes, of course I do, or I wouldn't have titled my post the way I did.
    Ok, so what is the backgammon question?
    My question is: Given that the opponent holds the midpoint and your
    5 point and you still need to get past them, what are the conditions
    under which you can double them out, not just double. In my version
    of EpsteinGammon, the answer is almost never. I always take those cubes but I lose a lot of points from XG by bad takes that way. Hence my question.

    Thank You,

    Paul

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  • From Timothy Chow@21:1/5 to peps...@gmail.com on Wed Apr 13 08:26:51 2022
    On 4/10/2022 8:48 AM, peps...@gmail.com wrote:
    My question is: Given that the opponent holds the midpoint and your
    5 point and you still need to get past them, what are the conditions
    under which you can double them out, not just double. In my version
    of EpsteinGammon, the answer is almost never. I always take those cubes but I lose a lot of points from XG by bad takes that way. Hence my question.

    Stick's book presumably discusses this in detail, although I haven't
    bought it. One thing to watch for is that if you own both your bar
    point and your 8pt then that tends to be significantly more dangerous
    for your opponent than if you own only your 8pt. Another thing is
    that if your pip count lead is higher, say in 30-pip territory, then
    your opponent's racing vig goes down and it might be a drop. One
    last thing is that if your opponent's home-board position is weak and
    you're on the verge of a pay-now-or-later decision then it is also
    bad for your opponent, because hitting a shot won't necessarily win.

    ---
    Tim Chow

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