A couple of decisions from the Swavesey Chouette. First a short race recube:

XGID=−B−E−C−−−−−−−−−−−−−abbbba−:1:−1:−1:00:0:0:3:0:10

Phil in the box was red, redoubling Jon as captain. Although red is behind 35 to 32 in the count, you have to penalise white a few for the stack on the three point, and a few for the gaps – in fact maybe the penalty should be 2 for the gap on the two point, which looks awful – in total let’s say red has a net lead of 35 to 37, which is redouble/take. It’s tempting to think the gap on the two is bad enough to ditch the theory and drop – but actually 35 to 37 correlates with what pooter says, 25%, i.e. a pip or two the right side of a take, and all the race formulas agree redouble/take.

The other photo-spawning game was prime vs prime, Neil in the box is white with one on the bar, Phil is captain, red and on roll:

XGID=−a−−B−DBBB−−aBa−−ccb−bb−−A:0:0:−1:00:0:0:3:0:10

Phil doubled and one member of the team joined him, the others demurred. It’s only a borderline double, but those 9 numbers that make the 5 are scary, and XG confirms a certain amount of fear is justified; there are 36% market losers and 23% gammons.  But it also says white has 38% chances to win, and passing would be a whopping 465 stupids. I thought about it. In summary a great practical double.

Anyway I took, Phil rolled 5-2, and I danced, giving the non-doublers another chance, which they eagerly snapped up:

XGID=−a−−B−DBBB−−−Ba−−ccc−bb−−A:0:0:−1:00:0:0:3:0:10

This time I couldn’t stomach the 15 point-making numbers and dropped the cubes, and in doing so committed a 294 stupids blunder! Surprisingly, this is only slightly worse than the first position – there are only a few more gammons, 25%, and I still have 36% chances to win.

So what’s going on? Apparently it’s all about the last man. Red needs to roll a 4 followed by a 5 or 6, and he has less time to do that, mitigating the improvements in the front position. If you change these positions to put red’s back man on the 20, the difference between the positions is about double – the second one has 4% more wins and 3% more gammons.