Backgammon Easter Eggs

From: tobaksa   

Dear Mr. P:

And an initial double is not an offer, it is a statement that the player doubling believes the other has an unfavorable position.

Imagine this extreme situation. You are visiting a distant city, Ouagadougou perhaps, one that you surely will never return to after departing tomorrow. You visit the local backgammon club, and the very first game find yourself on roll with this bearoff: 111111 vs 111111. It is a perfect 3-roll versus 3-roll bearoff. You own the cube at 256 so you check your pocket and find that (having converted all of your funds from USD) you have about XOF 550,000. Playing for XOF 1000 a point, even if your opponent takes what should be a clear drop, and rolls a double to win, you will have enough left to taxi to the airport in the morning.

So, you redouble, and your opponent shocks you by not just taking, but beavering.

You do a quick reassessment, and discover that the African moonlight has played havoc with your depth perception. It seems that instead of three stacks of two checkers each, one of your stacks has a third checker, and you have thus doubled a 4-roll versus 3-roll position. As doubles go you do not have enough equity to take. And even worse, you do not have the funds to pay if you lose this 1024 cube.

Though you speak nearly sixty of the languages of Burkina Faso Moba is not one of them. Do you still plan to take and rely upon a semantic argument if you lose?

Best,

Jake

From: tobaksa   

Dear Mr. P:

Should you find yourself in hot water in Ouagadougou, I shall admire your adherence to principles, and will lead the Backgammon community in a memorial toast.

Best,

Jake

Yet another example of Neil's expertise, and your writing ability.

Ray appears to have been a pretty good player, but not a GREAT one, he should have doubled the bozo (s) who was ready to pass.

From: PhilSimborg   

Relative to the very first position in your article, I think the following is most interesting:

1. I did not make up that position...it happened in an actual on-line match I was playing last year; 2. When I put that position in Snowie and played it out, from either side, I initially found my error rate was extemely high. I also found that Snowie played the checkers, from both sides, in a manner most surprising to me. After playing it out many times I realized that Snowie truly did know how to play this kind of position far better than I, and the lessons I learned from this one position have greatly changed my who approach to positions of this nature. Now, if I could only figure out how to get into this position more often, I know I would have a huge edge over most opponents!

Relative to being able to drop a beaver, it is obvious that the bots agree with you. If you give a bad double to GNU or Snowie and it beavers, it does not just beaver and take the cube, it "offers" you the beaver and gives you the option to accept it or drop it. So if the bots say it, even Mr. Pedantic can't argue with that!

Another argument for thinking of the beaver as an offer is this...the doubler has a third option in many games, he can Raccoon. And of course, we now need to discuss whether a Raccoon can be dropped!

Phil

From: PhilSimborg   

My mistake about Snowie, but I did check GNU and eXtreme backgammon, and they both give you the opportunity to drop the beaver; eXtreme even gives you the opportunity to Raccoon.

OK, so here's another way of saying what you said: if all other cube actions can either be accepted or rejected, it stands to reason that beavers and raccoons can also. An even stronger argument: if an actual beaver came to my house for dinner, I should certainly have the right to accept or reject it...beaver discrimination is not protected as far as I know.