Ten Interesting Backgammon Positions From Las Vegas

by Steve Sax
20 November 2007

Steve Sax

Whenever I go to a backgammon tournament I bring my digital camera to record positions of interest. I often end up with dozens even over 100 shots of interesting positions that I save for further study.

Out of the many positions I start with, I'll tend to roll out a much smaller number of positions as either the position is either an easy take, pass, no double…etc i.e. the decision is obviously and easy one.

Of that selection of positions, some are rather mundane bear-off or holding positions which don't meet the cut of curiosities I would like to share with the readers here. I did pare down the 50 or so rollouts to the ten most interesting positions from the Las Vegas Open Backgammon Tournament.
 

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Article text Copyright © 1999-2012 Steve Sax and GammonVillage Inc.

Feedback about this article:

1.

Subject: Re: Ten Interesting Backgammon Positions From Las Vegas

From: PhilSimborg   

Date: 26 Nov 2007 13:35 EST

Excellent article, as usual. I took a hard look at position 3 and played around with it in Snowie. I began wondering what the score would have to be for you to take this cube, and even at 0-0 it is a drop.

What interests me is that for money, it is a bare take. People like me, who have not memorized the take points for 15 point matches, generally use a rule of thumb that if it's more than 5-away 5-away we pretty much apply money game cube equity to takes and passes. Here is a clear example of that being wrong thinking.

Would it be fair to say that over 5-away 5-away it is a little higher take point than money games, or is there no way to generalize and I just have to make myself a good cheat sheet to use in tournaments?

Phil

2.

Subject: Re: Ten Interesting Backgammon Positions From Las Vegas

From: STEAMSAX   

Date: 26 Nov 2007 13:55 EST

Thanks for asking Phil. Money games have a take-point between 18.75 and 25% depending on how much use of the cube you get. Also gammons can make the take point go up dramatically.

I don't go to the "default" money decisions in matches unless both sides need 8 points or more but that's not a decision based on research, just intuition.

Needing less than 8 points for either side, I just make a calculation at the table if I think the decision is close although having a chart on such decisions would be a good thing to study "between" matches.

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