Michigan Summer Championship Match Analysis

This position analysis came up in a match I was watching at the Michigan Summer Championship in Novi over the 4^th of July.  Bill Davis, a very fine player from Chicago, was playing against Kit Woolsey in one of the later rounds of the backgammon tournament. Kit, by the way, is consistently rated one of the top players in the world and this was a very big match and big play for Bill. 

Bill was losing this match as White and was in a very desperate situation.  In the position below, he was losing 7-9 in the match to 11 and had to play 6-3. The big question here is, do you move one of your back checkers or not? (Note that black has 6 checkers on the 3 point, and at this score with the cube turned, gammons and backgammons don’t matter…all that matters is winning the game.)

See what you think and then scroll down.

Bill did not move one of his back checkers. Kit rolled well, did not leave a shot, and won the match.  After it was over, I asked Bill why he didn’t move off the ace point, stating that if he did, Kit would immediately leave a shot with a 1 or a 2.  I told Bill that is what I would have done. Bill defended his play, saying that he thinks he has a better chance by staying.  Kit joined in the conversation, and he agreed with Bill, and gave several reasons why he thought it was better to stay. 

I put the position in Snowie, and Snowie said they were wrong, and I was right, by a very little. At that moment, however, another one of the best players in the world was watching me, and he said he thought that Snowie was wrong and Kit was right. His name is Neil Kazaross, and along with Kit, he’s been listed as one of the top backgammon players in the world for many years. 

I found it hard to believe that those two could be wrong, so we did what we always do if we are not sure of Snowie’s answer…we put it into GNUBG and did a rollout there. Sure enough, GNUBG confirmed that Kit and Neil were right. As they both pointed out, by waiting you might roll an 1 and be able to split your back checkers and get a double shot.  If you split and your opponent rolls a 2, you have one shot to hit it, and if you don’t it’s all over. 

And both Kit and Neil pointed out the advantage of making the 5 point with the 6-3.  Several top backgammon players said they thought that making the 5 point was one of the key reasons not to split the back checkers. 

I got additional opinions and input from world class players including Mike Corbett, Perry Gartner, Stick Rice, and Scott Casty, and I have to tell you that I was not the only one who was pretty sure it was right to split the back checkers. Just then, another very top player walked by and looked at the position and when I told him about the debate, he pointed out something very insightful. His name is David Rockwell, and he has fast become recognized as a world-class player and one of the better players in the U.S.

David said that it’s not about making the 5 point and all, and he could prove it.  We changed the roll to 6-2 instead of 6-3 so that you could not make the 5 point even if you didn’t run, and sure enough, David was right. GNUBG evaluation and rollout still favored staying instead of running! 

So the key to this position is simply you will win more games by not splitting!

For those of you interested in the details of the rollout, a 1296 rollout on GNUBG showed that staying back on the 6-3 play was .035 better than running a back checker. The results with 6-2 were very close to the same.