| 167 | |
|---|---|
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| Opening 32Z | 162 |
Position ID: 4HPiASTgc/ABMA Match ID: MAEAAAAAAAAA | |
I am personally starting to play 32Z as an opening move now for its surprise value. My opponents will often misplay 32Z-11, 32Z-64, and even 32Z-43 and 32Z-44.
I’m curious to know which play your opps are finding with 32Z-11. I have a Gnu rollout [e f21] and a Snowie rollout [e f21 E59 677 N82]. Although f (float, 24/23 6/5(3)) is second best, it seems unlikely to me that someone would play it because of the way the 6/5 spare-floating part of the play looks. For now, I’ll assume best case for you that opps are playing the knee-jerk N (Near, 8/7(2) 6/5(2)) and giving up .082.
For 32Z-64, Gnu rollout is [H R27 S32 P60] (Snowie rollout is in progress). I’m guessing your opps play R (Run, 24/14) to duplicate 2s, a .027 error (though conceivable is to make the 2pt, a .060 error). [Btw, for the related position 52S-64, Snowie is [H R9 P10] 31k and Gnu is [H R12 P17] 15k, and I often see R played for the same 2-dupe reason, or P played due to confusion with 54S-64.]
For 32Z-44, any error is juicy: Snowie trunc is [B R161 E169 P191]. I’ll guess opps are playing P (making the 5pt), an error of .191.
For 32Z-43, Snowie is [X H18] 20k, and Gnu is [X H8] 46k, say average it to [X H13]. According to trunc, the splitting plays of S and Z are -.094 and -.095, respectively. If opps fail to play X (hit and split, 24/20 6/3*) they probably aren’t splitting without hitting, so I’ll assume they’re playing H (Hit, 13/9 6/3*), an error of .013.
Making the very narrow assumption that opps are always playing these four errors (highly optimistic) and only these four errors (pessimistic) against 32Z, your gain is (.082 + .191) / 36 + (.027 + .013) / 18 = .010. Even assuming Opp never misplays against opening 32S, that’s not enough to justify playing Z rather than S, further assuming that current rollouts are our best estimate of value. Averaging the bots, S beats Z by .014. (Snowie [S Z17 D18] 31k, Gnu [S D6 Z12] 46k 5kU, and XG [S D7] -- sorry, someone didn't deem it worth rolling out Z. :))
OTOH, given that Z is only .004 or so worse than D theoretically, I think (for money) Z may currently be better than D against almost anyone in the world, and Z could well be better than S against players who have learned their opening plays by rote and really don’t know how to adjust (which include more people than would like to believe it). I think these days people must be playing against D well enough (just by imitating stronger players) that Z would induce more than an additional .004 error on average, and possibly closer to the .010 calculated in the previous paragraph.
In other words, it seems somewhat off base to me (except at GG) to include 32D in one’s opening repertoire and exclude 32Z; from a practical point of view, the latter is probably as strong a play or better. Granted, S and Z are similar in that they both split, and certain players might prefer D stylistically to steer towards a priming battle, create complexities, whatever, but that notion only goes so far. Splitting might lead to a simple holding game but it might also lead to an exchange of hits that will put multiple checkers back on one or both sides or other types of games.
Averaging full data for Snowie and Gnu, the complete list of 32Z responses I can imagine being misplayed are
32Z-11 [e f21 E59 677 N82]
32Z-21 [S H9 V40 U54 D79]
32Z-22 [N U29 M37 E38]
32Z-32 [K X7 H13 S49 Z84]
32Z-41 [U S13 T17 H18 h56]
32Z-43 [X H13 S94 Z95]
32Z-44 [B R161 E169 P191]
32Z-51 [R S1 X29 x52]
32Z-52 [S K4 X9 H18 D28 x35 h69]
32Z-64 [H R27 S32 P60]
32Z-65 [R S5 x105 X116 H119]
Try this: Consider the pool of all opps against whom you might try opening 32Z. Assign a probability you believe each of the above replies will be made (make sure each line adds to 100%), multiply each by its error size, add up the pieces in each line, divide by 18 (or 36 for a doublet), and sum the line values.
If you think Opp might misplay against 32S, you'll need to perform a similar analysis on that play and subtract the resulting amount (though the give-back will surely be only a fraction of what you gained). If you end up with a net that exceeds .014, you’ll do better playing Z (reverse split) than you will S (the standard split) for opening 32.
Personally, I’d like to see 32Z played more. (It was played some in the late 80s and the 90s, when some rollouts had Z slightly ahead though the Jellyfish one I used was [S D3 Z6], but as I recall rollouts on early versions of Snowie were biased against 32Z, and poof.) In practical terms, if the move gains or loses only a few thousandths, why not – it would be fun to break free of the humdrum. If you are interested in a little variety in the opening, 32Z is a great opportunity to sacrifice a pittance in equity and possibly gain.
Nack
| 167 | |
|---|---|
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| Opening 32Z | 162 |
Position ID: 4HPiASTgc/ABMA Match ID: MAEAAAAAAAAA | |