{"id":727,"date":"2025-11-30T06:50:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T06:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/?page_id=727"},"modified":"2025-11-30T06:50:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T06:50:26","slug":"a-simple-late-game-position","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/gammonrants.org\/index.php\/a-simple-late-game-position\/","title":{"rendered":"A simple late-game position"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Unless you know better, chances are you believe Backgammon is a simple game of luck. And it is a game of luck. Most matches are won by the luckier player. And in a match to 5 or 7 points, me, a lowly PR 10 or so player can sometimes beat a top player. In Chess, I can play a thousand games against a Grandmaster and will not win a single one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that doesn’t mean that there is no complexity in Backgammon. I find this shows best in positions that are almost trival. Positions where you may think you can compute the actual best move by applying probability theory. And at least I always fail, because even the simplest positions can be tricky to calculate in your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Match to 21. Red leads 14:4. He rolls a 61. What is the best move?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love this layout of BGBlitz, but talking about the colors is weird. Is this orange? Is it green or blue? I go for orange and green \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orange is 28 pips behind. If green gets his checker past the two red stones, he most likely wins. And both have a strong 5 point board. If one of them hits he will most likely win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now red has two fundamental options: keep the two checkers on the 18 point and wait for the green checker to arrive for a lucky hit. Or split the two checkers with the 1, and double his changes to hit, but also risk the chance of being hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you think?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My thinking was: if I (I’m orange) do not split and play 8\/2 8\/7 or so, in all likelihood I will get a single direct hit afterwards. So in 10 out of 36 cases I will probably win after hitting. If I split the two checkers, the probability of getting hit with a 63 or 54 is only 4\/36, while the probability to hit green is about twice as high – 20 out of 36, so the risk is worth it, particularly as I’m behind in the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it turns out I was right \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Splitting with 18\/17 8\/2 is the way to go. Not splitting is nearly 0.1 blunder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, in the actual game things didn’t continue smoothly. I split, resulting in a lot of hitting and lucky entering on both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unless you know better, chances are you believe Backgammon is a simple game of luck. And it is a game of luck. Most matches are won by the luckier player. And in a match to 5 or 7 points, me, a lowly PR 10 or so player can sometimes beat a top player. In Chess, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","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-727","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t