A Cube Lesson From Las Vegas

By Phil Simborg

The ABT Las Vegas tournament this weekend is the toughest event in the U.S. Many of the best player in the world are there, and if you want to win, you had better play terrific. 

I got knocked out of the main event because of an error on the game below. Let’s see how you do. 

In this game, I was Black, and I did double, and my opponent took. I thought that I might well get another checker and win easily, and even if I didn’t I liked my odds. I thought wrong. I never got the second checker and as soon as I started bearing off, White came in and around and won the game and match. 

Later I ran the position in Snowie and it confirmed that it was an error to double, and an easy take for White.  

My reasoning wasn’t bad….I was a pretty big favorite to win this game, even if I don’t hit a second checker. But the problem is that if I double and win two points I am still an underdog in the match, but if I lose two points, it’s all over. Since White can’t get gammoned, White can theoretically take any position where he can win over 17 percent of the time, so it was far too early for me to double.