{"id":223,"date":"2022-09-24T10:11:21","date_gmt":"2022-09-24T10:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/?page_id=223"},"modified":"2022-10-12T15:02:20","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T15:02:20","slug":"a-seemingly-easy-position-or-why-i-love-backgammon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/index.php\/a-seemingly-easy-position-or-why-i-love-backgammon\/","title":{"rendered":"A seemingly easy position (or: why I love backgammon)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Came across a wonderful backgammon position today (on DailyGammon). At first glance, it is totally trival. All the complications are gone. In three rolls the game will be decided.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still I managed to squeeze a blunder of nearly 0.2 equity out of it. After 10 minutes of thinking. With a piece of paper. And a calculator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s how mysteriously complicated backgammon can be, even in its most simple positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here we go:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/endgame-1024x726.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/endgame-1024x726.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/endgame-300x213.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/endgame-768x545.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/endgame-1536x1089.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/endgame-2048x1452.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>White&#8217;s turn. Cube action? <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a match to 15, score is 2:2.Should white double? Should black take?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have still not figured out how to solve this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What&#8217;s your suggestion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<strong>Spoiler starts here.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The trivial part is:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>if white rolls 44, 55, 66, white wins (1\/12 probability)<\/li><li>if white rolls something else, and black rolls a double, black wins (11\/12*1\/6 probability)<\/li><li>if white rolls something else, black rolls no double, then black has only a single checker on 1 and will win for sure. Unless white can bear off the three stones in two rolls.<br>But how likely is this?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I was black, my opponent (correctly) doubled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I arrived at the conclusion that I need 25% wins to take, the second dot gave me only 15%. So I need to win about 10% of all games in case 3. Since even with a 21 roll, white still has many combinations to win, I concluded that nearly all 2-roll combinations will bring the three checkers home and passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tuns out, the correct cube action is double\/take. In this position, black will win almost 30% of games (28,97%, actually; I even did a rollout).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I still have no clue how somebody might solve this OTB. And I&#8217;m still amazed that such a simple position is so difficult to solve. But that&#8217;s the beauty of backgammon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Came across a wonderful backgammon position today (on DailyGammon). At first glance, it is totally trival. All the complications are gone. In three rolls the game will be decided.&nbsp; Still I managed to squeeze a blunder of nearly 0.2 equity out of it. After 10 minutes of thinking. With a piece of paper. And a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-223","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":225,"href":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/223\/revisions\/225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}