Wednesday, November 18, 2020

My greatest misses, part 1: a subtle detail on bearing off

Okay, I'm only an advanced level backgammon player dreaming of playing on expert level some day, but maybe my worst blunders can be instructive to other non-pros. 

Here's one you might enjoy. It might be trivial for you, and I'm embarassed that I missed it. I learned - situations that look like "there's only one move so don't even start thinking" are still worth thinking.

 

Here I didn't think. It was clear, there is only one checker that can move the 6, so I moved 8-2. Then I needed to move the 4, so I moved 3-off. XG tells me this is a horrible blunder worth half a point (0.44 to be precise). 

The right move is to move the 4 first - 8-4, and then bear off the 6 with 4-off, leaving no blot.



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