Newsletter for 15 March 2005

Tournament News

1st place:  Steve Blake
2nd place:  Henry Chaboki
3rd place:  Tom Fahland and Fred Kamgar (split)

Current Master Points Standings

Steve Blake       40
Henry Chaboki     33
Tom Fahland       27
Adrian Costa      23
Jason Lee         21
Fred Kamgar       15
Bruce Haight      15
Sheldon Woytek    12
Bruce Discher      9
Eric Sedehi        9
Osman Guner        6
Cyrus Mobedshahi   4
Bill Devine        3
Jon Vietor         2
Mark Weiner        2
Dennis Frieden     1

The point leader at the end of the year will be named the BCSD Player of the Year, and the top 16 in the Master Point standings will be invited to the 2005 BCSD Tournament of Champions, to be held in early 2006.

Problem of the Week

White leads 5-3 in a match to 11. Pip counts: White 140, Black 16

Last Week's Problem of the Week

White leads 6-1 (crawford) in a match to 7. Pip counts: White 176, Black 110

The first thing to note is that Black definitely can use a gammon. When behind in a Crawford game and needing an even number of points to win the match, the trailer always values a gammon. By winning a gammon in this game, Black would trail only 6-3, and would then only need to win two (doubled) games or a doubled gammon.

With that in mind, Black is going for the gusto. With White having two checkers on the bar and only a one point board, Black can be as aggressive as he likes. The goal is to complete a closeout, so Black should attempt to create as many builders as possible. 13/9 brings a builder down, and the only way to create a new builder is 7/6!

Should Black be worried about the blots he's got strewn about? Not really. White needs any 5 or 3-3 to anchor -- 24 rolls leave White anchorless, at which time Black can bear down with all guns. This is the time to be aggressive, in search of a gammon.

Take note that just being behind in the match isn't always enough. The situation must dictate whether or not a gammon has real benefit. Note that the GNU rollout shows that the top two candidate plays win the same number of games, but the winner takes home more gammons.

#		Ply	Move	Equity
	1	R	13/9 7/6	+1.411
			0.822 0.607 0.012 - 0.178 0.030 0.001 +1.411 0.001 0.001 0.000 - 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.003
			Truncated cubeless rollout (depth 11) (trunc. at one-sided bearoff) with var.redn.
			1296 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 990189248 and quasi-random dice
			Stop when best play is enough JSDs ahead: limit 2.5 (min. 1296 games)
			Play: 0-ply cubeful
			Cube: 0-ply cubeful
	2	R	18/14 7/6	+1.379 ( -0.033)
			0.822 0.581 0.011 - 0.178 0.029 0.001 +1.379 0.001 0.001 0.000 - 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.003
			Truncated cubeless rollout (depth 11) (trunc. at one-sided bearoff) with var.redn.
			1296 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 990189248 and quasi-random dice
			Stop when best play is enough JSDs ahead: limit 2.5 (min. 1296 games)
			Play: 0-ply cubeful
			Cube: 0-ply cubeful
	3	R	18/13	+1.317 ( -0.094)
			0.818 0.539 0.009 - 0.182 0.028 0.001 +1.317 0.001 0.001 0.000 - 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.003
			Truncated cubeless rollout (depth 11) (trunc. at one-sided bearoff) with var.redn.
			1296 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 990189248 and quasi-random dice
			Stop when best play is enough JSDs ahead: limit 2.5 (min. 1296 games)
			Play: 0-ply cubeful
			Cube: 0-ply cubeful
	4	R	13/8	+1.297 ( -0.114)
			0.805 0.544 0.009 - 0.195 0.033 0.001 +1.297 0.001 0.001 0.000 - 0.001 0.000 0.000 0.003
			Truncated cubeless rollout (depth 11) (trunc. at one-sided bearoff) with var.redn.
			1296 games, Mersenne Twister dice gen. with seed 990189248 and quasi-random dice
			Stop when best play is enough JSDs ahead: limit 2.5 (min. 1296 games)
			Play: 0-ply cubeful
			Cube: 0-ply cubeful

See you next week! Keep tossing those cubes,
J. Lee