It makes a difference how ugly X's board is before and after the dumping
play. X's board is ugly here but 8/2 6/1 is not much of an improvement.
I constructed a variant below in which the dumping play significantly
improves X's board.
1. Rollout¹ 24/13 eq:-0.721
Player: 22.85% (G:5.64% B:0.24%)
Opponent: 77.15% (G:31.81% B:0.48%)
Confidence: ±0.007 (-0.729..-0.714) - [100.0%]
2. Rollout¹ 8/2 6/1 eq:-0.833 (-0.112)
Player: 16.86% (G:3.26% B:0.07%)
Opponent: 83.14% (G:24.33% B:1.45%)
Confidence: ±0.006 (-0.839..-0.827) - [0.0%]
¹ 1296 Games rolled with Variance Reduction.
Dice Seed: 271828
Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: XG Roller
eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.19.207.pre-release
-------
Variant
-------
XGID=-AA-BACbC-a-aB-a---bbbbbB-:1:1:1:65:0:0:0:0:10
X:Player 1 O:Player 2
Score is X:0 O:0. Unlimited Game
+13-14-15-16-17-18------19-20-21-22-23-24-+
| X O | | O O O O O X |
| X | | O O O O O X |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| |BAR| |
| | | |
| | | |
| X | | X | +---+
| X O | | X X | | 2 |
| O O X O | | X X X X X | +---+
+12-11-10--9--8--7-------6--5--4--3--2--1-+
Pip count X: 132 O: 114 X-O: 0-0
Cube: 2, X own cube
X to play 65
XG 3-ply still plays 24/13 here, but the rollout favors 8/2 6/1.
1. Rollout¹ 8/2 6/1 eq:-0.761
Player: 19.20% (G:4.22% B:0.07%)
Opponent: 80.80% (G:24.36% B:1.28%)
Confidence: ±0.006 (-0.767..-0.755) - [100.0%]
2. Rollout¹ 24/13 eq:-0.815 (-0.054)
Player: 19.69% (G:6.04% B:0.18%)
Opponent: 80.31% (G:34.04% B:0.70%)
Confidence: ±0.007 (-0.822..-0.808) - [0.0%]
¹ 1296 Games rolled with Variance Reduction.
Dice Seed: 271828
Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: XG Roller
eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.19.207.pre-release
---
Tim Chow