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I Left My Heart in San Francisco (And My Brain in Los Angeles)

by Steve Sax
5 September 2012

Steve Sax

Seeking a repeat as Master's champion and a first Golden Gate Open title, I assembled a paltry 4-4 match record and along the way made some peculiar cube and checker decisions. Today we'll look at ten of those boo boos which will help to explain why I didn't do better.

Facing off against backgammon legend Nick Maffeo in the first round of the Golden Gate masters I had an interesting six and five to play leading 1-0 to 13. I could play safe (7-1, 10-5) or aggressive (7-2*, 10-4).

In "San Francisco 1" I chose to hit loose and go for the gammon reasoning that even if I was hit back, I could still re-enter and counter-attack. If I didn't enter he still wouldn't likely have a re-double, so I chose to gamble as it would take a parlay to lose the game.

Position San Francisco 1:

is Player 2

score: 0
pip: 109

13 point match

pip: 74
score: 1

is Player 1

XGID=-BaBBCBC--A-b-b----bbbb-b-:1:-1:1:56:1:0:0:13:10

to play 56

Rollout¹

10/5 7/1

eq: +0.856

Player:
Opponent:

89.58% (G:10.37% B:0.04%)
10.42% (G:0.30% B:0.01%)

Conf: ± 0.003 (+0.853...+0.859)
Duration: 1 minute 09 seconds

Rollout¹

10/4 7/2*

eq: +0.786 (-0.070)

Player:
Opponent:

76.79% (G:35.39% B:0.10%)
23.21% (G:1.60% B:0.05%)

Conf: ± 0.004 (+0.782...+0.790)
Duration: 52.8 seconds

¹ 1296 Games rolled with Variance Reduction.
Moves: 3 ply, cube decisions: XG Roller

eXtreme Gammon Version: 1.21, MET: Rockwell-Kazaross

If I didn't hit then my gammon chances would diminish fairly significantly as he would have a whole roll to move his outfield freight towards home and in that process potentially make his seven or eight point as a defensive deterrent against me playing aggressive on future rolls.

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Subject: Re: I Left My Heart in San Francisco (And My Brain in Los Angeles)

From: Timothy Chow

Date: 12 Sep 2012 21:03 EST

Nice positions as always. Most surprising to me is Position 9. I would have significantly underestimated Yellow's gammons.

In Position 6, I would have made the DMP play of 9/4 6/3, and I'm a bit surprised that the impure but gammonish 7/2* 5/2 fares so well, given that Yellow's gammon value is reduced and that Black is itching to send over a gammicidal recube as soon as the game threatens to turn around.

Subject: Re: I Left My Heart in San Francisco (And My Brain in Los Angeles)

From: STEAMSAX Member has a photo available