2022 - Position 113

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Unlimited Games. How should Red play 41?

Many years ago, I took a series of lessons from Paul Magriel. In discussing back games he pointed out that spare checkers on top of home board points should be put to work. They add little value where they are. That applies to Red’s third checker on his 5-pt here. It is doing nothing.

White has good timing, if not ideal structure, for his 2-3 back game. Red needs to slow himself down if he can. The way to do that is to play 5/1 with the 4 in the hope of having that checker recirculated so that it can re-join the fray. The two best plays both involve 5/1, with 9/8, 5/1 being the winner.

Other plays are close but this concept or recirculating dead checkers occurs time and time again in back games, so it is important to learn the technique.