Cube Quandaries #3 (2024-01-04)

A recurring topic where you get a glimpse into the crazy world of an aspiring intermediate player (me) learning proper cube action. Please feel free to offer some analysis, feedback, general advice, perspective, etc. …or just take in the chaos. :sweat_smile:
-Brett

So, I am still processing Cube Quandaries #2 (2024-01-03), but this one was too fun to pass up:

XGID=--BBBBCA---A--------adbBh-:1:1:1:00:0:4:0:7:10
Black on roll, cube action?
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Of course White is taking, and you'd never think about doubling at a normal score. But you don't need much of an excuse at this score! Rolling a 3 wins; that's enough of an excuse. If you don't double and you miss, you only have about 9% to win the match from 1away/7away. So toss that out the window and pick up your chance to get to 50/50! Occasionally I'll do the actual math over the board, but this line of thinking is usually good enough.

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Nice breakdown! I don't necessarily have the mental bandwidth to find all many of the score-related adjustments just yet. Your description is the first use of MET numbers that seems easy enough for me to actually use over the board at my level.

Table for reference:
image

I posted this position in particular because it was the first (re-)double that I have found where it is correct to ship the cube as the underdog and I thought it was cool. Like you said, between the score (and lack of re-cube vig), it is right to double here :slight_smile:

No redouble
  Player Winning Chances:   42.33% (G:4.79% B:0.23%)
  Opponent Winning Chances: 57.67% (G:9.41% B:0.11%)
Redouble/Take
  Player Winning Chances:   42.99% (G:4.61% B:0.37%)
  Opponent Winning Chances: 57.01% (G:13.85% B:0.11%)

Cubeless Equities: No Double=-0.162, Double=+0.120

Cubeful Equities:
       No redouble:     -0.046 (-0.166)
       Redouble/Take:   +0.120
       Redouble/Pass:   +1.000 (+0.880)

Best Cube action: Redouble / Take

Rollout:
  1296 Games rolled with Variance Reduction.
  Moves: 3-ply, cube decisions: XG Roller
  Confidence No Double: ± 0.004 (-0.050..-0.042)
  Confidence Double:    ± 0.007 (+0.113..+0.127)

  Double Decision confidence: 100.0%
  Take Decision confidence: 100.0%

  Duration: 34.1 seconds

eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.10, MET: Kazaross XG2
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Not to be pedantic, but we have discussed this previously and I just want to clarify for the sake of my understanding. My final takeaway from your comments was that convention is traditionally bottom-score/top-score (or player-on-roll/opponent-score?). Shouldn't this technically be 7-away/1-away?

Ah yes, nice catch. That was my suggestion at least; I'm still not sure there's a convention one way or the other. But consistency is good.