The Joy of Sets
by Phil Simborg
16 July 2008
Phil Simborg
The two things that excite me most about backgammon are: 1) watching my opponent reach into his wallet, and 2) rolling a set of doubles.
Whoever came up with the idea that you get to move twice as much when you roll doubles was a genius: he added great excitement to the game. And it happens about one of out every six rolls (more often than that if you are playing against the computer!).
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1.
Subject: Re: The Joy of Sets
From:
blotto
Date:
25 Jul 2008 07:07 EST
Interesting article, although I would think that the chance of making an error playing doublets is more than double, as as the number of potential plays is more than doubled (maybe it's geometrical, depending on the position).
Joe
2.
Subject: Re: The Joy of Sets
From:
SvempaSnake
Date:
28 Jul 2008 08:24 EST
Hi, nice article.
Regarding the double two:
I was surprised to see that taking off four checkers would be the best move here. I would have taken just two checkers off. I double checked that with GNU which confirms two checkers off is fine (three checkers off seems even better with a small margin). The interesting thing though is that if black owns the cube taking four off seem to be a huge blunder, that wins fewer games and fewer gammons and the extra backgammons doesn't help much.
Maybe the cube should be in the center like in the diagram? Then it still doesn't make any sense to me since white would have to settle for 1 point because of the jacoby rule.
Good problem anyway in which shows how unsafe the "safe" move is here.
Summary of what I got from GNU:
Money game, black owns the cube on 2:
4/off 2/off(2) 1,65 4/off(2) 1,63 4/2(4) 1,48 VERY BAD 2/off(4) 1,25 Worse!
/Sven-Olav Norén
3.
Subject: Re: The Joy of Sets
From:
RichMunitz
Date:
11 Aug 2008 23:08 EST
Here's my quiz.
4/off(2) means:
a) 4 off the 2 point
b) 2 off the 4 point
P.S. I'm sure Petko only made that play because it was more fun. All things equal, that's a great play against a weaker opponent. When things go bad for black, the result will be a complex position in which black will squeeze out more equity than indicated by the rollouts (perhaps even the backgame that Petko was secretly hoping for). The passive play pretty much makes the rest of the game free from skill.
4.
Subject: Re: The Joy of Sets
From:
ekw
Date:
02 Sep 2008 14:49 EST
It's pretty obvious that Position 5 is given wrong. The comments imply there isn't a white checker on the bar.
Having said that, it's another bot-based eye-opener article, courtesy of Simborg!
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