From Newsgroup: rec.games.backgammon

"Doctor Xavier, Doctor Xavier,
My PR is suffering from overpressing on blitzes!"

"Well, don't blitz so often then!"

I played 8/1* which turns out to be a blunder.
I wasn't hugely surprised because this experience
of being dinged for over-blitzing is very familiar to me.

But I'd love to get more guidelines as to how to avoid this.
I saw many blitzing indicators. 11/36 returns doesn't seem
too many, the opponent has no board. It's true that I don't have
a huge number of covers but this can quickly changed.
I totally agree that "resulting" is bad practice. However, my
play was vindicated here when my equity soon swung up to 0.82
as the blitz progressed.

Comments are welcome. This is a very theoretical part of the game.
Obviously, no world-class player would make the same mistake I did.
And I'm sure Tim and Bradley wouldn't either.
(Tim has given some indicators of his strenght but Bradley hasn't.
Bradley might be a world-class player too for all I know).

Incidentally, this shows a problem with taking evaluations too seriously.
For this particular game, my PR was 4.5 -- "World Class" even though
I proved myself to be a sub-world-class player.

Paul


XGID=aa-B-BC-A---dE---d-e----B-:1:-1:1:43:0:0:0:11:10

X:Daniel O:XG Roller+
Score is X:0 O:0 11 pt.(s) match.
+13-14-15-16-17-18------19-20-21-22-23-24-+
| X O | | O X | +---+
| X O | | O X | | 2 |
| X O | | O | +---+
| X O | | O |
| X | | O |
| |BAR| |
| | O | |
| O | | |
| O | | X |
| O | | X X X |
| O X | | X X X O |
+12-11-10--9--8--7-------6--5--4--3--2--1-+
Pip count X: 155 O: 163 X-O: 0-0/11
Cube: 2, O own cube
X to play 43

1. XG Roller+ 24/20 13/10 eq:+0.351
Player: 64.54% (G:25.51% B:1.28%)
Opponent: 35.46% (G:7.63% B:0.34%)

2. XG Roller+ 8/1* eq:+0.230 (-0.121)
Player: 60.01% (G:26.79% B:0.69%)
Opponent: 39.99% (G:9.49% B:0.45%)

3. 4-ply 13/9 8/5 eq:+0.336 (-0.015)
Player: 63.79% (G:26.45% B:1.26%)
Opponent: 36.21% (G:8.17% B:0.38%)

4. 4-ply 13/10 13/9 eq:+0.334 (-0.017)
Player: 64.03% (G:25.98% B:1.35%)
Opponent: 35.97% (G:8.55% B:0.48%)

5. 4-ply 24/21 13/9 eq:+0.322 (-0.029)
Player: 63.79% (G:24.86% B:1.11%)
Opponent: 36.21% (G:7.95% B:0.36%)


eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.10, MET: Kazaross XG2
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From Newsgroup: rec.games.backgammon

On 2/11/2024 5:35 AM, peps...@gmail.com wrote:

"Doctor Xavier, Doctor Xavier,
My PR is suffering from overpressing on blitzes!"

"Well, don't blitz so often then!"

I played 8/1* which turns out to be a blunder.
I wasn't hugely surprised because this experience
of being dinged for over-blitzing is very familiar to me.

But I'd love to get more guidelines as to how to avoid this.

Well, the following heuristic is a rather crude one, but you
have only 8 checkers in the zone, which is not really enough
for a blitz. On top of that, the points you have, and the
position of the opponent's blot in your home board (on the
ace point) means that you have good priming potential. Hitting
on the 1pt is a committal move which goes all out for a blitz
and risks losing much of your edge if your opponent hits back.
Other plays improve both your blitzing and your priming games
with almost no risk.

---
Tim Chow
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