A recent game. Black 31s: Black makes the 5pt. White 23s: White initiates the small split and down, as per usual. Black 51s: the parity brothers The old school builder's guild of attack and blitz with 6/5 is just as respectable as the bot-trained small split of the backmen with 24/23. Both plays finish with…
the bots and the buddies
When Gerry Tesauro developed the first self-educating backgammon bot, the techie TD-Gammon, a sacred dominion between mankind and the machine was flipped forever upon its Janus heads. Everyone involved in the story resists change in some way or another, including the change just to submit or to die. But the Bot persists, aloof, as a…
typical cube actions
Many backgammon players view turning the doubling cube as a solitary event. To improve upon cube decisions, a cube action should be viewed as a sequence of events -- a three-act stage play with theatrical opening-middle-end scenes. The sequence below is clearcut to all good players, no puzzles about the decisions, thereby allowing the underlying…
golden point antics six-four
Sometimes during a practice session against the bot it is worthwhile to design and build a blunder into the game, to make a mistake on purpose which launches a worldly exploration of a play's merits. There could be a whole series of blunders in response to an opening play, different rolls that push the parental…
swinging from cube to cube
As a position to remember, this situation is fairly easy. In a cash game with a centered cube, White is on the roll. The contact boils down to the white outfield point perched on the other midpoint and an ogle of the vulnerable black blot on White's side of the board. Both players have closed…
How to remember positions
How to remember a board position? In backgammon everyone is better at some things but needs practice at other things. For example, I am good at the numbers game, but poor at recalling positions from the recent past. My younger brother, however, is a master at remembering the shapes on the backgammon board. Sibling rivalry…
thoughts on backgammon
One way to learn the game. The scale of backgammon rewards essential detail and terrier effort and kiai -- a robust fighting spirit. Playing well means to play the game with fervor, focus on the big picture, yet demand each small detail add to the team. And to do so dripping with enthusiasm. Then the…
the baron talks backgammon 