I agree. There are a *very* limited set of formulaic strategies, after which winning is a matter of luck. While poker strategy is similarly formulaic, it at least involves imperfect information and meta-gaming.
I don't think that's especially true of either poker or backgammon. Yes, either game could, in some sense of the term, be said to consist of a relatively limited set of "strategies", but the same can be said of plenty of other good games.
Yes, past a certain point slight differences in skill will often be washed out by luck, but that doesn't mean they don't matter. In the long run, skill shows through.
In any case, I'm interested enough for now that I'm currently making the effort to be better at backgammon.
I get that people can enjoy it. It just doesn't click with me. I don't tend to find complete perfect information games thrilling either, but I respect them for what they are. It's hard to pin down what I like or dislike about particular games. And I don't actively dislike backgammon, it's just as simple as "no passion."
Usually the phase I enjoy most is that first few games where everyone comes in with the same low level of information about the game and has to develop their own heuristics and he who climbs the heuristics tree fastest wins. I like that phase where the game is isolated, before someone can go research the opening theory or before the skills are so developed that it gets to the mastery phase.
I grew up play backgammon with my father so it has nostalgia to the 10th power for me. If not for that I could see the game as being boring if I had come to it later in life.
Yuyuke defeats Coldguy 5-1, making a massive risk of the 3rd game. 1-1 even going into it, two doubles later and THE FINALE happens. Coldguy got an insane three Double Sixes in a row in one game, though! The spectacle of this game can be dangerous.
When does this round end? If it's after Sunday afternoon, I'm officially requesting an extension, as Belliger and I don't have a mutually free time until then.
When does this round end? If it's after Sunday afternoon, I'm officially requesting an extension, as Belliger and I don't have a mutually free time until then.
Yeah, I notice this round going slower than the previous round. Let's permanently set all Grand Prix deadlines in all future rounds forever to be Sunday at midnight, or before Monday. That means it ends with a full weekend. If you can't get shit done with a full weekend at the end of the time period, then it wasn't going to happen.
When does this round end? If it's after Sunday afternoon, I'm officially requesting an extension, as Belliger and I don't have a mutually free time until then.
Yeah, I notice this round going slower than the previous round. Let's permanently set all Grand Prix deadlines in all future rounds forever to be Sunday at midnight, or before Monday. That means it ends with a full weekend. If you can't get shit done with a full weekend at the end of the time period, then it wasn't going to happen.
Are you also extending the deadline for the current round to Sunday? You might as well, I think.
If you don't have time in a week to schedule and play a 20 minute game your doing it wrong.
What if you play someone in a sufficiently different timezone where you can't play in the evening, because the other player will be asleep, and during the day you have to work?
If you don't have time in a week to schedule and play a 20 minute game your doing it wrong.
What if you play someone in a sufficiently different timezone where you can't play in the evening, because the other player will be asleep, and during the day you have to work?
I managed it twice with almost maximal differences and going both directions from me. So suck it up and deal.
Okay, I played my match against 5ro4; you can find a record here - http://pastebin.com/XNNstCDX Note: the screenshots were taken after the game, with the use of the game record above and gnubg; I'm always black.
The first game was over very quickly - after some significant blunders by 5ro4, I had a strong position. I doubled before making my 8th move, and 5ro4 wisely dropped; the position can be seen below: That put the score at 1-0 in my favour. The second game, on the other hand, was much more eventful. I took some calculated risks and built myself a solid defense, but unfortunately 5ro4 escaped much of it; from there, 5ro4 chose to double, which put us in this position: I accepted the double, but just at that moment Lady Luck decided she would test me - soon after, 5ro4 had 5 home board points made, with a 2-point victory mostly in the bag, and decent odds of a 4-point gammon. You can see the position below: Well, you can probably guess what happens now; I wouldn't have gone into such detail if not for something like this, would I? Yep, I rolled a joker - the miraculous 5-4, the only roll that would turn the game around.
It appears that the appropriate move was to redouble right away, but I didn't do so. Unfortunately, 5ro4 was able to escape my home board, and so the position came to the following: At this point, I doubled, and interestingly enough 5ro4 chose to take the double. Fortunately, Lady Luck stayed on my side from here, and she even chose to tease my opponent with double 6s when it was already too late.
So, going into round 4, we will only have 4 players left with the maximum number of wins (3) apiece - Dromaro, birdville, Snickety-Snake, and myself. That said, one of Snickety-Snake's wins was a bye.
Of course, Snickety-Snake still has a ridiculous total score of 26 due to that 16-point win. Also interesting is that no fun girl's total score of 16 is higher than BIrdville's and my own, even though she lost one of her matches.
On 2 wins, we have InvaderREN, Yuyuke, 5ro4, Creamsteak, and no fun girl, although the winner of Iruul vs Linkigi will make it there, and Belliger and Matt can also do so if they win their matches.
We also have 4 players on 0 wins, who currently have yet to play each other - Jaytee vs Apsup, and Yoshokatana vs woodchuck.
Admittedly I did not read the whole debate over tie breakers. What was decided on that? The traditional Swiss method of Opponent Match Record as first tie break?
