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52S-22N-31P-32S-53P-44P-51Z-31 | |||||
In this position, the opponent White only has two spares in the zone. If Blue makes his 5pt, White will have only 5 rolls with which to make the 21pt on Blue's head.
If White cannot make the 21pt, hitting loose there is a mixed bag for him. From the bar, Blue would have at least 15 return shots. Any one of them could be fatal for White against Blue's four-point board. Note that Blue has cube access, so the game would end quickly in many of these variations.
On the other hand, anchoring would give Blue a solid, balanced position. For the moment, at least, White would still be trapped with two checkers back on his 24pt. Blue might be able to give up his midpoint, and use those checkers with only moderate risk to fill-in some of the open points in his block.
Over the board, I would probably anchor in this position.
Here is some of the counting I did:
Choice 1: Make 5pt + blot on 11pt + no anchor
Make 21pt: any 3 (11 rolls)
Make 18pt: 33 63 (3 rolls; all are duplicated)
Make 7pt: 11 33 66 41 61 64 (9 rolls; only 1 is duplicated)
Total: 19 rolls make at least one of these points.
Choice 2: Anchor + blot on 10pt
Make 5pt: 11 33 44 31 51 53 (9 rolls)
Make 7pt: 11 33 66 31 61 63 (9 rolls; 4 are duplicated)
Mike