Sometimes you encounter a situation where you can play safe and hope the dice help you get out of trouble in the future, or you can take a risk now, and if you survive, you are good to go. Here is an example of such a situation. I am playing White, 2 checkers trapped behind a 5 prime. I roll a 6 which allows me to escape one checker but on the other side of the board, I have a blot that I am concerned about. If it gets hit, it's all over. So what to do? I decided to cover the blot and pray for another six to come along to escape the back checkers. It turned out to be a double blunder. What I had to do was grit my teeth, escape a back checker and give my opponent ONE chance to hit. I have a strong board, only one blot which is deep and there is chance opp can roll a 1 missing the blot, or miss completely staying on the bar and I have good chance to trap if he does get back in as I do my my own 5 pt prime. This is a common conflict in backgammon, often referred to as "pay now, pay later".
![blotscover.jpg (134.17 KiB) Viewed 6698 times blotscover.jpg](./download/file.php?id=196&t=1&sid=65a6368a4d2ceac992d6d15f3e8c79ef)
1. Cubeful 3-ply 24/18 8/7 Eq.: +0.347
0.674 0.100 0.004 - 0.326 0.160 0.004
3-ply cubeful
2. Cubeful 3-ply 24/17 Eq.: +0.340 ( -0.007)
0.670 0.103 0.004 - 0.330 0.194 0.014
3-ply cubeful
3. Cubeful 3-ply 8/2 4/3 Eq.: +0.162 ( -0.185) (ouch)
0.581 0.061 0.001 - 0.419 0.096 0.005
3-ply cubeful