2024 - Position 61

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Match Play. Red leads 2-0 to 7. Should Red double? If doubled, should White take?

This position is a perfect demonstration of the application of O’Hagan’s Law which states: “Where you have 9 out of 36 (25%) market losing sequences and the rest of the time you are doing OK then you probably have a double from the centre.

Here Red has 13 hitting numbers so the position easily obeys O’Hagan’s law. When Red misses, or hits and White enters immediately, White has a very playable game and Red has a lot of work to do so the take is straightforward, and dropping is a triple blunder. Not doubling as Red is merely a single blunder.