The Game Plan’s the Thing

Lots of choices!

• You can make a bar-point anchor with 23/18 21/18

• You can make a home-board point with 8/3 5/3

• You can triple-hit with 8/5* 6/1*

• You can double-hit with any of 23/18 8/5*, 21/16 8/5*, 13/5*, or 11/6 8/5*

The right answer comes down to knowing your game plan. What are you trying to do here?

White is blitzing you, but their attack has petered out (for now). When you’re being blitzed your top priority is grabbing a home-board anchor so you can’t be completely closed out. The bar-point anchor is nice but it doesn’t prevent a close-out, so let’s reject that.

Trying to blitz your opponent when they’re blitzing you is rarely right - unless you have the ammunition and board strength, neither of which are true here, so let’s also reject 8/5* 6/1*.

Remember this rule - the best attack against a blitz is a prime. (because you want to slow your opponent down and break their communication between the back checkers and the blitzing checkers). So what’s the best priming move? The 3pt in your home-board could be part of a prime, but it’s too ‘gappy’ and you won’t have time to fill those gaps. You need to concentrate on building your prime around the 6pt and 8pt. The clear winner here is 13/5*.

[Homework - why is it wrong to move 23/18 or 21/16 with the 5?]