The Correct Play in Backgammon Chouette

My first thought was to come in with the 5 and split the back checkers. The problem with that is that if I did that, I was pretty sure Black would be able to escape his back checker or point on me.  Even if neither of those two horrible things happened, I still needed to roll a 4 to hit his back checker, and even then, he would have a return shot. So I didn’t like that option and began to look for other options. 

One of the players on my team jokingly suggested that we come in on the 5-point and hit him on our 4-point. A couple of people laughed, but I moved the checkers to look at it, and none of us liked it. So I moved the checkers back to the other play, and I didn’t like that either. So it became a choice of two things I didn’t like.

So we took a little more time and started looking at the odds. If I made the first play, it looked like just about every 6 or 5 was good for him, and that’s 20 rolls, and all of those escape his back checker. In addition to that, he could make his 5-point and hit me at the same time with 3-1, 6-1, 6-3, 3-3, 4-4. He could also point on his 1 or 2 point and hit me at the same time with 4-2, 5-3, 5-1, 6-2, and 6-4. Wow! That’s a heck of a lot of good rolls, most of which would end the game or maybe even get us gammoned!

Then I looked at the hitting play, and instantly knew that if he rolled a 4 or 5 we were in big trouble, and that’s 20 out of 36 rolls. But the 16 times he misses, we were in great shape, and even if he hits, if we roll an immediate 5 and make his 5-point, or one of the lower doubles or combinations, we still had a decent game.

So over the laughter and objections of some of my teammates, I made the hitting play. One of my partners was so against the play that we agreed, as we often do, to make a bet on it and settle it with Snowie. 

As you can see below, Snowie said the hit is right by a tremendous amount.

For any readers not familiar with Snowie, it is a backgammon program that estimates the winning and losing chances of any play or cube situation, and it is generally better than any player in the world (some debate this however, but I believe it). 

The Snowie evaluation shows that if we hit we will win the game 45.9% of the time and win a gammon 28.1% of the time, but if we make the other play we win only 43.5% and win gammons only 17.1%. Now, with the hitting play you do lose 6% more gammons, but that is not really that big a factor since White is likely to redouble if he hits you and that would end the game without a gammon.

1. Sometimes the ridiculous-looking play might be right;
2. Sometimes you are forced to choose a play that you don’t like, but it hate it less than the options;
3. If you are playing in a group, or chouette, you had better have thick skin and be willing to stick to your convictions;
4. You have to do the math. Backgammon is always about the odds, and it you consistently make the plays that have the best odds, you will win more.