Expand number of 11-man ballot openings?

[rich beckwith]

Below is text I am posting for Brian Hinkle. What do readers think about opening up 11-man ballot openings to including the removal of pieces off the back (king) row? Or should the current system be left as-is? See below. Opinions welcome. -- Richard B
*****
Would you like to play 11-man ballot by removing checkers from all 3 rows? (Presently, we remove only 2 rows.)
Newell Banks offered this style to make what he describes as “probably the most difficult of all, all 3 rows, thus balloting pieces out of the King row.” – Newell Banks in Blindfold Checker Masterpieces p. 269.

3-row has been estimated to increase the number of 11-man openings to 5,500-6,000. (Ed Gilbert may be able to give us a more accurate estimation.)
If it is voted in for use in a tournament as an experiment, then the players will be asked to re-vote to see if they prefer to go back to using 2 row 11-man ballot.

Thank you for your consideration,
Brian

[Patrick Parker]

yes all draws played for more unique games

[mca1879]

no

[bazkitcase5]

11 man is so unexplored that it probably isn't necessary at this point in time, but otherwise I personally would have no problems with it. The more important thing to me, now that we have strong programs with large endgame databases, would be to have someone analyze every possible ballot and eliminate the ones that lose.

[Ed Gilbert]

11 man is so unexplored that it probably isn't necessary at this point in time, but otherwise I personally would have no problems with it. The more important thing to me, now that we have strong programs with large endgame databases, would be to have someone analyze every possible ballot and eliminate the ones that lose.

Already done. See https://edgilbert.org/EnglishCheckers/11-man.htm

[bazkitcase5]

Thanks for your work on this Ed. I guess the next step (if it hasn't already been done), is to have ballots made by the ACF that incorporate only these 11 man ballot openings that draw.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Thanks for your work on this Ed. I guess the next step (if it hasn't already been done), is to have ballots made by the ACF that incorporate only these 11 man ballot openings that draw.

Clay, this step already done - during my last 11 man ballot World Title Match with Alex Holmes and current 11 man ballot WQT this, year we used list of losing openings during selection.

In other words, it was three steps process:

1) Pick up opening traditionally by using Newell Bank cards Deck
2) Confirm opening with Kingsrow list of losing openings make sure it’s not there.
3) If opening is losing for one side - repeat again.

Sincerely
Alemo