Well, Scott initially said that total score was the first tiebreaker, and has not revised this statement since, so that's probably still the case. My criticisms of such a system still stand, and if I run into a situation where we're playing the deciding game and it could still go either way, I fully intend to double ad infinitum with my opponent.
Actually, come to think of it, if we do want to use score, we can simply disallow doubling in a situation where the current game is guaranteed to be the last game (e.g. a score of 2-1 with the cube at 4).
However, even considering that, score is still a somewhat arbitrary criterion, especially when used to compare winners. Winning 6-4 is essentially no different to winning 5-3.
In many cases, it's in both players' interests to double repeatedly, and so if the players are in fact playing to win and are allowed to do so, you should expect it to happen.
Note that you can only double before each die roll, so the higher score would go to the winner of the game with more total rolls needed to finish?
Yeah. It might even turn out to be the case that there would be some situations where it would be optimal tournament play to intentionally make "bad" moves to stretch out a game, in order to increase one's odds of a high tie-breaking score.
Of course, the above is relatively unlikely, since a match win is much more important than the total score.
The one thing that might force the first tiebreaker to be opponent strength is the fact that you guys keep shutting everyone out! So far only one person has lost their match and also scored more than 0 points.
iruul played well, but I got lucky rolls a lot more often then he did, and did a decent job of shutting out the home board so he couldn't come back well from the bar.
The first game, I doubled with a moderate advantage, and thanks to some aggressive hitting it wound up as a race with me at a significant advantage.
The second, I made some very stupid risky moves and wound up at a slight disadvantage, but not enough that I didn't accept the double from iruul. Iruul then proceeded to roll a series of doubles, and I lost.
In the third and fourth games, I managed to block off my homeboard well (in the second game, I had it fully blocked with one of iruul's checkers on the bar), and won with gammons both times, although iruul came very very close to doing so in the fourth.
Comments
Yes, past a certain point slight differences in skill will often be washed out by luck, but that doesn't mean they don't matter. In the long run, skill shows through.
In any case, I'm interested enough for now that I'm currently making the effort to be better at backgammon.
Usually the phase I enjoy most is that first few games where everyone comes in with the same low level of information about the game and has to develop their own heuristics and he who climbs the heuristics tree fastest wins. I like that phase where the game is isolated, before someone can go research the opening theory or before the skills are so developed that it gets to the mastery phase.
Note: the screenshots were taken after the game, with the use of the game record above and gnubg; I'm always black.
The first game was over very quickly - after some significant blunders by 5ro4, I had a strong position. I doubled before making my 8th move, and 5ro4 wisely dropped; the position can be seen below:
That put the score at 1-0 in my favour. The second game, on the other hand, was much more eventful. I took some calculated risks and built myself a solid defense, but unfortunately 5ro4 escaped much of it; from there, 5ro4 chose to double, which put us in this position:
I accepted the double, but just at that moment Lady Luck decided she would test me - soon after, 5ro4 had 5 home board points made, with a 2-point victory mostly in the bag, and decent odds of a 4-point gammon. You can see the position below:
Well, you can probably guess what happens now; I wouldn't have gone into such detail if not for something like this, would I? Yep, I rolled a joker - the miraculous 5-4, the only roll that would turn the game around.
It appears that the appropriate move was to redouble right away, but I didn't do so. Unfortunately, 5ro4 was able to escape my home board, and so the position came to the following:
At this point, I doubled, and interestingly enough 5ro4 chose to take the double. Fortunately, Lady Luck stayed on my side from here, and she even chose to tease my opponent with double 6s when it was already too late.
lackofcheese defeats 5ro4, 5-0
Of course, Snickety-Snake still has a ridiculous total score of 26 due to that 16-point win. Also interesting is that no fun girl's total score of 16 is higher than BIrdville's and my own, even though she lost one of her matches.
On 2 wins, we have InvaderREN, Yuyuke, 5ro4, Creamsteak, and no fun girl, although the winner of Iruul vs Linkigi will make it there, and Belliger and Matt can also do so if they win their matches.
We also have 4 players on 0 wins, who currently have yet to play each other - Jaytee vs Apsup, and Yoshokatana vs woodchuck.
Actually, come to think of it, if we do want to use score, we can simply disallow doubling in a situation where the current game is guaranteed to be the last game (e.g. a score of 2-1 with the cube at 4).
However, even considering that, score is still a somewhat arbitrary criterion, especially when used to compare winners. Winning 6-4 is essentially no different to winning 5-3.
Of course, the above is relatively unlikely, since a match win is much more important than the total score.
R1 - 5 shutouts from 11 matches.
R2 - 4 shutouts from 10 matches.
R3 - 6 shutouts from 7 matches.
iruul played well, but I got lucky rolls a lot more often then he did, and did a decent job of shutting out the home board so he couldn't come back well from the bar.
The first game, I doubled with a moderate advantage, and thanks to some aggressive hitting it wound up as a race with me at a significant advantage.
The second, I made some very stupid risky moves and wound up at a slight disadvantage, but not enough that I didn't accept the double from iruul. Iruul then proceeded to roll a series of doubles, and I lost.
In the third and fourth games, I managed to block off my homeboard well (in the second game, I had it fully blocked with one of iruul's checkers on the bar), and won with gammons both times, although iruul came very very close to doing so in the fourth.