Analysis of the 44 position

First of all, thank you all for the great feedback!

I hope you won't be disappointed with my analysis. As this is the first time I'm doing this, I would appreciate your comments on the analysis – what did you like and, more importantly, what you didn't like and what would you like to change (more variants, deeper analysis, shorter analysis, explanation of some stuff I didn't explain, etc.).

If you are new here, I recommend you to first read previous post before reading any further.

Second roll, 44 to play

Hello to all readers.

As this is first post here, I'll try to explain what will this blog be about.
Blog is called "backginners" and it's aimed at backgammon beginners who want to improve their game by reducing blunders (big errors) they make.

I will try to post regularly some interesting positions for which I think will be helpful to beginners and I will try to explain reasons behind best moves. I hope blog will be interesting even to intermediate players - I'll try to vary complexity of problems.

Feedback, in form of comments, is much appreciated, as the concept of this blog will be: backgammon problem with candidate moves, responses from readers via comments, and finally - the correct solution in the following post with explanations, general principles and variations.



Let's start with second roll problem. Your opponent rolled 32 and played 24/21 13/11 (looking from his perspective).
Now it's your turn and you have 44 to play:

is Player 2 score: 0 pip: 162

Unlimited Game

pip: 167 score: 0 is Player 1

XGID=-a--a-E-C---dEa--c-e----B-:0:0:1:44:0:0:0:0:10

to play 44

eXtreme Gammon Version: 2.00.161.beta

Candidate moves:
a) 24/16(2)
b) 24/20(2) 13/9(2)
c) 24/20(2) 8/4*(2)
d) 13/9(2) 8/4*(2)
e) 13/5(2)
f) 8/4*(2) 6/2(2)

What would you choose? And if you can, give some reasons behind your play.

(Answer to this post in next couple of days)