Bray's Learning Curve Tags: Experts

In this position Red has to balance making new points with an element of safety.

Red needs to contain White’s rear checker. Clearly the three must be played 6/3*. The question is how to play the two?

This is a very difficult back game problem and to solve it you need to work out the correct game plan for Red.

Before neural net computers nobody would get this problem correct.

The key to this position is that White has an advanced anchor and so Red wants one as well.

One of the things many players forget is just how much a gammon win can increase their equity in a position.

This position cries out for an active rather than a passive play.

Back games are very difficult to play well.