There's an early-game heuristic that I learned from Nack Ballard:
either 5pt beats either 4pt. (You may find Stick's version more
memorable: either the 5pt or the 20pt beats either the 4pt or the
21pt.) Here, that would suggest making the 5pt rather than anchoring
on the 4pt. However, XG says that this position is an exception.
O's offensive position has developed enough that defending against
her threat to make her 4pt has increased significantly in value.
One way to think about it is that if X plays 8/5 6/5 and then O
points on X's head and X dances, then O will probably double. That's
quite a few bad sequences for X, whereas after 24/21 9/8, I'm having
a hard time seeing any sequences after which O would double.
In the variant, there are fewer ways for O to make her 4pt, and XG
thinks the decision is closer, but still wants to anchor.
1. Rollout¹ 24/21 9/8 eq:-0.107
Player: 46.98% (G:10.18% B:0.31%)
Opponent: 53.02% (G:10.08% B:0.38%)
Confidence: ±0.013 (-0.120..-0.094) - [100.0%]
2. Rollout¹ 8/5 6/5 eq:-0.189 (-0.082)
Player: 46.03% (G:13.63% B:0.80%)
Opponent: 53.97% (G:19.06% B:0.93%)
Confidence: ±0.017 (-0.205..-0.172) - [0.0%]
3. Rollout¹ 24/21 6/5 eq:-0.211 (-0.105)
Player: 44.87% (G:10.46% B:0.33%)
Opponent: 55.13% (G:13.26% B:0.49%)
Confidence: ±0.015 (-0.226..-0.196) - [0.0%]
¹ 1296 Games rolled with Variance Reduction.
Dice Seed: 271828
Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: XG Roller
eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.19.211.pre-release
-------
Variant
-------
XGID=-b----E-CA--dD---c-dbA--A-:0:0:1:31:0:0:0:0:10
Score is X:0 O:0. Unlimited Game
+13-14-15-16-17-18------19-20-21-22-23-24-+
| X O | | O O X X |
| X O | | O O |
| X O | | O |
| X | | O |
| | | |
| |BAR| |
| | | X |
| O | | X |
| O X | | X |
| O X | | X O |
| O X X | | X O |
+12-11-10--9--8--7-------6--5--4--3--2--1-+
Pip count X: 160 O: 158 X-O: 0-0
Cube: 1
X to play 31
1. Rollout¹ 24/21 9/8 eq:-0.083
Player: 47.25% (G:10.17% B:0.29%)
Opponent: 52.75% (G:9.74% B:0.39%)
Confidence: ±0.006 (-0.090..-0.077) - [100.0%]
2. Rollout¹ 8/5 6/5 eq:-0.113 (-0.029)
Player: 47.72% (G:14.39% B:0.76%)
Opponent: 52.28% (G:17.40% B:0.89%)
Confidence: ±0.008 (-0.121..-0.104) - [0.0%]
¹ 5184 Games rolled with Variance Reduction.
Dice Seed: 271828
Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: XG Roller
eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.19.211.pre-release
---
Tim Chow