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2008 Chicago Open Position

By Phil Simborg

In our Semi-final match of the Doubles Championships of the <a href="/chicago-open-abt-tournament.html">Chicago Open</a> this year (Memorial Day Weekend, May 23-26) my partner and I were faced with a very difficult play.

We were winning 6-4 in a match to 7, and we were holding a two cube, and we had to play 2-1. (See Position 1 below.)

Clearly we had to decide between two choices: hitting, which we knew would probably win us more games but could get us gammoned and lose the match if things go wrong, or playing safe, which safeguards gammons and still gives us decent winning chances.

What play would you make?

Position 1

We made the right play. We hit. As you can see, it is hugely right to hit according to Snowie’s rollouts. See Position 2 below.)

Position 2

I certainly wasn’t sure about our play, but we did hit, and we did not get hit back, and we went on to win the game and the match easily.

I discussed this position with Dana Nazarian, a good friends and one of the top backgammon players in the world (in my humble opinion). I think if you look at Dana’s thought process you will not only understand why the hit is right, but you will get some insight into how the mind of a truly great players works.

My gut feel over board would be to hit, and when I first looked at it, I thought it was pretty obvious.

Over the board with the match on the line. I would definitely have taken an additional step. Here's a trick when confronted with 2 choices of totally different themes. Turn it into a math problem...that takes all the emotion/anxiety out of it (that is unless you get anxious on the math):.

<>You win (ME=100%) You lose (ME=50%), You lose gammon (ME=0%). So wins trade off 1-1 with g's

If you don't hit, you're 8 down on the race (out of 89) and she's on shake. In a straight race w/ no contact, she'd be about 70%+ favorite, right?. But since theres contact, you have to derate that.. Let's derate it to 60%. OK, if you whimp out, you win 40% and get g'd approx 5% (you can't say you don't ever get g'd because you might hit loose next time)

<>If you hit:

<>She misses or fans 55% of the time. You won't win all of them, but I'd guess you'd net 45%.

She hits and you enter (45%) * (55%) = approx 50%. I'd say you net at least 15% from that..

<>She hits back and you fan 45% * 45% = approx 20%. Let's say you get g'd in all of them (won't happen but for the sake of argument).

Netting it all out:

If you don't hit, you win 40% and get g'd 5%

If you hit, you win 60% and get g'd 20%

So you win 20% more but get g'd 15% more. Verdict: hit! and don't panic. If you're math estimates were wrong, they'd have to be wrong by a lot!”