Inner Point Over Nice Hit?

My awesome position:

XGID=-b-B--DBA---cD---aadb--bB-:0:0:1:42:0:0:3:0:10
Correct play was 8/4 6/4. I played 24/18* for a considerable -0.159 blunder! This one confused me as I thought for certain I was supposed to hit on the 18.

Fortunately I was able to scroll down just enough to think about it before seeing the answer…
I think this one shows that we should prefer a permanent asset (new point) over hitting loose. You lock down a nice broken 4-prime after the correct play. But if you hit, everything is up in the air and you can really only claim an advantage when the opponent dances (only 4/36).

Note that the opponent’s board is stronger than ours, so Magriel’s Safe vs Bold criteria point toward a safe play. Also, using Mochy’s Priming vs Blitzing position classification, the opponent has a blitzing structure. Their 2 point is deep and hard to build a prime with. It’s more useful for attacking, in which order of points are made doesn’t matter. So you play into their most effective strategy by engaging in an exchange of hits.

So there’s a few factors here, but if you remember one thing: don’t split into a blitz!

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Michy had a proverb in his book, Opening Concepts.

Proverb 13: Making a point is better than hitting loose.

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It sounds oversimplified, but that leads to the right answer surprisingly often.

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If I remember correctly, for that particular proverb Michy said Magriel disagreed with him citing too many exceptions. Michy however said he uses it quite often over the board and thus kept it in. :slight_smile:

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I asked Dirk on his youtube channel and Dirk also said it's too simple a principle to be useful. But I'll still side with it lol it's quite useful for over-6 people like me LOL

Your forward position is not great. When you hit 24/18*, you're in more danger than you think.

Let's look at opponent returns:

Good for us:
66 63 33 dance, yay!
32 42 52 don't do much

Not good for us:
65 64 62 61 53 51 41 31 21 11 all return hit

Non hitting rolls: 55 44 54 43 22 play very well

10 returns are not great, 26 are pretty solid. If you're going to hit, you kind of like to have more to show for it.

Nice position.

JLee

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