let’stalktactics
End-game Puzzles By Jeff Soo
Abbreviations used: blUe, Red, blacK, Yellow Here is the first installment of what I expect will be an intermittent series of end-game puzzles for you to ponder.
1-point lead, start of last turns In a First Flight game, you have just scored 1b with R to take a 1-point lead, shown in Figure 1. Time was called during this turn, making R the first ball in “last turns.” Your three-ball break is falling apart: when sending K to 2b as a pioneer you overhit the shot and sent it four yards past the wicket. To make matters worse, you have just run 1b past Y and have a rush in the wrong direction. U, dead on K and for 4b, is in corner 3. K (for 2) and Y (for 5) are also partner-dead. However, UK has not yet claimed the clearance earned when R scored 1b. Before reading on, give some thought to what you would do in this situation. How can you maximize your chance of winning? One of the unique aspects of American Six Wicket Croquet is how often it offers the chance to set up a nearly certain winning position without having to finish the game “properly” (i.e., pegging out for 26 points). By this, I mean positions where the opponent must hit a boundary ball (without knocking it out) or run a wicket from long range to have any chance of winning. If we play our cards right, we can do that here. Of course, RY could carry on with the break or take off to K to try to score at least one more point. But attempting either play means leaving Y somewhere in the court. K is such a poor pioneer that this gives a significant risk of leaving K a good shot on Y or an even better shot on R. A very easy defensive option is for R to put both R and Y to the boundary, either by roqueting Y and croqueting both balls off near corner II (shown in Figure 2), or by playing a scatter-shot (i.e., cut-rushing Y off the north boundary to send R off the west boundary). But, UK has a clearing and two turns left. UK can simply clear U and play K to U, trying to give U a rush toward 4b (also shown in Figure 2). With U already close to 4b this doesn’t have to be a particularly good rush to give U a fair chance of tying the game, at which point UK will have a huge advantage.
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FIGURE 1: R has just scored 1b for a 1-point lead.
