Which 6 to play?
Do you have any good rule of thumb on which 6 to play, when jumping out or moving down? I see that in general jumping out from 24 point is preferred. But I have troubles understanding why... Like in this specific case there are so many numbers that hit when we jump 24/18. Why is so much worse to move 13/7?
2 Replies
We are behind in the race here. Getting hit on the 18 won’t change that, and our opponent’s board isn’t all that threatening. Since he is ahead in the race, he will be less inclined to take risks by hitting loose. The real reason is the return shots. If he hits loose on the 7 and we hit back, it’s not that big of a deal for him. He still will have a significant race lead. If he gets hit back on the 18 he loses quite a lot and the race becomes pretty close. With our checkers on the 22 he is unlikely to want to hit loose with aces and threes since those will leave a double shot. Even if he rolls something like 61, 31 or 63 and does hit, we have return shots that could make the race close.
Short answer; we’re behind in the race. We have more to gain by a blot hitting contest than our opponent does. If we are going to start one it should be on his side of the board so we gain even more from it.
If I could add something : Bill Robertie will certainly say this is a connectivity problem, and Roland Herrera & Michihito Kageyama, a F13 one.
The result is the same : actually White does not directly watch the 14 point, the 22 checker (soon an anchor) is too far behind for this (White lacks of connectivity).
Putting the ace checker on 18 solves this problem, and allows White to get a direct shot on 14 point if Red put a blot on hit.
Look for instance how 41 roll now plays bad for Red.
