Early blitz cube

[Timothy Chow]

XGID=a--AaCC-B---dD-A-c-cA-b-a-:0:0:1:00:0:0:0:0:10

X:Player 2 O:Player 1
Score is X:0 O:0. Unlimited Game
+13-14-15-16-17-18------19-20-21-22-23-24-+
| X X O | | O X O O |
| X O | | O O |
| X O | | O |
| X | | |
| | | |
| |BAR| |
| | O | |
| O | | |
| O | | X X |
| O X | | X X |
| O X | | X X O X |
+12-11-10--9--8--7-------6--5--4--3--2--1-+
Pip count X: 139 O: 147 X-O: 0-0
Cube: 1
X on roll, cube action

---
Tim Chow

[peps...@gmail.com]

D/T -- there are enough crushing threats to make a cube turn mandatory but good things can happen for the opponent too.
The opponent might anchor or hit back.

I am much more confident in the double than the take.
D/P wouldn't surprise me either, but D/T is my choice.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear a hit single by Tim about how he didn't think it was a pass.
We know about the pop-music genre "Lost love songs" but, actually, Bad Take songs are almost as popular.

Paul

[Stick Rice]

The blot on the opponent's ace point (checker out of play) is a massive thorn in the side for the player being cubed.

Stick

[peps...@gmail.com]

Yes, I figured that which is why I thought a pass was certainly likely.
I couldn't decide between pass or marginal take.
If it's a big pass, I should drink two strong black coffees as a punishment.
It would be a big punishment because coffee needs milk and sugar in my opinion.

Paul

[Timothy Chow]

Stick's comment exactly coincides with why I posted this position.
OTB, I made my usual inventory: 9 checkers in the zone, two-point board
with a blot, back checkers partially escaped, O has a blot on X's
4pt but no other blots in the outfield, O has made her 3pt. I concluded
that this one should be close, and I took.

What I didn't pay much attention to OTB was O's blot on her 1pt. I
decided to post this problem to help me remember to include that in
my standard inventory. See the variant below.

Analyzed in Rollout
No double
Player Winning Chances: 72.71% (G:32.55% B:1.11%)
Opponent Winning Chances: 27.29% (G:6.07% B:0.27%)
Double/Take
Player Winning Chances: 72.85% (G:33.14% B:1.16%)
Opponent Winning Chances: 27.15% (G:6.46% B:0.32%)

Cubeful Equities:
No double: +0.927 (-0.073)
Double/Take: +1.257 (+0.257)
Double/Pass: +1.000

Best Cube action: Double / Pass

Rollout:
1296 Games rolled with Variance Reduction.
Dice Seed: 271828
Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: XG Roller
Confidence No Double: ± 0.010 (+0.916..+0.937)
Confidence Double: ± 0.017 (+1.239..+1.274)

eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.19.207.pre-release

-------
Variant
-------

XGID=a--AaCC-B---dD-A-c-dA-b---:0:0:1:00:0:0:0:0:10

X:Player 2 O:Player 1
Score is X:0 O:0. Unlimited Game
+13-14-15-16-17-18------19-20-21-22-23-24-+
| X X O | | O X O |

| X O | | O O |
| X O | | O |

| X | | O |

| | | |
| |BAR| |
| | O | |
| O | | |
| O | | X X |
| O X | | X X |
| O X | | X X O X |
+12-11-10--9--8--7-------6--5--4--3--2--1-+

Pip count X: 139 O: 152 X-O: 0-0

Cube: 1
X on roll, cube action

Analyzed in Rollout
No double
Player Winning Chances: 69.08% (G:28.21% B:0.74%)
Opponent Winning Chances: 30.92% (G:7.11% B:0.31%)
Double/Take
Player Winning Chances: 69.14% (G:29.77% B:0.82%)
Opponent Winning Chances: 30.86% (G:7.41% B:0.38%)

Cubeful Equities:
No double: +0.776 (-0.199)
Double/Take: +0.975
Double/Pass: +1.000 (+0.025)

Best Cube action: Double / Take

Rollout:
1296 Games rolled with Variance Reduction.
Dice Seed: 271828
Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: XG Roller
Confidence No Double: ± 0.011 (+0.765..+0.787)
Confidence Double: ± 0.017 (+0.958..+0.992)

eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.19.207.pre-release

---
Tim Chow

[peps...@gmail.com]

So variantizing to eliminate O's acepoint blot generally
puts us in marginal pass/take territory (depending of course
on exactly how we variantize)?

Stimmt dass?

Paul

[Timothy Chow]

On 2/20/2022 6:25 AM, peps...@gmail.com wrote:
> So variantizing to eliminate O's acepoint blot generally
> puts us in marginal pass/take territory (depending of course
> on exactly how we variantize)?
>
> Stimmt dass?

Well, I kind of think of it more as a "point count" system.
Actually I don't have a formal system of assigning points, but
if I did, I would assign something like +1 or +2 or -1 or -2 to
various features of a position and add them all up to help make
a cube decision. O's ace-point blot is almost as valuable to X as
covering X's own 3pt blot.

---
Tim Chow