AlliumCepa: Okay, another stupid question...

I have had double 3s a lot it seems lately on my opening roll, there are so many choices, I just get confused, assume all my 3 moves are open?

Puckish: There's a wealth of info (maybe more than you need?) here:  http://www.bkgm.com/articles/page4.html#cubehandlinginraces

wetware: Yeah, too much, I was hoping to stimulate some conversation and some off the cuff opinions, since off the cuff is my style anyway

Puckish: A very simple rule works fine in most situations. If on roll you are 10% (of your pip count) ahead minus 2 pips, you have a borderline double. If you are 10% ahead plus 2 pips, your opponent has a borderline take/pass.

That is of course in "money play". The take point can be different in function of the match score (and the presumed strength difference between the opponents) ; and when one of the opponents has too many checkers on low points.

nabla: good point on the low points, you need to basically add pip counts for checkers on the 1 or 2 point to be accurate. Alternatively you can look at the number of average moves left and calculate the odds variation, but that gets complicated.