Winning Chances

Before Roll After Roll

A) winning by a lot A) winning by a lot

B) winning by a little B) winning by a little

C) losing by a little C) losing by a little

D) losing by a lot D) losing by a lot

Something different today.

Being able to guesstimate winning (and gammon) chances is a crucial but tricky skill in backgammon. You need it every time there’s a cube decision, and it’s helpful in many move decisions. Sometimes it’s easy to work it out, but most of the time you just guess based on experience (and probably on what eXtremeGammon has been telling you).

This is a classic backgame structure, with decent timing for White. That definitely means Black’s gammon chances are good (around 24% here), but your winning chances are normally lower than you might think. Would it surprise you to be told that Black is slightly losing here, with only 49% winning chances? (ans: C).

The 31 is a great roll. But given that you’re not winning, hopefully that would guide you towards the long-term asset of the 5point (always good to have, and useful here to inhibit White switching to a more forward holding-game structure), rather than the hit. 8/5 6/5 is the correct move, with the hit (21/18* 8/7) coming in as close-to-a-blunder.

But even after the correct move, Black is barely winning. It’s ans: B - about 54%)