Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Why should I not drop here?

In my last match against XG2, I thought I was clever and XG2 refused to believe that I am. I'm still stunned why my thinking is wrong.

Match to 7, I'm leading 6:4, Crawford game. I roll an initial 62 which I consider poor. XG2 actually agrees, rates my position after that 62 as -0.3. 

XG2 does the automatic double, and I think "well I have three attempts to win that one point, I'm sure I get a better first roll than 62 in one of these two. I drop.

XG2 then tells me I've wasted 0.7 equity and played this like a total beginner. XG2 can be cruel in its assessment of us humans.

The match continued with a next game that I correctly dropped after two unlucky rolls, and a final game in which my first roll was a beautiful 42, so I could start with 8/4 6/4 which is a much better start than the above...

Update: it turns out (thanks to David Startin on Twitter) that my reasoning was, well, flawed. Yes, I only need to win one more game, but a game is more than a good start. So by passing I gave away a match where XG needed to win two games (the first to 6-6, then a final one), the first of which had a mediocre start for me, for a match where I got a better start but XG needed to win only one game, which clearly is a big blunder.

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